Winnipeg Retail

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by OverUnder

Parts of WSP will have Winnipeg water and sewage in the next year or two.

Sewer only, no water. The new development in the very south of WStP, Whistler Hollow will have wells. The IJC has said Winnipeg's water supply cannot be extended to outlying areas as a condition of continuing to draw water from Indian Bay.

[horrorbro123]

Best Buy is Now Open Pembina Highway Location What Do You Think Inside Best Buy Pembina Highway Location Need Makeover

[biguc]

Originally Posted by horrorbro123

Best Buy is Now Open Pembina Highway Location What Do You Think Inside Best Buy Pembina Highway Location Need Makeover

Serious question: is this guy a bot? This post is gibberish and most of his other posts are spam about build a bear coming to Polo.

[The Unknown Poster]

Best Buy Pembina is a waste. Firstly, nothing changed but the colour of the employees shirts. Its being called "Future Shop By Best Buy" online and the Future Shop signage is all still in place. Im not upset about that if this was a quick decision but what was the point of closing? Stay closed until you're ready to open.

I observed what appeared to be a significant number of employees on hand, moreso than FS usually had. Although I was there on Saturday and it was opening day and a long weekend sale so who knows.

The employees still seemed to have zero knowledge about anything. The guy that eventually helped me (there was probably one employee for every two patrons and it still took forever to get helped) was clearly new, so I wonder if they replaced all the FS staff. I was patience given his obvious newness but there are limits and you really have to question the training when the staff dont know where anything is, can't read, cant turn the computer on, cant operate it once its on, are surprised when extended warranty offers pop up, arent sure when to use the POS machine etc. His best training was the old "I can ring that through for you" which was the FS trick to get the commission but I didnt think BB had commission.

All in all, I left FS with the same sense of never wanting to go back as I used to feel. In fact, after being in the store for about five minutes I nearly drove to the St James location just for better service and less chaotic scene.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by The Unknown Poster

Best Buy Pembina is a waste. Firstly, nothing changed but the colour of the employees shirts.

I am not surprised that little changed with the conversion from Future Shop to Best Buy. An important, but invisible, change though is staff are all salaried now instead of the previous commission model Future Shop used. This means the old adage of looking at something expensive to grab staff attention won't work in quite the same way.

I would expect that Best Buy has a plan to change the signage and colours of the stores. If major appliances being rolled out to Best Buy in Canada now I would expect that occurring in existing stores to be the first wave of changes. The second wave will likely be to change the outdoor signage to the Best Buy brand but that could depend on if they are going to renovate to the Best Buy look of keep the external changes minimal. The interior changes will likely me slower to happen and could be based on historical store performance with high revenue stores being changes sooner.

--

Separately I was reading comments from Shindico on the Polo Park Target site. Unfortunately I lost the link but they directly talked to Lowes moving into that location and said it was not possible for a number of reasons. In addition to the garden center and lumber yard we previously discussed they mentioned the floor loads at the Target site are lower than what that type of store would need. They did indicate it was a strong possibility for the other Winnipeg locations. Just the whole tone of it sounded like they had done some due diligence on the possibility. It would also not be surprising that if Lowes expands to Winnipeg to see them opening a store on the Plaza site but not in the Target building.

The other piece of recent reading was an article that claims most of the established retailers which would even consider Target or Future Shop sites have fully allocated their expansion plans for 2015 and most of 2016. It would seem the most likely outcome for the Polo Park Future Shop is going to be subdividing the space.

Source

[The Unknown Poster]

Perhaps my expectations with Future Shop Pembina were too high. Its such a small space compared to Best Buy. I realise the home appliance thing is their deal but I have never seen anyone in that section ever. Getting rid of it, especially if Best Buy begins carrying Home Appliances, and directing traffic to the bigger stores might be a good plan to open up some valuable floor space.

As far as commission based employees moving to salary based, under the old model no one seemed too interested in helping you unless you were looking at a big dollar TV or grabbed an item off the shelf yourself. That hasnt seemed to change at all.

[CoryB]

The appliances are a fixture that will remain at the Pembina Best Buy. The trend of their stores has actually been to smaller footprints where possible. You don't need to warehouse a large volume of big CRT tv sets anymore, instead of have a very lean stock of flat panels with most models "shipping free to home" from a central warehouse. They have also found the revenue per square foot is far better on smaller, more consumable goods (ie Fitbits and headphones).

In terms of staff, the change will be a slow one as they all need to be retrained in the Best Buy way. Some will likely leave for other commission sales jobs. End of the day though I would not have high hopes across the board.

My recent experience with a Best Buy (not in Winnipeg) was I needed a specific cable. I checked their website before going to the store and saw it was in stock. When I arrived at the store an associate offered to help. I told them what I was looking for and they immediately suggested an Apple branded cable. I was looking for the same product without the branding for a far cheaper price. They took me to the non-Apple cable section, looked and gave up saying the web site was wrong. Leaving me there I decided to look a little further. I took a couple steps over to the "Apple" section and what do you know there is the "out of stock" cable I am looking for and they have about 10 of them on the shelf.

