Regarding the Question of Needs on Douglas Avenue
110% when their lease is done with the Hill Brothers, this location will be closed. Essentially Sobeys who owns Needs convenience store Chain is competing against their selves 3 times in this Small Radius. The Newer Needs Sobeys fast Fuel Gas Bar will be Open, The Sobeys Grocery Store will be open, but along with the Needs on Douglas Avenue closing, you will also see the Griffins Smoke Shop on the exterior of the Brookside Sobeys close as well. You will also see any of Sobey's Griffin Smoke Shops that are in a near radius to any Needs Convenience Stores in Atlantic Canada Close.
Will their be another Convenience Store taking the place of Needs in the Douglas Avenue Strip mall? Absolutely not, their is no market anymore for "The Convenience Store" its a dying business, their is next to nothing to make profit on anymore in that industry these days, Its a completely changed business since the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's. The Giants like Walmart, Target, Costco, Sobeys and Loblaws have eliminated sales in the convenience store of items they used to make money on such as grocery and confectionary.
Would Seven-Eleven ever come? No Atlantic Canada is dominated by corporate CircleK/Couche Tard, Wilson Fuels Go Stores (Esso), Needs Sobeys, Esso Corporate On The Run, and to a smaller extent, Canadian Tire gas bars and Corporate Petro Canada Sites
A Big Tobacco company like Imperial Tobacco has basically told retailers what their prices and margins will be shrinking cigarette profit margins to about 5% (in the 80's was probably 30%) A convenience store makes 5% on a lottery ticket 5cents on a dollar, one part time staff makes an error doesn't ring in a $ 2 proline tickets or steals a $ 2 crossword ticket, and that store has to sell 20 straight $ 2 lottery tickets (without theft or an error) just to make back up that cost. Tobacco sales profit are further shrunk on the Northside of Fredericton for stores to compete with the St Mary's Smoke Shop. Some regular people don't realize if a carton of Cigarettes cost a consumer $ 80 to purchase plus tax, its not just the 13% above the $ 80 going to the government. The cost of Tobacco is made up of over 70% Federal and Provincial Tobacco taxes. So if you think Joe blow on main st in nashwaaksis is charging too much at $ 9.50 a pack and ripping you off when you can purchase the same Pack at St Mary's for $ 9. Work out the 70% Tobacco tax that one business has to pay and the other does not, and tell me if Joe Blow is ripping you off.
Convenience stores often now sell items like Milk and Bread at or below the cost they pay, just to try and attract any customers into their store to hopefully buy anything else they could make money on.
Think a convenience store makes lots of money selling Gas? Nope not even close the good thing about gas sales is yes it can generate traffic but thats it. In New Brunswick a Gas Station will be lucky to even make 4 to 6cents a litre if their lucky. In Fredericton its much worse due to Costco driving down the Retail price at the pumps (good for the consumer, devastating to an independent store owner) lucky to make 2 to 4 cents a litre, and depending on when a station purchased their fuel and what the retail price goes to on a Thursday their has been many weeks since Costco Gas bar opened, Gas Stations in Fredericton have sold their gas for less than they paid originally to fill their tank. You probably hate filling your vehicle tank at $1.329 a litre right? Imagine a local owner getting his tanks filled at $ 1.30 a litre for 60,000 litres ($ 78,000) on a Tuesday, and on Thursday having to put his price at the Pumps to $ 1.289 per litre ($77,340). the situation is further complicated, by Drive aways n purpose but more commonly mistakes, customer fills their car for $ 40 gas goes in the store to the washroom grabs a pop and bag of chips, buys his 2 Lotto max tickets for Friday nights big draw, cashier is busy, customer has on his mind multiple things and he pays for his stuff and is gone, cashier starts ringing in the next customers before realizing their is $ 40 on pump 4 not payed for, and has no clue who it belongs to. No on purpose theft just an accident. It happens all the time, almost each day.
The moral here is support your local independent stores, such as a Scholten's, Bishop Drive Irving, New Maryland grocery. Its not a coincidence the New Maryland Esso closed shortly after the arrival of Costco's gas bar, when a new owner took over finally he lasted a near 4 or 5 months and closed. Now we have a new Owner trying again.
If it wasn't for a massive number of Koreans coming over to New Brunswick and having to establish a business and making offers to buy convenience stores left and right, their would be dozens and dozens of other convenience stores already closed in New Brunswick.
Sorry for the rant on this, but i know the numbers and feel bad for the Owners of the Small Store that people generally think are rich when they aren't, or pocketing huge profits cause they aren't. And a company like Costco is thought of as the Saviour and the good guy for offering 2cents a litre cheaper fuel, when in actuality they are billionaire increasing profit by the day, invading an area and forcing small business and regular people out of their lively hood.
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