All Future Shop stores in Canada Closing

[taco.vidal]

For me the thing that is too bad is that Futureshop was a Canadian company. I guess all of that ended when it got out bought by Bestbuy in 2001 but at least the brand was still around until now. Futureshop was a Canadian success and for the owners made their money when they sold to Bestbuy. It sucks to see a Canadian company and brand disappear completely.

[chemgear]

LOL, a CBC article was blaming the "lazy shopper" for the closure of Futureshop. They've now changed it to the "fulfilled cybershopper". You can see the original via google search.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/futu...pers-1.3014235

Electronics stores are suffering from the rise of the pampered and lazy cybershopper who can now get everything online, even advice.

[Looch City]

That's because online advice >>>>>> Futureshop/Bestbuy "advice"

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by chemgear

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/futu...pers-1.3014235

Electronics stores are suffering from the rise of the pampered and lazy cybershopper who can now get everything online, even advice.

I've decided to give my next big purchase to BB. I've enjoyed the pleasure of "showrooming" FS stores for many years but I don't think I've purchased anything big from them. I definately don't want to see BB going under.

[sharkov]

Originally Posted by chemgear

LOL, a CBC article was blaming the "lazy shopper" for the closure of Futureshop. They've now changed it to the "fulfilled cybershopper". You can see the original via google search.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/futu...pers-1.3014235

Electronics stores are suffering from the rise of the pampered and lazy cybershopper who can now get everything online, even advice.

Lol its not about being lazy, it about efficiency. Why would someone want to drag their *** to a store when there are some many ways you can buy online in the comfort of ones home without much time taken off from their busy schedule

[Igster]

Originally Posted by sharkov

Lol its not about being lazy, it about efficiency. Why would someone want to drag their *** to a store when there are some many ways you can buy online in the comfort of ones home without much time taken off from their busy schedule

Immediate satisfaction? I like looking for something, buying it and taking it home. Not sitting around waiting for it to be delivered. I hate buying things online personally.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

That's because online advice >>>>>> Futureshop/Bestbuy "advice"

After having worked in retail electronics, I can confirm that most advice is just steering you towards items that the company wants moved.

The only thing keeping any retail stores alive are the licensing agreements, which prevent the manufacturers from selling to the consumer at wholesale pricing.

[Anduril]

Originally Posted by Igster

Immediate satisfaction? I like looking for something, buying it and taking it home. Not sitting around waiting for it to be delivered. I hate buying things online personally.

Yup. Things like trying a product is nice but generally not always possible. Not to mention with policies like price match/beat, there's no reason for me to not buy it from the local store especially due to an easy return policy. Much easier to deal with that than potentially having o ship it back.
I usually turn to online for wider selection and specific price on certain things like cases or if it's something I need for sure without wanting to make that drive out. Usually the latter is accompanied with another reason like being locally unavailable.

[darklord700]

Since FS has bitten the dust, what was their pay structure, if those of you wouldn't mind share?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by sharkov

Lol its not about being lazy, it about efficiency. Why would someone want to drag their *** to a store when there are some many ways you can buy online in the comfort of ones home without much time taken off from their busy schedule

Efficiency cuts two ways. When it's the consumer being efficient by buying online, even if it costs thousands of jobs, that's perfectly reasonable. But when a company wants to be efficient by sending jobs off-shore or using temporary foreign workers, that's denounced as outrageous, greedy, and unpatriotic.

I understand how and why technology is making commerce more efficient. But in the long run it's going to make us so efficient that employment of flesh and blood people will be regarded as wasteful overhead. And then who will buy stuff?

And this isn't like in the past, when disruptive technologies created whole new industries and employment. Once brick and mortar retail dies, and driverless cars come onstream, we're going to see mass unemployment on a scale we haven't seen in over a century.

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by darklord700

Since FS has bitten the dust, what was their pay structure, if those of you wouldn't mind share?

