I was looking at dishwashers at Sears not too long ago. Sears did not have any dishwashers in stock and it would take approx 10 business days to be ordered, plus I would have to pick it up at their distribution center in Donovan's. Hmm... and I wonder why Sears is not doing so well????

Yup...I'm on day 11 now of waiting for a fridge. I went there a few weeks back and asked I could get a replacement element for my oven. Would have taken something like 6 weeks to get here. I bought one online somewhere and had it in something like 3 days.

Just another nail in Sears Canada's coffin. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Sears sold their lease to their Avalon Mall store to Target.

Target will skip over the 2 malls & build a new freestanding store in Danny's Southlands development in 2-3 years - provided that the demand at the Cabot Square store supports it. That store opens on Nov 13th.

Southlands sites will serve MP, Paradise, CBS, Goulds very easily and be the first stop for many from outside the Avalon Peninsula. Wouldn't be surprised if Costco, Home Depot also set up 2nd locations there too. Cineplex may look at that site as chance to relocate Mount Pearl Square cinemas.

Oh I dare stay they will end up in dannyland too eventually. But if Sears decides to sell it's other leases, especially in the Avalon Mall location, Target would be foolish not to grab it up. It's prime location. Still room for Target way in the west end too and they still go in shopping malls too.

Costco is actually planning to open a second location, I was talking to a friend who does work for whoever owns the stavanger Costco. It be the best solution to open up in "Glencrest", their only problem is that the store would need over 500 workers. And the present Costco doesn't even have enough, according to the owner.

Well Costco owns Costco, LOL. I would imagine that would be a good place to put a second one too. It's must not be easy though keeping staff at places like that.

I just meant the person who ran the place. It's surprising that they have such problems! Costco has impeccable benefits, their starting wage is 11.25 and according to whomever "runs the place" the leading cart pusher right now makes 52 grand a year. :koko:

You can see the full list of the benefits here: http://www.costco.com/benefits.html

I know just joking with ya.

Perhaps I should look for a job there. Just got laid off recently.
Though I think it would drive me insane pretty quickly. It's just nuts there.

I guess its official now. Target's website has the St. John's store grand opening on Nov. 13 along with 30 other stores across the country. Can't wait to be underwhelmed. LOL.

http://pressroom.target.ca/news/targ...nings-for-2013

Nothing more than Zellers with a few more brands that is all. I remember opening day up here and how every one was Target this and Target that....end of opening weekend the store was almost empty except for staff and a few shoppers.

I visited the new Target store today at Stavanger Drive and I must say it was a nice store. They still haven't got all of their stock in place yet though but pretty much everything is there what needs to be there. I wasn't really shopping as it was nuts there with the crowds and lineups at the checkouts. But did a walk-through and liked how it was laid out. Was kinda surprised how much larger it is inside with the little piece that was built on to it. They seem to have utilized every bit of the floor space as possible than what Zellers was doing. Their furniture section was very nice too and reminded a lot of what you see at Winners/HomeSense. Be interesting to see now if they will keep everything nice and neat and not let it become a mess of store like the old former Zellers. I will definitely return there to shop once all the hoopla dies down and after Christmas most likely.

It seems the new Oceanex ship Conaigra broke down coming up the St. Lawrence after only a week or so of operation and is now in Halifax for repairs. Maybe out of service for 2 months. Merchants are complaining of shipment delays, Black Friday and Christmas goods may be late arriving. Haven't seen any news report about it.

What we need:

- Second Costco
- Walmart Supercentre (Sells Groceries)
- Pete's Froutique
- Farmers Market near DT
- McDonald's DT
- Thai Food Restaurant
- Moxie's

I was down on Saturday for the first time, and I must say I was impressed. It is a very nice store. It has a nice layout and looks pretty much the same as a US Target. They have a better grocery section than I expected, it is similar to Wal-Mart's, but seems like it is bigger and there is more variety. My girlfriend said it has the best variety of natural cleaning products in the city (i know not a big deal, but important to us). And, there is a Starbucks in there! Totally the best part of it all. I will definitely shop here over Wal-mart from now on.


P.S. I also watched a documentary on Wal-Mart last night...I never want to spend another dollar there in my life. Lol

In regards to target, I prefer it over Walmart. Many people have said that target is just Zellers under a new name; same products, same store. I disagree. Target is more spacious than Zellers or Walmart, has better more modern selection, has a much better layout with an attractive interior. Although some say its nothing special, I find it better than any of the local competition past or present.

