DandNHill

My son worked full time for FS until Saturday. He called me at 7:30am my time to tell me that he no longer had a job... Very sad for him and his girlfriend. He was making a very reasonable living based on the commission he was earning...now it's back to looking for a job in NS where there are no jobs and another 150 people all applying for the same few jobs...
Not sure what the future holds for him. Kinda hoping he will pack his bags and move to Ontario...
The only good thing I can say about this whole mess is that the severance pay was generous....not the minimum legal amount!

Tangram

Fredericton will become a Best Buy, they seem to be generally closing the stores where there is already a BB in the same town. Makes sense. Like all the brands under GM selling basically the same car with a different badge.

Jericho79

This is part of the issue. People in these kind of stores should not be earning commission. They are not selling you anything. They may, in some cases, add some value from a technical point of view, but its usually not the case. The staff dont really generate sales (maybe some peripherals like cables, etc), but people go to these stores with an objective- I need a TV, i need a laptop, i need a new fridge. What do the staff do to earn commission, besides being lucky enough to be close to you when decide what to purchase?

Same in SportChek and the like. I hate having to tell to the checkout the name of some idiot who merely happened to be within 10m of me when I chose what I wanted, so that they can earn a commission on it.

So the prices are inflated to allow for this nonsense. And then people go online where they can buy it cheaper.... except again, in Canada, they've still not caught on. Yes, you can order online from FS/Best Buy (and pick up in store- WTF?)... but the price is still the same. So they refuse to compete with the proper online retailers... which is why they struggle.

Piff Poff

Just so you know, some of these places that ask the name at the till, isn't necessarily for commission. It could well be for individual sales goals for which no commission is paid (Eddie Bauer). I'd hate to work in a commission based environment, it was bad enough at EB trying to keep other staff from stealing the customer you have been working with for an hour grrr.

scrubbedexpat091

I am not sure brick and mortar retailers can really compete with online only companies due to the increased overhead brick and mortar store has.

Canada really has no decent online stores, even Amazon sucks, so brick and mortar don't seem to be in as much of a hurry to adapt here. Even Wal-Mart is years behind what they do south of the border.

But Canada Post doesn't help online shipping by their high rates making it uneconomical to buy online. Of the stores I buy from online, only amazon offers free shipping.

I just ordered something online that is not obtainable locally or in Vancouver, it was 19 dollars and shipping was 13 dollars, if I didn't really need it, I would have skipped buying it, that sort of shipping is not reasonable, and the postage tag on the package actually said 15 and some change, so it still cost the company more they they charged.

Shipping is too high in Canada and kills online innovation.

Jericho79

The missus recently bought an item of jewelry from LA. Shipping was $14, and arrived in 3 days. It was the wrong size, so we had to ship it back. Cost from the Canadian end was $38 and took over a week. Traveled exactly the same distance, probably on the same plane/trucks. etc.

scrubbedexpat091

I don't even mail things from Canada anymore. I buy all my gifts for family in the US on amazon and target website and have them send the item directly to them. The cost to send a parcel from Canada to the US almost always cost's more then the item being sent.

USPS has had to compete heavily with Fedex, UPS and other parcel companies that have popped up because of all the online shopping now, so there is massive amounts of competition down there now, if the USPS tried to charge what Canada Post does for parcels they would be in even worse shape.

But we lack that kind of competition in Canada, so everyone charges a massive amount, but Canada Post charges so much for such slow service.

UPS can get a ground parcel from Ontario to BC faster then Canada Post can from Alberta to BC, not sure how Canada Post can be sooooo slow.

Once across the border, a package from Seattle to LA would be a 2 day trip unless sent by ground.

Average speed west coast to east coast for the USPS is 3 days, pretty much all mail in the US goes by air now.

Hawaii and Alaska are longer, still a lot of surface mail to/from those states as its too costly to fly everything to those states.

Pizzawheel

Not that this is a flawed strategy in itself- see VW for the book on how it should be done.

scrubbedexpat091

The former future shop stores that reverted to Best Buy are open now, but other then the employees shirts, appears the stores didn't change inside.

They have 18 months to do the full conversion.

Shopping At Best Buy (Future Shop?) Is Kind Of Confusing Now

withabix

...including one VW that was also a Ford!