Winnipeg Retail

[esquire]

Originally Posted by CoryB

For those not in the know Starbucks and Panera Bread are widely known for their somewhat relaxed attitudes on how long you stay in their dining rooms as long you are are a "paying" customer. To the extent that Starbucks started the trend of coffee shops putting in accessible plugs and even hard wired USB ports for guests to use. Panera Bread even has large conference style tables in some of the locations I visited.

The result of these customer friendly policies is that people often heavily abuse them with reports that some people show up early in the day and work remotely from the location for four hours or more buying only the smallest amount of items from the retailer, for example a single drip coffee.

This time of voluntarily homelessness would be similar to the shelters around Higgins and Main if that population were mostly younger adults with MacBooks.

I guess the model worked better in the 90s when laptops, wifi and cellphones weren't that common. In 1998 people might have sat in Starbucks for a while and read a magazine or studied, but sitting in there all day working would have been much harder to pull off than it is now.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by esquire

I guess the model worked better in the 90s when laptops, wifi and cellphones weren't that common. In 1998 people might have sat in Starbucks for a while and read a magazine or studied, but sitting in there all day working would have been much harder to pull off than it is now.

The interesting piece on Starbucks et all and "campers" is that they have taken steps to further encourage the behavior such as installing accessible power and wifi in their locations.

It is said that in the 80s McDonalds had done a lot of consideration into how to limit the time guests would spend in the dining room including intentionally using hard surfaces and selecting colours that would gently encourage people to get eat fairly quickly and get out.

The shift in Starbucks is towards new locations have minimal or no in-house dining space. They have tried the model in a few locations so they likely have sales data to support it. Also closing dining rooms due to Covid19 gives them some same store sales to look at as comparables. I know their drive-thrus have seemed a lot busier than before.

[buzzg]

Even 5 years ago when I spent a while in Boston, most of the Starbucks in the city centre had little to no seating. Quite a few near my office were takeout only, little factories with long, stantioned lines. They were packed all day haha.

[CoryB]

Looks like Orange Theory Fitness at Unicity is already done. The recently installed marque signs have been removed. Their web site lists the location as "temporary closed" so this might be a dispute over rent payment like Cinema City at Northgate where the landlord is attempting to terminate the lease over non-payment of rent due to the pandemic.

Cinema City at Northgate has apparently become a bit of a hot property as they have pivoted from the "last run" of theatrical movies to foreign language films that are very popular among the demographics in northwest Winnipeg.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by esquire

True, but let's face it... in the retail world, bankruptcy is usually a sign of underlying problems and when there is a bankruptcy, store closures are typically not far behind. The retailers who come out of bankruptcy stronger than before are pretty rare relative to the ones who either shrink or end up going under altogether.

And further to your point...if the finances are such that bankruptcy is even an option that means that cash flow is so negative that the business essentially cannot cover it's overhead. How does this change as the company emerges from bankruptcy?

Generally closing even a significant number of stores does not affect that cash flow relative to overhead equation in the long-term.

[vjose32]

Not sure what Northgate is thinking. They did get their money and threw it back at the theatre. Not sure why they are willing to throw away nearly $300k a year in rent unless they have someone else willing to pay more. Also regarding Northgate they have recently had their back parking lot entrance closed off. Apparently people complaining about drag racing in the street? Never heard anything about that. Apparently they will be reopening it now that the fitness place is reopening.

[CoryB]

I am honestly surprised they didn't demo the strip mall section at Northgate with the RBC in it and push the whole property much closer to the back line. Having it opened up to all be facing onto McPhillips would have made a lot more sense.

[buzzg]

Snap Fitness in Charleswood is closed for good. That’s 5. Imagine the rest aren’t too far behind. It’s funny as lots of them are in former Blockbusters, will we see another mass turnover to the same brand? Haha.

[Jeff]

Just like Zara, another store that died before it had a chance to make it to the Peg:

https://www.narcity.com/news/ca/on/t...online-service

This kind of makes me think Winnipeg will rebound quite quickly and relatively unscathed from Covid as we never had much downtown or high street retail to kill and we aren't a major tourist spot..

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Jeff

Just like Zara, another store that died before it had a chance to make it to the Peg:

https://www.narcity.com/news/ca/on/t...online-service

This kind of makes me think Winnipeg will rebound quite quickly and relatively unscathed from Covid as we never had much downtown or high street retail to kill and we aren't a major tourist spot..

I think that MB in general will remain relatively unscathed.

But yeah, I definitely agree with you about downtown.

[LilZebra]

Microsoft closing all of its retail stores in Canada.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/micro...155252111.html
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technolo...al-storefronts

[vjose32]

Originally Posted by CoryB

I am honestly surprised they didn't demo the strip mall section at Northgate with the RBC in it and push the whole property much closer to the back line. Having it opened up to all be facing onto McPhillips would have made a lot more sense.

Yeah that’s what I would have done and assumed would be done but I guess it would have cost too much.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by LilZebra

Microsoft closing all of its retail stores in Canada.

Not exactly a huge loss. Microsoft's clone of the Apple store was always mostly pointless especially with the store-in-store at Best Buy that carries most of the current Surface hardware and first party accessories. Other than wishing I could try to catch some deals posted online I never really felt like I was missing anything and my personal computers have all been Surface branded going back more than 10 years now. I was definitely an early adopter with a Surface Pro v1.

[Jeff]

Just checked out post-covid lockdown St. Vital Centre and all I can say is wow.. in a bad way. GNC and two Nygard stores currently liquidating and closing, Victoria's Secret gone, the GoodLife kiosk in the old jewelery store plus a bunch of other empty spots. When/if Hudson's Bay vacates, that mall will need a total re-imagining. Maybe move Old Navy into the mall proper and demolish the whole west wing and add residential. All that empty space is gonna take a lot of effort to fill even with the Sears space repurposed and potentially driving more traffic to the place.

[buzzg]

So it turns out those Snaps didn't go out of business, they had their franchise agreements revoked for collecting fees while closed due to COVID. It's funny because the day a few days after the pandemic was declared, I called to cancel my membership and they told me I had to come down and do it in person... during a pandemic. I DM'd head office on Twitter and they apologized and dealt with it.

Snap Fitness locations on Portage Avenue, Osborne Street and in Selkirk had their franchise agreements terminated for collecting dues while the clubs were closed

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/bu...571608422.html

[buzzg]

Not sure if it was mentioned but Urban Behaviour is taking the final unit at the old Polo Target.

[blueandgoldguy]

Originally Posted by buzzg

So it turns out those Snaps didn't go out of business, they had their franchise agreements revoked for collecting fees while closed due to COVID. It's funny because the day a few days after the pandemic was declared, I called to cancel my membership and they told me I had to come down and do it in person... during a pandemic. I DM'd head office on Twitter and they apologized and dealt with it.

I wonder if the customers who paid those dues while being unable to use their memberships will be reimbursed?

[buzzg]

So far nothing. There’s a subreddit thread about it that says they have so far calculated over $50k in refunds due just from people on it. They’re talking about reporting it as fraud to the RCMP.

[cllew]

I see in today's Free Press there is a legal notice regarding an application by Princess Auto for a liquor license at their Panet Rd store.

For some reason I can't see beer/shots and power tools going together too well.

[wags_in_the_peg]

Originally Posted by cllew

I see in today's Free Press there is a legal notice regarding an application by Princess Auto for a liquor license at their Panet Rd store.

For some reason I can't see beer/shots and power tools going together too well.

Very weird, however I do know that one of the son’s of Princes Auto owner, owns Trans Canada brewing, so maybe a connection there?