O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Chat > Futureshop/Bestbuy abruptly shut down a dozen stores

reply to urbanriot

Re: Futureshop/Bestbuy abruptly shut down a dozen stores

reply to urbanriot
I sat in traffic on North Service Road for 58 minutes waiting to make a left turn onto YMCA Drive one year on Christmas Eve. No word of a lie - literally 58 minutes. Not even Fourth Avenue and Glendale are that bad.

Now that Walmart is in there they're going to need a traffic light at North Service Road and the other part of YMCA Drive sooner rather than later. And four lanes. Good luck fitting those in! They should really put traffic lights on YMCA Drive near Petsmart, too.

reply to Gone

reply to elwoodblues
The Staples on YMCA Drive already rented out a chunk of their space where the copy centre used to be to some home decor-related store (if my memory is right)

reply to Gone
Looks like Staples is downsizing.

reply to urbanriot
Since both stores are close together they probably figure it a no-brainer to close the one on Bunting Road since most of the customers will just go to YMCA Drive. I wouldn't be so sure of that myself, as traffic around the mall is simply terrible.

They had been talking about two stores for St. Catharines for years even back when I worked at the Bunting Road Staples in the early 2000s. Fourth Avenue was always the place that was floated around, and it would have made a bit more sense if you're going to keep two locations going.

Aw well, so long Store Number 13.

reply to neko

reply to Gone

reply to Gone

reply to neko
Staples on Bunting Road was supposed to close when they took over the Office Depot on YMCA Drive and turned it into Staples. It was supposed to be a move rather than a brand new store. I'm surprised the one on Bunting stayed open as long as it did.

reply to urbanriot

reply to Guspaz
I think BB/FS would be better served by downsizing into one electronics chain. The overhead of running two chains that sell very similar products seems pretty wasteful.

I don't think big box stores in Canada are done. The argument is that online shopping is killing big box stores. In Canada our online shopping options are mediocre at best. Our version of Amazon is greatly inferior to the American version. The selection is small and the prices aren't much better than a box store.

Mailing order from the US becomes more expensive by the year. When the internet was new it was so easy (and inexpensive) to import from the US. Barriers to trade keep going up. First they restricted warantees geographically (which made US tech sellers not want to ship outside their borders). Then UPS undercut USPS for insurance included orders, which meant Canadians were getting boned for insane brokerage fees when crossing the border.

Amazon.com added in "import fees" about two years ago and now Ebay is following suit (which sucks because Canada Post lets most things go.. unless its really big and expensive).

I guess my argument is that there isn't a lot of competition in Canada (online or otherwise). The barriers to importing from the US continue to grow (unless you're in a position to physically cross the border). I think it makes sense for FS/BB to consolidate their operations (eventually into 1 chain instead of 2), but I don't think the box store is in danger of becoming extinct in Canada because we don't really have a lot of options.

reply to donoreo
Beatties as a company goes back well over 50 years. I've got old black and white photos of Downtown St. Catharines with the "Beatties Bros." store

Either way, I still won't shop at any of their stores.

reply to Gone

reply to elwoodblues
I'm not entirely sure I agree, I feel it's a management and structural issue. The big box stores can last, they just need to change.

Examples specifically for our area:

We have a Wintronics computer store here with computer parts and even though the enthusiast parts industry has been dead for years, that place is always packed with people since they've slimmed down to the appropriate number of workers, sell what people want and have it at a decent price. It might be a few bucks more than NCIX but you can walk in there and walk out with something that you want while getting a good service.

Future Shop, you walk in there and there's a bunch of fucktwats standing around shooting the shit, never in the areas that people need them... unless you want to blow a few grand on some equipment, then suddenly there's two guys fighting over you. Best Buy, I walk in there to buy a blu-ray player a few weeks back and couldn't find a soul to ask a question... because four of them were standing up front having a good old time.

Staples I can't comment concerning Fort Erie but here in St. Catharines, we have two Staples stores within a 5 minute drive! If you live somewhere around Niagara street, you have a Staples within two minutes of either direction! Yet somehow they're both busy...

Walmart we have the same, two Walmart stores within a 5 minute drive and the same situation if you live on Niagara St., within a 2 minute drive you have two Walmarts... both equally seem busy too.

reply to Gone
I'm thinking that the entire big box phenomenal is coming to an end.
You can't put a "big box store" at every street corner and expect it to be busy.

Local stores will continue to be closed down relying more on 'regional' stores instead. You already see the beginning with FS/BB and now Staples is showing it's cards.
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No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

reply to urbanriot
It was dead for a while a year or two ago but the more recent times I've been in there there's been a decent number of customers in the store. It could be deeper corporate restructuring at Staples that's causing the closure, who knows. The one in Port Colborne closed a while ago.

And yeah, I refuse to shop at Beatties for reasons beyond just price. I'll drive to Staples in Niagara Falls before I ever set foot in there.

reply to Gone
I had no idea they were closing... the only other type of store that I've seen in Fort Erie that carried office supplies was Beatties and they were horribly overpriced on everything so I figured Staples would give people what they were driving out of town for and a better price, so I'd expect them to have enough business to sustain them. Was it a graveyard?

reply to urbanriot
There was a "rumour" that the Staples in Fort Erie was closing, then that rumour turned into employees unofficially saying it was true, and then it turned into a large "Store Closing" sign outside this week.

So sometimes it is true.

reply to Guspaz
There's a rumour that the Niagara Falls location won't be sticking around and we're going back to one location in all of Niagara, rather than two Future Shops and one Best Buy...

... although in Niagara, there's always rumours that never pan out so we'll see. I hate spreading rumours but I've heard this more than once from people that work at the various stores in the area.