[Danny D Oh]

Found the FP article with three of the biggest retail developers/brokers in Winnipeg saying that there is no problem with empty space in Winnipeg and the large buildings left by Target and Future Shop should be filled within a year quite hilarious. Sure took a lot longer for the Regent Future Shop to have any significant tenant. The last 3 years there's been a Halloween pop-up shop there and nothing else.

Retail vacancy rate is at it's highest point since the early 90s. I think they should be worried.

[The Unknown Poster]

Originally Posted by CoryB

The appliances are a fixture that will remain at the Pembina Best Buy. The trend of their stores has actually been to smaller footprints where possible. You don't need to warehouse a large volume of big CRT tv sets anymore, instead of have a very lean stock of flat panels with most models "shipping free to home" from a central warehouse. They have also found the revenue per square foot is far better on smaller, more consumable goods (ie Fitbits and headphones).

In terms of staff, the change will be a slow one as they all need to be retrained in the Best Buy way. Some will likely leave for other commission sales jobs. End of the day though I would not have high hopes across the board.

My recent experience with a Best Buy (not in Winnipeg) was I needed a specific cable. I checked their website before going to the store and saw it was in stock. When I arrived at the store an associate offered to help. I told them what I was looking for and they immediately suggested an Apple branded cable. I was looking for the same product without the branding for a far cheaper price. They took me to the non-Apple cable section, looked and gave up saying the web site was wrong. Leaving me there I decided to look a little further. I took a couple steps over to the "Apple" section and what do you know there is the "out of stock" cable I am looking for and they have about 10 of them on the shelf.

That's a huge pet peeve of mine too. I ALWAYS look online first and when it says in stock, I expect it to be in stock. I argued with a Future Shop employee once who told me they didnt have what I was looking for and when I said the website says you do they said the same thing - website is never right. When I tweeted about it, the reply from corporate was "use our in store reservation system". Ridiculous.

I cant imagine buying anything from Future Shop that costs more than $100 or so. I bought my TV from Visions. But even then, when I went back to buy a Blu Ray player, the guy tried to convince me I needed $140 HDMI cables. That makes me leave a store. I can appreciate a good hustle but why lose a sale over it.

I did notice Visions Pembina has a sign out hiring all positions. Coincedence or wanting to recruit some Future Shop employees?

[bomberjet]

Winnipeg's water supply is held hostage by the International body of water or whatever they're called. No water can be supplied outside of Winnipeg, under threat of banishment to never, never land.

There's a major sewer line project that is to run down Main St. Feeding to the north end pollution control centre. Not sure if that is started yet. The municipalities are banking on it to vastly expand residential in those areas.

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

There's a major sewer line project that is to run down Main St. Feeding to the north end pollution control centre. Not sure if that is started yet. The municipalities are banking on it to vastly expand residential in those areas.

So shouldn't the city be smart and just not do it for them? If they can't expand then the development comes into the city.

[bomberjet]

I'll clarify my post, the sewer line running along Main St. northwards out of the City.

Land within City limits is already spoken for and planned to be full of houses. The city will be fine in terms of developments, not so fine in the long run on servicing costs.

For the sewer line, IIRC the municipalities are picking up the construction costs and will pay the City usage fees. So if the City can make a bit of cash on it (hopefully they do), why not do it. Providing a service just like any other business.

Better get back on the Winnipeg Retail topic...

[Riverman]

Presently all of WStP's small lot sewage runs straight into the river untreated. That is the reason for the sewer construction. All of the houses connected to the new sewer will have meters installed on their wells so they can be charged a sewer fee. Many are not happy about that.

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Presently all of WStP's small lot sewage runs straight into the river untreated. That is the reason for the sewer construction. All of the houses connected to the new sewer will have meters installed on their wells so they can be charged a sewer fee. Many are not happy about that.

Tell them to install septic tanks and get it trucked out then. Septic fields are disgusting, especially when its in the back yard beside the kids play set.

[Riverman]

You want me to tell them that?

[laumag]

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by laumag

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

I have also heard that Walmart is seriously looking at Polo Target. Apparently when they bought their existing land they were under the impression (or told) that those tracks along Empress were going to be removed and they could expand in the future. Obviously as we know, it was actually the ones closer to Route 90 that came out. HA!

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by laumag

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

I saw a couple people post a blog story about Memarda on Facebook. They were unaware that it was actually an April fools day joke story. I hope that's not where your birdie got their information from. I doubt menards would be any better of a fit than lowes for the location. Which would require significant money to convert it into their needs.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by laumag

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

I have heard the same thing about Menards for the Polo Target. I know that Lowes ruled out the Target Polo Park due to floor loads etc, but Menards is a bit of a different bird so I could see it working.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Biff

I have heard the same thing about Menards for the Polo Target. I know that Lowes ruled out the Target Polo Park due to floor loads etc, but Menards is a bit of a different bird so I could see it working.

If you can take away the heavier loaded stacked goods stuff like lumber, I can't see why a home improvement retailer couldn't make this space work. This kind of building would be designed for 100psf floor loading (live load), plus likely provisions for concentrated loads from shelves, etc.

The other complication may be the operation of a fork-lift. Those are heavy little bastards. Especially a concern on structural floors.

Also, IMO, this is far too attractive a location and building with amenities like covered parking, cart-escalators, etc. to remain empty for long, not to mention that it's essentially brand new construction.