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  #1081  
Old Posted May 25, 2020, 2:10 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Giant Tiger is a mystery to me. Take a Walmart, shrink it by 85%, divide it by a Bargain! Store, and presto.
Indeed. Bargain Shop still exists somehow apparently, I thought it went the way of SAAN
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  #1082  
Old Posted May 25, 2020, 2:19 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Giant Tiger is a mystery to me. Take a Walmart, shrink it by 85%, divide it by a Bargain! Store, and presto.
I would look at it differently. East of the Manitoba/Ontario boarder it is basically Walmart for communities that are to small to support a Walmart.

From Manitoba west, it is basically the Northern Store for suburban dwellers.
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  #1083  
Old Posted May 25, 2020, 2:43 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Giant Tiger is a mystery to me. Take a Walmart, shrink it by 85%, divide it by a Bargain! Store, and presto.
As others have mentioned, Giant Tiger occupies a niche of smaller than Wal-Mart-sized stores that can operate in smaller communities or places in cities where Wal-Mart is difficult to get to.

So, there's a Giant Tiger in the Byward Market in Ottawa. Or in Cochrane, ON. Or parts of cities where the catchment area of Wal-Mart overlaps poorly with due to accessibility issues.

It's not fancy, sure. It does the job, though.
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  #1084  
Old Posted May 25, 2020, 2:59 PM
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I know when I lived in Wiarton, I had friends that lived in Port Elgin, and when the Giant Tiger opened up, it was a huge deal. This would have been about 2005.

I haven't gone in one for quite a while, but I know that sometimes you can get some pretty good deals.

I live in Guelph now and we have one located in an area where it can be difficult to get to Walmart by transit. Generally people living in that area are more recent immigrants. There is a No Frills in that plaza too.
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  #1085  
Old Posted May 25, 2020, 3:29 PM
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Some Giant Tigers in inner city Winnipeg are a defacto supermarket in areas that would have little other selection besides ethnic grocers and convenience stores. When I lived in downtown Winnipeg I would occasionally drop by GT for smaller shops in between trips to Superstore or wherever.
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  #1086  
Old Posted May 25, 2020, 9:44 PM
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Originally Posted by wave46 View Post
As others have mentioned, Giant Tiger occupies a niche of smaller than Wal-Mart-sized stores that can operate in smaller communities or places in cities where Wal-Mart is difficult to get to.

So, there's a Giant Tiger in the Byward Market in Ottawa. Or in Cochrane, ON. Or parts of cities where the catchment area of Wal-Mart overlaps poorly with due to accessibility issues.

It's not fancy, sure. It does the job, though.
But we have lots of Giant Tigers in London, where we are absolutely not bereft of Walfarts. The one near my house opened 6 months ago, and is 2km from a Super Walfart.
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  #1087  
Old Posted May 25, 2020, 10:04 PM
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Originally Posted by esquire View Post
I can see why it thrives in small towns and inner city areas where people don't have ready access to a Walmart. But I don't get the ones located in shopping districts that already have Walmart and other shopping options... there are a few in Winnipeg located a stone's throw from Walmarts and they seem utterly pointless. One of them announced it would be closing even before covid.
We have 4 of them in London, and 3 of them are near Walmarts. One of them, delivery trucks don't even have to move to deliver to GT and Walmart. This one, the GT was there first, and Walmart came in next door to a former Zellers. The newest one, (coincidentally in Molson Export's neck of the woods based in his past posts anyway), is quite nice inside, but I hate the plaza it's in based on traffic around it. However, the Walmart it's near (and it's further away from it's local Walmart than the other 2 are) is insane and you couldn't pay me to go there.

The 4th one is in an old local neighbourhood plaza with a home healthcare store, a bank, a restaurant, pool hall, used book store, nail spa, tax place, and a place that sells tombstones lol. This is more the type of place I would expect to see a chain like GT.
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  #1088  
Old Posted May 25, 2020, 10:20 PM
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Let's face it kids, as much as we hate all these dead malls, we are being hypocritical in the extreme. It's so easy to blame politicians, greedy developers, and lousy urban planners for the spread of big boxes and the decline of the malls but if we wanted to be honest with ourselves, the real culprit is looking back at us in the mirror. We {and I am very much including myself here} have collectively decided that it is far more important to us to save that extra 5 or 10% on our goods than support the current shopping outlets that already exist and the urban blight and environmental damage be damned.

Despite our complaints and constant bitching about big box stores, we are getting EXACTLY what we asked for and on reflection that's pretty sad commentary on both ourselves and our society.
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  #1089  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 1:23 AM
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Let's face it kids, as much as we hate all these dead malls, we are being hypocritical in the extreme. It's so easy to blame politicians, greedy developers, and lousy urban planners for the spread of big boxes and the decline of the malls but if we wanted to be honest with ourselves, the real culprit is looking back at us in the mirror. We {and I am very much including myself here} have collectively decided that it is far more important to us to save that extra 5 or 10% on our goods than support the current shopping outlets that already exist and the urban blight and environmental damage be damned.

Despite our complaints and constant bitching about big box stores, we are getting EXACTLY what we asked for and on reflection that's pretty sad commentary on both ourselves and our society.
Indeed.

I'm wondering if big-box is as bad as they say, though. A store - even as bad in the sense of Wal-Mart in the urban sense - pretty much offers one-stop shopping.

Whereas a huge now-abandoned air-conditioned indoor mall has large areas simply devoted to foot traffic between stores, a place like Wal-Mart is pretty much devoted to selling stuff in all the square footage.

