Target Is Closing As Many Stores As It Opened Last Year

[Disoblige]

I didn't like the US Walmart as beer was always out of stock when I went.
I liked Fred Meyers tho.

[ZEDGE]

Originally posted by cjblair


Clearly you haven't spent that much time in Canadian Walmart.

Go to plenty, we got nothing on the yokels south of the border.

I forgot this is Beyond though, bunch of ballers who only shop at Nordstrom and other stores in mostly upscale white areas.

[clem24]

Originally posted by ZEDGE
I forgot this is Beyond though, bunch of ballers who only shop at Nordstrom and other stores in mostly upscale white areas.

Ah yes because they sell bananas, headlights and Tampax at Nordstrom..

[R-Audi]

I didnt read through 7 pages of Target garbage, but I can give a few reasons why they failed.

1. They went and opened up something like ~200 locations. One major issue they had was they only had the warehouse support system for something like 75-80. This is why the shelves were mostly bare.

2. Their marketing department and product department didnt talk. The marketing department would send out weekly flyers with for an example Dyson fans on sale. Sounds great until you realize that not one store in Canada actually had Dyson fans. This pissed people off and shows how poorly the Canadian company was run.


The whole thing shouldnt come to that big of a shock, apparently with the amount the stock jumped after the announcement, the company made money that day by shutting down the stores then they did having them open and selling.

[R-Audi]

Originally posted by cycosis


Oh man. This drives me crazy right now. How rio can or cbre can expect someone to make a profit while spending $40 a square foot plus $10 common area is beyond me.

Just to correct this..

CBRE are real estate brokers.. RioCan are the landlords. While CBRE can give their advice its the landlords that have performas to fill. THey look at the buildings as long term investments.. better to sit empty for 6 months then have 15 years of low rent.

Land isnt cheap, nor is building. In SE Calgary (Foothills) land is around 650-700k an acre..that amount double, triples or quadrupples for inner city.

$40psf is pretty typical for nice retail space.. if you think $40 is high try out malls, 17th or downtown +15. They are $60-200psf. plus some have percentage rent due. (Particularly malls)


Common area isnt something that is arbitrarily set either.. its all calculated based on set standards. Most companies use a set of standards from 1996...all of it is open and you are welcome to ask for the back up material.

[btimbit]

Originally posted by Ca_Silvia13


No kidding.

I did a bunch of my Christmas shopping at Marlborough Walmart. Holy Shit that was an eye opener. Straight out of those Walmart gag reels, just less guns and booze (on the shelf, everyone else was probably packin')

That had everything to do with the area you were in, not the store. Ever want a cheap laugh just drive around Marlborough/Forest Lawn. It's like travelling to back in time 20-30 years, and to a parallel universe where schools don't exist. Or like going to Edmonton.

There's nothing wrong with Walmart in decent areas of town, that I've seen at least. It's not exactly a good store, they'll still only have 2 tills open regardless of how busy they are, but at the end of the day you can get some decent cheap Shit.

However I've pretty much replaced it with Amazon.com

[ZEDGE]

Originally posted by btimbit

Ever want a cheap laugh just drive around Marlborough/Forest Lawn. It's like travelling to back in time 20-30 years, and to a parallel universe where schools don't exist. Or like going to Edmonton.

What does this even mean? An area with houses 20-30 years old looks 20-30 years old? Wow.. amazing. You could drive around Huntington, Beddington, Thorncliff, and dozen other areas for the same effect.

The elitism of this place is disgusting. I think its time for a long term break, to many d bags here.

[msommers]

From an employee's perspective, which seems to align with the distribution issues:

I worked at Target; Here's what I saw

Deb Waite, Ottawa Citizen | 01.15.2015

I am sitting here in shock. I got up Thursday morning and heard the stunning news that Target has decided to abandon its stores in Canada and put more than 17,000 workers out on the street. This hit me hard because, until the middle of August, I worked at the Target store in the Hazeldean Mall.

