Quote:
Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout
If Couche-Tard acquires Carrefour, I wonder if we'll begin to see some Carrefour operations in Canada.
Carrefour City might be successful – a small-footprint hybrid between a convenience store and a supermarket. These are all over Europe but relatively rare in Canada. There's Rabba's in Toronto and some independent mega-dépanneurs in Montreal, but the only corporate chain doing this is Sobey's, which launched its IGA Express brand in Quebec last year.
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It's interesting how resistant the Canadian marketplace generally is to those types of 'in between' sized grocers... the ones that, like Carrefour City, are maybe double the size of a 7-Eleven but still manage to offer pretty well a full range of groceries. I suppose there must be some reason for it, but you would think there would be some room between tiny convenience stores and conventional full sized supermarkets.
As for Starbucks, it does seem that their star is fading. The only people I know who get excited for it are those in their 40s who came of age in the 90s when Starbucks had some real brand cachet. To younger people, I get the impression that Starbucks is basically like McDonald's to them... a familiar place you can go to in a pinch.