Also, these big-box stores are pretty much devoted to one thing. You could pretty much get everything you need for daily life at Superstore. Is one stop better than multiple stops? Same with deliveries - is one tractor-trailer load of various merchandise better than a delivery truck delivering artisan olive oil to 3 stops in the same city?

I don't know what the answer is.
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  #1090  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 1:26 AM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
But we have lots of Giant Tigers in London, where we are absolutely not bereft of Walfarts. The one near my house opened 6 months ago, and is 2km from a Super Walfart.


Be happy that a Canadian-based company is taking a bit of Wal-Mart's pie?
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  #1091  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 2:49 AM
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Be happy that a Canadian-based company is taking a bit of Wal-Mart's pie?
It is neither a cause for joy nor dismay. I am just trying to understand their business model. Maybe they will outlast Biway, Fields and similar places.

I have to admit that I sometimes pop into the local GiTig because it is barely a 12 minute walk from my door, and there are never any COVID lineups (unlike the Walfart Supercentre). Handy for a loaf of bread, chocolate bar, or bag of chips. I treat it like a convenience store (although to be fair to GT, their prices are much, much cheaper than a convenience store)/

Last edited by MolsonExport; May 26, 2020 at 1:59 PM.
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  #1092  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 4:09 AM
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I went to the Giant Tiger near downtown St. Catharines a few times when I lived there. It wasn't bad. For the area, the store was very clean, prices were cheap (often similar to Walmart), and they had most of the essentials.
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  #1093  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 5:12 AM
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Has anyone else started to notice Big Box retail starting to have more vacancies? The loss of Home Outfitters and some Pier 1 Imports alone is leaving some large empty bays.
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  #1094  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 1:23 PM
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Originally Posted by O-tacular View Post
Has anyone else started to notice Big Box retail starting to have more vacancies? The loss of Home Outfitters and some Pier 1 Imports alone is leaving some large empty bays.
I have noticed quite a few vacancies in Power Centres lately. Kanata Centrum and Rio Can in Kingston both have a substantial number of vacancies. The old Future Shop in the former has been vacant long enough that rust has started to appear on the structure and it looks pretty bad.
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  #1095  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 1:31 PM
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Originally Posted by O-tacular View Post
Has anyone else started to notice Big Box retail starting to have more vacancies? The loss of Home Outfitters and some Pier 1 Imports alone is leaving some large empty bays.
For sure. I know around Winnipeg we are starting to see quite a few vacancies, and it's been a while since we've seen any significant standalone power centre expansion. Seems to me that most of the growth in that regard is in small strips of restaurants and service providers located next to existing big box stores.

From what I can tell, the chains occupying these spaces are going under and no one is stepping up to replace them. I would expect the trend to continue in light of current events.
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  #1096  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 3:14 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
It is neither a cause for joy nor dismay. I am just trying to understand their business model. Maybe they will outlast Biway, Fields and similar places.

I have to admit that I sometimes pop into the local GiTig because it is barely a 12 minute walk from my door, and there are never any COVID lineups (unlike the Walfart Supercentre). Handy for a loaf of bread, chocolate bar, or bag of chips. I treat it like a convenience store (although to be fair to GT, their prices are much, much cheaper than a convenience store)/
To understand the business model you have to split Giant Tiger at the Ontario/Manitoba boarder. In eastern Canada they are run by Giant Tiger. In Western Canada the Northwest Company has a master franchise to use the Giant Tiger brand.

In Central Canada, they usually go into small town Ontario. Many of these communities can't support a Walmart or any big box store. In Urban centers they are basically a smaller Walmart, I don't think they would deliberately try to go head to head with Walmart but go after neighborhoods that are don't have a walmart. Retailers sign long multi-year leases and if profitable no reason to pull out of a good location.

In Western Canada, the Northwest Company is mostly in remote communities. They wanted a different banner they could use in more urban locations and made a deal with Giant Tiger to use their banner.

In Western Canada I think a brand like Field's would be the main alternative to Giant Tiger.
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  #1097  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 3:21 PM
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It makes sense why malls would be dead because of what's happening
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  #1098  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 3:32 PM
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Originally Posted by O-tacular View Post
Has anyone else started to notice Big Box retail starting to have more vacancies? The loss of Home Outfitters and some Pier 1 Imports alone is leaving some large empty bays.
The RioCan Burloak is starting to look pretty empty. And if the Bay goes the way of JC Penny and Zellers we might start to see more dead malls.
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  #1099  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 3:42 PM
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Originally Posted by stevanford1 View Post
The RioCan Burloak is starting to look pretty empty. And if the Bay goes the way of JC Penny and Zellers we might start to see more dead malls.
I wonder if these dead malls could be rezoned as medium and high-density residential. They're clearly serviced for such a thing and the adjacent roads can handle that kind of traffic.

They're also somewhat on major bus/transit routes too - often malls are transit nodes.

I suspect there will be a serious decline in new retail space in the next decade.
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  #1100  
Old Posted May 26, 2020, 5:01 PM
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Originally Posted by wave46 View Post
I wonder if these dead malls could be rezoned as medium and high-density residential. They're clearly serviced for such a thing and the adjacent roads can handle that kind of traffic.

They're also somewhat on major bus/transit routes too - often malls are transit nodes.

I suspect there will be a serious decline in new retail space in the next decade.
I’ve wondered the same thing. They have so much potential.
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