I completely agree; I think most people's expectations were too high, maybe it was Target's marketing that made it that way. Target is a direct competitor to Walmart so it should be (and is) similar to Walmart. The argument that Target is not as good as Walmart is rational, but Target (IMO) is much better than Zellers. I also agree with J_Murphy's comment that the grocery section is better than Walmart's.

I think it's sad that Wal-Mart is what people set their expectations to. Why is there such a perceived high standard with Wal-Mart. Tell me one thing that is nice about shopping at Wal-Mart.

Sorry, as you can tell, I am a little bitter to towards Wal-Mart lately.:D

I agree with you. Our Targets here in Ontario have been open for 6 months now and one thing people STILL don't give Target credit for is how much they spent on modernizing the Zellers stores that they've taken over.

A typical Target in 2013 is a WAAAY better looking store than a typical Walmart was in 1993 when they started converting old Woolco stores. Those were horrible. I'll be curious to see what some of the ground up Targets look like when then start opening them in 2014. I can think of about 3-5 in Southern Ontario that are on the way.

The new Victoria Secrets/Pink store opened at the Avalon Mall on Friday. I wasn't there but I heard there was a line up of over 200 people waiting to get inside... crazy! Just when you think shopping this time of year is madness enough they go and throw a brand new store in the mix!

Forever Flawless has a kiosk set up in the Avalon mall, the woman there said that they are opening a location in the mall. According to their website the only other stores in Canada are in Vancouver, Edmonton and Victoria.

http://www.foreverflawless.com/v/vspfiles/locations.asp

I just heard that Sobeys, complete with a Liquor Store will be built on the corner of Topsail Road and MaNamara Drive in Paradise with an anticipated opening for November 2014.

To start this post off, let me say I have no source and this is pure observational speculation...

I think Loblaws is going to drop the Dominion name and rebrand their NL stores to brands used in the rest of the country. I've noticed many of their printed multi-store materials that used to bear the Dominion logo no longer do. They have also flipped the logo around on the Pearlgate Mount Pearl store to make the Loblaw L instead of the Dominion D.

This may all mean nothing but it seems logical to me that they are going to align our stores with the rest of the country..

Loblaw has enough retail banners to manage without having one just for NL (Loblaw, Superstore, Longo's, Zehrs, Extra Foods, No Frills, etc, etc)

That's interesting. I always wondered why they kept the "Dominion" name in Newfoundland especially since for a while there was a competing Dominion brand in Ontario (which is now called Metro). Maybe because Dominion in Newfoundland is unionized and Loblaws isn't.

Oh, that's too bad. It's nice to have regionalized, localized, place-names, even if for something like a large grocery store.

I've noticed the flipped logo. It would make more sense to have fewer brands, especially with things like flyers.

Home Hardware at the Village?
 

Noticed on Plaza Retail's website that the Village lists Home Hardware as a tenant in the upstairs in the old Sears space with Rossy. Can anyone confirm?

http://plaza.ca/portfolio/Newfoundla...024%202014.pdf

I was home last week and can tell you that a new sign went up on the Stephenville store but it is in the same "D" position as always. If I had to guess I would say the contractor saw the instructions, figured it was a mistake, and put the sign up the way it's always been :haha:

Generally when a mall posts an updated floorplan it's confirmed, so I'd say that's official. Found it strange there was no Home Hardware in the city before, I think the nearest was CBS?

There's been a Home Hardware on Topsail road for more than 25 years. It moved across the street to the Old Dominion Supermarket location several years ago. So it's strange that there'd be another location so close to this one, even Halifax only has one location (and it's in Dartmouth). There's also one in the Goulds. Perhaps the Village Mall one will be a Home Hardware Furniture store.

I was at the Village last week and can confirm that there isn't a Home Hardware there; Rossy is still there in all its ...uhh...glory. There's a Home Hardware on Topsail Road, but I'm not sure of any others in the city. There's probably more competition in the city with Rona/Kent/Home Depot preventing a huge expansion.

It isn't supposed to have already happened, nor is it supposed to replace Rossy. It is in the other part of the former Sears space, with what appears to be access only from outside the mall, much like Bed Bath & Beyond.

Here's the relevant part from the layout plan:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...e.png~original

ahhhh interesting! They're really filling in that huge space down there.