It has been almost 20 years since I worked there, but at the time it was a base salary (min wage) plus commision. Commision was a percentage of profit (I can't recall exactly, but I believe it was 20%), which is why the sales people push high margin items like the warranty. The other motivator manufacturers would use are "spiffs". Basically, a small bonus for selling a particular item. These ranged from $20 - $100 usually.

I believe this practice has changed now, but the issue with this structure is that salespeople didn't really care about the product that best fit your needs. They cared about which product had the highest profit margin. The managers even made a point of mentioning this during the morning meetings. Product was classified by margin level. P3, for example, was no margin (the crap advertised in the paper) and SP1 had the highest amount of margin (the stuff you would actually walk out the door with). Like I said though, I am certain that FS was chastised for this practice and changed it years ago. I think...

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

And this isn't like in the past, when disruptive technologies created whole new industries and employment. Once brick and mortar retail dies, and driverless cars come onstream, we're going to see mass unemployment on a scale we haven't seen in over a century.

I don't think it'll have as big impact as you say. Someone still has to design, manufacture, and distribute the goods. It's just the medium that's changing from a physical world to a virtual one.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Delgar

So for the bigger stores, doesn't this leave Best Buy alone, with Staples, Visions and Memory Express competitors but each in different ways? Memory Express used to small but they now have more TV's in their NW store than one sees in Visions.

How does Visions even make any money? I went to one store and there were like 12 employees and comparatively nothing in the store which looked like a dead zone of old junk.

[Hack&Lube]

I got into the habit of shopping at Futureshop back when it was the old, small store in the middle of Northland Mall during Junior High.

Even when Best Buy came in, I never shopped there for anything. It just felt wrong somehow. Maybe it's that cold blue color. I don't see myself ever buying anything at Best Buy in the future.

I think if I need a TV in the future, I'm just going to go to Wal Mart or Memory Express. They are such commodities nowadays that it doesn't really matter.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by psicodude

It has been almost 20 years since I worked there, but at the time it was a base salary (min wage) plus commision. Commision was a percentage of profit (I can't recall exactly, but I believe it was 20%), which is why the sales people push high margin items like the warranty. The other motivator manufacturers would use are "spiffs". Basically, a small bonus for selling a particular item. These ranged from $20 - $100 usually.

I believe this practice has changed now, but the issue with this structure is that salespeople didn't really care about the product that best fit your needs. They cared about which product had the highest profit margin. The managers even made a point of mentioning this during the morning meetings. Product was classified by margin level. P3, for example, was no margin (the crap advertised in the paper) and SP1 had the highest amount of margin (the stuff you would actually walk out the door with). Like I said though, I am certain that FS was chastised for this practice and changed it years ago. I think...

I worked there about 15 years ago and it was pretty much the same thing. We pushed the spiff's and warranty. You used to be able to see the spiffs coded on the price tags so you could adjust on the fly. I think people caught on though after I had left and they changed that. When I was there, you didn't get salary plus commission. You only made the base pay if your commissions didn't beat it.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by nik-

I worked there about 15 years ago and it was pretty much the same thing. We pushed the spiff's and warranty. You used to be able to see the spiffs coded on the price tags so you could adjust on the fly. I think people caught on though after I had left and they changed that. When I was there, you didn't get salary plus commission. You only made the base pay if your commissions didn't beat it.

this, when I worked there the base was about $1200.00 which at the time was pretty much minimum wage, but the only time that you saw that was if your commissions were below that, and if that happened you weren't around to collect it again.

The warranty at the time If I recall right was a zero dollar cost or pure profit. So if I sold a computer with a price of 2000, and a cost of 1500. I'd make $100.00. If I sold a 4 year warranty at 399.00 I'd make about 80.00. so I would make about $180. So if you sold a computer a day with full grease (warranty) working 6 days a week you'd make about $5000.00 per month.

in November and December, I'd probably sell a lot more then that and you had to become very efficient at bouncing. I remember as a assistant manager I'd carry a tennis ball and if I saw a sales person entangled with a person for a long period of time I'd start casually bouncing that ball as I walked past.

