Winnipeg Retail

[CoryB]

^^ GameStop and EB Games used to be competing chains. At some distant point in time they merged. Effectively 100% of US operations became "GameStop" and about 99% in Canada operate under the "EB Games" name. The one on Taylor is an exception for some reason but it is effectively an "EB Games" despite what the store name says.

It is unclear what the announced store closures mean outside of the USA as GameStop INC is a global business. That said the market conditions affected store rationalization in the USA applies equally to Canada. In a shrinking retail market (game sales are going purely digital) it no longer makes sense to operate a store inside the mall and across the street from the mall. Along those same lines it does not make sense to have a store on Taylor and another near by on Kennaston. In terms of Winnipeg they could easily close three stores and not even skip a beat. They could likely close seven stores (5 Winnipeg, Selkirk and Brandon) in the province and not see their revenue significantly impacted. Heck they could likely drop from the current 12 stores to 4 stores and still be largely unaffected. Simply put the number of times people need to go to their stores v the number of locations they have people are willing to travel to them. Those that aren't willing to travel will find their needs being met it other ways (ie Walmart, online).