Quote:
Originally Posted by Dartguard
This store and in a similar way the small Payzants in Burnside are perfectly situated for the recent changes in online buying brought on by Covid. The sales per square ft in each store are by far the best of both companies total locations.
Both stores are used by consumers as pickup locations for internet sales. The Payzants on Wright avenue has a captive customer base of 15,000 folks that pick stuff up on their way home. The Rona on Almon is used the same way but the peninsula customer base is a little more affluent.
Rona BTW way has three Corporate stores in Metro Halifax but there are two franchise locations in the Valley and at least two more in Cape Breton. Rona has had a few years of confusing corporate governance that is directly related to the Lowes takeover and the attempted merger of the two cultures.
The movement of the Lowes HQ to Montreal really shook up the personal lives of mainly English speaking management. Bill 96 will only make that more stresfull.
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One way to drive up the sales per sq ft metric is to build undersized stores. Rona has done that with the Almon St location being a prime example. It is a very poor measuring stick as it does not take into account customer dissatisfaction with limited assortments and a poor shopping experience. I presume the Elmsdale store is also a corporate location and while larger, that store is dark, dingy, and poorly laid out. Their management seems to not have a clue.
Of course Exhibit A for Rona mismanagement was their investment in the oversized white elephant store in Bayers Lake. The cost to construct that must have been enormous, not only due to the massive square footage but also the amount of blasting they needed to do for it, which I am pretty certain was not in their original plans. They located it at the wrong end of the park and it had very poor roadway connections and traffic patterns. While the interior of the store was at least comparable to that of their competitors, customers stayed away in droves due to the location and they only kept it open for a short time. The losses must have been massive.
When they converted the former Piercey's on Cole Harbour Rd to a Rona they could have had the only store in their segment in a well-populated area. Instead they seemed lost in terms of how to manage the asset and the store quickly gained a reputation as being one where it was impossible to find items and having numerous stockouts. They finally shuttered it, Home Hardware took it over, and after an interior renovation they seem to be much more successful. Rona retail management does not have a clue.
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