The owners of the Village really screwed up big time with the flow of the mall once sears and Walmart left. Instead of Creating more retail space, they closed off most the space upstairs to the public by renting out their retail space to offices like the telegram and call centres and leaving only the short mall concourse to walk around in. Makes for a very boring visit. Also, having boarded up doorways like they have on the back of the former sears store looks horrible and unprofessional. No one wants to park over there as it's further away from an entrance to the mall.

QUOTE=Chew;6439883]It isn't supposed to have already happened, nor is it supposed to replace Rossy. It is in the other part of the former Sears space, with what appears to be access only from outside the mall, much like Bed Bath & Beyond.

Here's the relevant part from the layout plan:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...e.png~original[/QUOTE]

I could not agree more. Blocking off those two anchor tenant spaces has adversely affected the flow at the Village. In fact, there used to be the Dominion supermarket as well which was in reality a third anchor.

Would Bed Bath and Beyond be better served with an entrance to the Mall where it could capture casual walk in traffic.

And what's up with Tip Top...I wonder if their business has suffered since moving across the parking lot.

This will probably make a great case study in a Business course in how to screw up a significant retail mall.

I can't even remember the last time I was at the Village Mall.

The only reason I was there was to go out to supper with my parents at Klondyke Jakes, which admittedly is pretty good ;)

I actually asked the clerk about how business has been since moving last time I was at Tip Top, several months back. He indicated it is slightly better sales-wise with less overall foot traffic, meaning a higher conversion rate (which retailers love). He said that the mall browsers who end up buying are more than made up for by customers who hate the mall but don't mind dropping in now that it's stand alone. I wouldn't take that as gospel, but it seems logical and explains the trend toward stand alone stores even on mall property.

I worked at a store in the Village from 2001-07 and can actually somewhat defend some of the decisions made over the years. That mall was desperate for tenants after Wal-Mart left, the place had more and more unleased space as the years went on, and this seemed to peak when Sears left. There has been a North American trend away from malls and into those ridiculous box monstrosities for several years now, and the economy wasn't booming the way it is now just a few years back. All that made for the kind of trends of non-retail space moving into former malls - just look at Sobeys Square (or whatever it's called) down the road, a call centre for Bell Aliant on one end and Eastern Health offices on the other. It's only really because of our red hot economy with new stores wanting space in the city that the mall has been somewhat rejuvenated lately - who really saw that coming?

The mall lost Dominion, Walmart, Winners, Shoppers, and Sears all in a fairly short period and was really in survival mode. It changed hands from Plaza to another company and then maybe a third time as well in recent years.

Yeah it's puzzling to see Bed Bath and Beyond in the mall yet if you are in the main mall and want to go there you have to go outside again. They forget how crappy our weather can be at times especially in the winter. I can sorta half understand the Tip Top location though...at least its in a stand-alone building but as you mentioned, it will no longer get that casual walk by traffic in the mall and only those who are looking for a suit will go there thus eliminating a larger chunk of potential customers.

Plaza is still the current owner of the Village though.
I agree what you said about the trend leading away from enclosed malls but this is Newfoundland where it's cold dreary weather for a good portion of the year so sometimes the old trends still work despite the national trend. Avalon Mall continues to succeed in many ways that the big box parks can't. Plaza and Village could have easily adapted when Walmart and Sears left but they didn't. They rented out the valuable retail space to offices upstairs and put in huge useless stores like Labels. Every time i walk by Labels i can count the customers on one hand. They surely cannot be making any revenue at the Village? Can only imagine what they are paying for rent per sq ft? The Village should have gotten an Old Navy in there or something that will bring in customers. Labels certainly don't. Urban Planet is not much better. And Rossey is pretty sad too. It's no better than when Hart was there. All the cloths they sell there are just substandard crap.

I was out driving around and yes indeed, Loblaws have flipped the stylized "D" for Dominion to a stylized "L" for Loblaws on their buildings at Pearlgate and at Stavanger. As of yesterday the Blackmarsh Rd store still has it is a stylized "D". Not sure about the Memorial Stadium store. Also noticed via google that stores featuring the stylized "L" are called Loblaws and not Atlantic Superstore. The Atlantic Superstores do not use the stylized "L" on the building at all. I wonder if they are gonna do that here or leave the Dominion name on it with the stylized "L". Which would be kinda odd to do I think.

