Canadian Retail Thread

[Trevor3]

Originally Posted by casper

Many of the downtown stores pre-date the takeover of Eaton's.

In Vancouver after the Eatons takeover they shifted from Hasting into Pacific Centre (a few block) The Hasting location was there going back decades, a few blocks away from the Woodwards flagship store. They have now closed down the Pacific Centre store and Nordstrom is moving in. A retreat back to suburbia.

In Saskatoon, the only "full" Sears in the city is downtown.

Not certain about other cities, but I get the impression they tried to make the Eaton's stores work and then slowly left back to suburbia.

They still have this massive network of independent pickup depots in small towns across Canada for catalogue items. Some stock major appliances other stock clock. I think they have a better understanding of how to serve rural and small town Canada than say the Bay or Wallmart. In the west there are two others national companies that understand small town Canada Field's and the North West Co. (Northern).

They're called Sears Hometown Stores. Ours does exactly what you said, they stock major appliances and TVs, lawnmowers and snowblowers, and have a counter for catalogue pick-up.

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Walmart has experimented with 24 hour stores in Canada, but the traffic during the night hours didn't seem to justify opening, even though that is when a lot of stocking and shelving takes place.

Walmart here used to do 24 hour openings for the last week before Christmas. I feel like their theory was that stock employees were on shift so they may as well open a couple checkouts and try to make some sales. Don't think they've done it for a couple years though.