Canadian Retail Thread

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by whatnext

God that photo really makes the Davie Street location look grubby.

and its next to an animal hospital lol

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Somewhat of a surprise to me, those Makeful shows have become the few shows I actually tune into regularly. They're a peek into crafts I had no previous knowledge of. Thanks for the heads-up about the Canadian version. I'll keep an eye out for it.

I think the food network US style competitions have thoroughly 'tainted' Chef and Cooking shows; but other hobbies tend to get more relaxed shows. And as a somewhat avid Reality Competition show watcher, Canadian versions of these shows tend to be less 'shouty' than the US versions and generally get better reactions both from Canadians and from American and International viewers.

The CBC's "Great Canadian Bake Off" is often seen as one of the best Bake Off shows being made (rivalling the UK version). Blown Away has always gotten good buzz when it airs. Against the Tide and the Woodcarving competition Discovery did also had good chatter.

So while I haven't seen any Pottery Showdown series yet (I don't get Makeful ), I'm looking forward to the CBC version this week, and I hope Seth doesn't overwhelm it too much. I think he'll do fine but I have a few slight concerns.

[MonctonRad]

Masterchef Canada was way better than the American version of the show. I'm sad that it is off the air now.

[WestEnd604]

Originally Posted by whatnext

God that photo really makes the Davie Street location look grubby.

It is grubby. It's a disaster, frankly. Davie Street is like the land that time forgot. While so much of the Downtown Vancouver penisula develops and improves, Davie between Burrard and Jervis is left to rot. It's sad. And Vera's is a dump. I can't understand why they think they can expand. They'd be better off updating their branding and stores. At least clean them.

[vanatox]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Masterchef Canada was way better than the American version of the show. I'm sad that it is off the air now.

You can watch Masterchef Québec

[whatnext]

Good lord, is this what we've sunk to?

In the wake of Buy Now, Pay Later, we could be getting Dine Now, Pay Later
PREET BANERJEE
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED YESTERDAY
UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

First we got Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL). Soon, we should be getting Dine Now, Pay Later.

A report released late last year indicated that almost half of U.S. consumers said they used BNPL options to buy meals at restaurants. In Canada, restaurant owners and upper management have a “strong desire to add buy now, pay later and plan to do it in the next year.”....


https://www.theglobeandmail.com/inve...-dine-now-pay/

[WarrenC12]

Isn't that called a credit card?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Isn't that called a credit card?

...Buy Now, Pay Later and the variations of online and point of sale installment loans have been most popular with young, lower-income and less-educated adults. Many proclaim their love for the forced budgeting aspect of installment loans. Some use it because they are not able to get credit otherwise, while some turn to it out of desperation.

In the best of cases, payment innovation in BNPL can help someone kickstart their journey to responsible credit management. In the worst of cases, the most vulnerable consumers get into more financial trouble as they can get carried away with multiple BNPL loans at the same time, missed payments can rack up very high fees, and in some cases be reported to credit bureaus further affecting their ability to tap into traditional credit....(bold mine)

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by whatnext

...[I]Buy Now, Pay Later and the variations of online and point of sale installment loans have been most popular with young, lower-income and less-educated adults. Many proclaim their love for the forced budgeting aspect of installment loans. Some use it because they are not able to get credit otherwise, while some turn to it out of desperation.

Isn't Money Mart filling this niche then?

[Loco101]

If you can't afford to eat out then you shouldn't be going into debt to eat at a restaurant. Or am I missing something?

[SpongeG]

will it be like those Klarna pay options?
It is used only online here in Canada, where you can make a $200 purchase, and then they break it up into 4 payments over time. When I was in Australia in 2018 most stores had that option in-store where you could do that, I don't think I've seen it in stores here but it's online here for sure.

If one were to do it every time that's a big problem but if you had to plan a big birthday party you could do it that way for special occasions I guess.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Loco101

If you can't afford to eat out then you shouldn't be going into debt to eat at a restaurant. Or am I missing something?

One would think people would see it that way but apparently not…

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

will it be like those Klarna pay options?
It is used only online here in Canada, where you can make a $200 purchase, and then they break it up into 4 payments over time. When I was in Australia in 2018 most stores had that option in-store where you could do that, I don't think I've seen it in stores here but it's online here for sure.

If one were to do it every time that's a big problem but if you had to plan a big birthday party you could do it that way for special occasions I guess.

I know you used to be able to set up a payment plan at Canadian Tire at the checkout if you have the Canadian Tire Mastercard. I'm assuming you still can, I haven't bought anything of any dollar value there in years now where I would consider that option, but in the past I did buy tires and patio furniture and took advantage of the "free" 12 month option at checkout. As I'm typing this, I'm recalling that I'm sure I had this option at Home Depot as well several years ago. I don't have an HD account anymore so I'm not aware if they still offer this at checkout. Not sure if this is quite the same thing as you are referencing, but it's pretty similar.

[harls]

This bullshit reminds me of my first year in university with all those credit card companies setting up kiosks at student residences, looking for fresh meat.

[casper]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

will it be like those Klarna pay options?
It is used only online here in Canada, where you can make a $200 purchase, and then they break it up into 4 payments over time. When I was in Australia in 2018 most stores had that option in-store where you could do that, I don't think I've seen it in stores here but it's online here for sure.

If one were to do it every time that's a big problem but if you had to plan a big birthday party you could do it that way for special occasions I guess.

Desjardins use to offer a similar program to retailers who used them as their merchant bank. Customer comes in, selects the option swipes the credit card, it determines if they are credit worthy and splits the payment up over multiple time periods. The merchant gets charted 1-2% to cover the financing. However when Desjardins sold off their merchant bank business to GlobalPayments I think that came to an end.

There are a handful of financing companies doing similar thing. The store wants to be paid immediately and if it has the margin was quite willing to pay a few percent to a finance company to cover the interest on the loan. Now that we are in a world of higher interest rates, it is less attractive.

Same thing when you buy a car. The dealer is getting paid with 24 hours of you driving off the lot with your car. After that it is some bank that is holding the loan.

[Hawrylyshyn]

Originally Posted by harls

This bullshit reminds me of my first year in university with all those credit card companies setting up kiosks at student residences, looking for fresh meat.

One of the major banks (RBC or BMO?) offers students a $200,000 line of credit (with a high interest rate), and the amount of people I know who got sucked into it is staggering. Especially since these people didn't actually NEED that money and could've just lived more frugally (Eg. how all students live).

Have fun paying that off.

[harls]

^ 200 K limit, becoming 18, going to bars.. what could possibly go wrong?

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Isn't Money Mart filling this niche then?

Or this guy..

• Video Link

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by whatnext

One would think people would see it that way but apparently not…

Yeah I used to feel sorry for those people but honestly if I look at my parents generation now retiring. As many of them scrimped and saved and invested overly conservatively and now have no use for this nest egg they've accumulated as those that are broke heading into retirement. If you're 25 and want to go to a Birthday dinner and spread out the payments why not.

[WarrenC12]

When I look at my RBC credit card, charges over a certain amount ($300 maybe) give me the option to "pay in installments". I don't know how that works, it's already on a credit card where I can pay with flexibility over time, albeit with insane rates.

Debt inception.

[harls]

Imagine a world without credit, where you would actually have the means to pay for what you want.

I think the whole planet would collapse.