Right you are, Plaza is still the owner. Ivanhoe Cambridge had it before that, and there was no recent third owner, which I thought there may have been.

Yeah, I don't get how Labels keeps going either. I bought a shirt there once and it (while not very expensive) was the worst quality piece of clothing I've ever owned. This was when the store was new and I was the only person in it at that time, and I haven't set foot in it since.

Stavanger too, eh? Interesting. I'm only out that way a couple times a year (and sometimes just go from the highway right to Costco, skipping the rest of it) so I wouldn't have realized that.

They may be doing a slow phase in of the Loblaws name, by first using the L logo with the Dominion name and then dropping it, so it's a smoother transition. Somewhat like the BASF/EMTEC switch that slowly happened on CD-Rs quite a while back...
http://archive.hmvh.net/cd-rtwork/im...40054385MO.jpg

I would love to see an expansion of the Village Mall, that massive parking lot on the back is totally under-utilized. Enough with box-store developments, I hate them.

Yeah that could be a possible scenario for the dominion logo change. One thing is that they already have the logo on the building so all they had to do is flip it. The would have to order the loblaws logotype so that may take awhile to make its way to Newfoundland. Who knows?

Interesting to see the CEO of Sears Canada visiting the Avalon Mall store. He claims the St. John's store is one of the most profitable in Canada. Finding that kinda hard to believe considering Sears has been closing some of the most prominent locations across the country including the Eaton Centre location and other popular mall locations. I still feel they will not survive in Canada and will disappear from our retail landscape the same way Kmart, Woolco/Woolworths and Zellers did. If they do manage to stick around, they should definitely spend some cash and update their building, inside and out at Avalon Mall. Outside has looked the same way pretty much since the mall opened way back in 1967 with that very dated rock facing. Inside, the store looks like a temporary store as if they were just waiting to move somewhere else. Geez, the decor inside is not far off from what you will see in a Pipers store.

http://www.thetelegram.com/Business/...s-AvalonMall/1

I find it surprising that store is performing well.

I would love it if Sears moved out and The Bay or some other higher end department store took its place. Can't believe HBC, Canada's oldest retailer (I know, I know, American-owned these days) has no presence in NL any more. No Bay, no Home Outfitters, either.

I also forgot that hipster guy that was the last Sears CEO had left, he talked a big game but didn't remotely deliver.

Again, I predict that Sears will have no presence in Canada in a less than 5 years. It seems no matter what measures they take to save money it never works. They have done everything to turn customers away. Sears use to be the place to go to buy furniture and appliances. Now they hardly even stock any in their warehouses forcing customers to wait weeks for a delivery.

I may be the only person here who doesn't find it surprising that the St. John's store is doing so well. They seem to have established a dedicated customer base (comprised of many older people) who keep shopping there. It always seems pretty busy there whenever I walk through. Compare that to their store in Charlottetown....pretty sure the few times I was there I was one of the only people in the store.

They seem to be quite busy in Fredericton as well. As for St. John's, they have an ideal spot in the Avalon Mall. I know a lot people who just walk through it because it's in the mall, and a lot of times they have half decent sales on so it's not uncommon to pick up a cheap dress shirt or tie. They do have some nice stuff in there, it's just that it looks and feels like I'm shopping in 1987. I half expect to walk outside and find my parents '86 LeBaron in the parking lot...

I knew a guy who worked in furniture sales there and said they do great because they have higher exposure for their furniture and applianes than any other store that sells that type of merchandise. Think about it, when was the last time you casually walked into Leon's or Cohen's without intending to buy something? You don't. But with Sears you might see a TV or a new mattress that you otherwise wouldn't have thought about. You go away, think about it for a couple of days, then go back to see what kind of deal you can get on it. It seems to work for them.

Also on the topic of Avalon Mall stores. This story was on Telegrams website concerning and huge increases in rent at the Avalon Mall with some tenants choosing to not renew their lease and move shop or close it altogether. I wonder how this will affect Sears with it taking up so much square footage.

http://www.thetelegram.com/Business/...rising-rents/1

Too bad they never have anything in stock, and it takes 6-8 weeks to order anything in.... then you have to pick it up yourself or pay a delivery charge. I also find Sears returns policy to be very 'archaic'. I don't know, sears just frustrates me...:hell:. I really think it does so well here due to lack of competition.