I still have the sales track burned into my mind, that you had to use because it was great at finding out when a person was buying and how much their budget was.

As for the P3's to SP1's I can confirm that if you sold a P3 the only way that you could redeem yourself was if you sold warranty with it, because the P#'s were usually money losers with no spiffs. If a manager saw you rolling out a P3, and saw that it had no warranty you were dead to him until you redeemed yourself.

Selling the warranty was always a challenge, and when you entered a sale without it a manager or assistant manager or department manager would have to authorize the deal, but we were going to authorize it anyways, we were there to give the whole "Oh I see that you didn't buy the warranty, did Clyde here explain it? Oh, just for feed back why aren't you getting it? Oh fantastic, Clyde here should have explained, blah blah blah"

I sold warranty at the time based on one simple documented fact. At Future Shop at the time the only areas where they lost money on warranty sales was with big screen projection T.V's and on Computers. Not because they are bad products, but because they are complex products. Blah blah blah.

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by nik-

When I was there, you didn't get salary plus commission. You only made the base pay if your commissions didn't beat it.

Yeah, that's correct. One or the other, whichever was higher. You only made base pay once though...

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

this, when I worked there the base was about $1200.00 which at the time was pretty much minimum wage, but the only time that you saw that was if your commissions were below that, and if that happened you weren't around to collect it again.

The warranty at the time If I recall right was a zero dollar cost or pure profit. So if I sold a computer with a price of 2000, and a cost of 1500. I'd make $100.00. If I sold a 4 year warranty at 399.00 I'd make about 80.00. so I would make about $180. So if you sold a computer a day with full grease (warranty) working 6 days a week you'd make about $5000.00 per month.

in November and December, I'd probably sell a lot more then that and you had to become very efficient at bouncing. I remember as a assistant manager I'd carry a tennis ball and if I saw a sales person entangled with a person for a long period of time I'd start casually bouncing that ball as I walked past.

I still have the sales track burned into my mind, that you had to use because it was great at finding out when a person was buying and how much their budget was.

As for the P3's to SP1's I can confirm that if you sold a P3 the only way that you could redeem yourself was if you sold warranty with it, because the P#'s were usually money losers with no spiffs. If a manager saw you rolling out a P3, and saw that it had no warranty you were dead to him until you redeemed yourself.

Selling the warranty was always a challenge, and when you entered a sale without it a manager or assistant manager or department manager would have to authorize the deal, but we were going to authorize it anyways, we were there to give the whole "Oh I see that you didn't buy the warranty, did Clyde here explain it? Oh, just for feed back why aren't you getting it? Oh fantastic, Clyde here should have explained, blah blah blah"

I sold warranty at the time based on one simple documented fact. At Future Shop at the time the only areas where they lost money on warranty sales was with big screen projection T.V's and on Computers. Not because they are bad products, but because they are complex products. Blah blah blah.

Oh man, I am having flashbacks, lol.

Is your name Randall and did you work at the Mcleod location in the early 90's? If so, you're a jerk.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

I don't think it'll have as big impact as you say. Someone still has to design, manufacture, and distribute the goods. It's just the medium that's changing from a physical world to a virtual one.

The amount of labour involved in designing, manufacturing, distributing, and selling a TV today is much lower than it used to be. And it's not as though Amazon is going to hire 1,500 new people to make up for the job losses at Future Shop.

The most shocking example of disruptive technology in employment is photography. Kodak once employed 60,000. Today's largest photography company, Instagram, employs a few hundred.

Companies that leverage disruptive technology require skilled employees. But very few of them relative to the companies they're replacing.

The onrushing wave

[CaptainCrunch]

Hah, no but I knew and worked for Randall briefly, I also worked for a manager named Wally at Mcleod and later Lethbridge and Regina., and Dave at McLeod and later Med Hat.

If I remember Randall became a regional manager for Alberta and Sask. He wasn't one of my favorite people.

Especially when he was running the MIT program.