I was hired by Target in July 2013, and was very optimistic about how my first foray into retail would go after working for decades in journalism. Our first duties involved setting up the store — everything from assembling the shelves to stocking them, then getting ready for the grand opening. We had a great team, with everyone pitching in, including the store manager. It was tough work, but rewarding, because we could see the store slowly rising around us. Then we began to learn the duties related to our jobs. I was a Price Accuracy Team Member, which included everything from putting stickers on merchandise to verifying prices with a scanner.

When the big day finally arrived, we were so proud as the first “guests” (we were not allowed to call them customers) arrived. It was a thrill to see people come in and check us out.

But then the complaints started. The biggest one? “The shelves are empty.” If someone wanted a product advertised in the flyer, sometimes we had to explain that we hadn’t received any. And when items sold out, we were at the mercy of the distribution centre to have them refilled. We wouldn’t know when, or if, items would be available. And that’s what we’d have to tell customers.

For such a large corporation, it didn’t seem very organized, in my opinion.

A couple of times a week, the store received tractor trailers full of goods. The staff would joke among ourselves: “Oh, looks like they’re getting rid of their junk. We’ve got a crazy truck today.”

Some customers were also upset when they didn’t find the same products that were available in Target stores in the U.S. They might have just been cross-border shopping, and dropped into our store looking for a particular makeup line, only to find we didn’t carry it.

It was soon clear that sales were way below what the company had expected. By Christmas, you could tell that everyone was getting more stressed out. From the top management down, the pressure was on to increase sales. Target tried to lower some prices to get people in the store (in one instance they marked down what felt like at least half the women’s ready-to-wear items to $5). But day after day, at our “huddle” (a morning meeting for all store employees), store leaders told us that we had failed to meet our sales target. We didn’t even come close.

It was depressing to hear, because we were all working so hard. But the leaders said not to worry, that since this was the first year of the store opening, the targets had not been set realistically, and that they would be better next year.


After Christmas, they cut our hours. When we were hired, they told us our jobs would be full-time, 40-hour positions, but by February and March, some weeks we were down to 20 hours. And when you are making $11 an hour, that is one heck of a hit to your bottom line. I remember going into the lunchroom one day and overhearing a single mother on the phone talking to a social service organization, trying to get some money so she could buy her child food. Another woman said she had managed to cover the rent, but had no food, so her daughter was going to help her out. It brought the problem of the working poor in sharp focus for me for the first time. I realized how lucky I have been all my working life.

Things did improve slightly after that, although the hours never went back to full time. The store also seemed to get more merchandise. But since they had a bad experience at the beginning, guests would complain if they couldn’t find an item, saying that Target was “always out of everything.” That was how they felt about the store because that was their first impression.

But other guests, while complaining about the stock, always had good words about the helpful staff, saying that they had never been treated so well at any other store. We took pride in being “the friendliest Target in Ottawa.”

The spirit of employees by the beginning of summer was quite low, and many started looking for other jobs, myself included. I left Target at the end of August, just short of the first-year anniversary of the store opening. I was glad to leave, but the tough part was saying goodbye to some wonderful people I had worked with there. When I heard the news of the closing Thursday morning, that is what hit home. I saw the faces of those people who had worked their hearts out to make the store succeed, who will be out of a job.

I wish them all well, and hope they find new jobs. And I hope Target treats them with the respect they deserve. They did their best for Target, and are certainly not the reason the store didn’t succeed in Canada.

Debra Waite is a former copy editor at the Citizen.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/News/ot...048/story.html

[btimbit]

Originally posted by ZEDGE


What does this even mean? An area with houses 20-30 years old looks 20-30 years old? Wow.. amazing. You could drive around Huntington, Beddington, Thorncliff, and dozen other areas for the same effect.

The elitism of this place is disgusting. I think its time for a long term break, to many d bags here.

When did I mention houses? Hell some of the interesting older non cookie cutter houses is the only good part about the area. I'm talking about everything. The way people act, dress, the vehicles you see on the road, the lack of any sort of modern social behavior, etc

People in Beddington and Thorncliff are at least partially educated, and the areas and people have progressed along with the rest of society. Go to Marlborough and it's like nothing has changed in decades. And no, not just the buildings.

If looking down on crackheads and drunk indians is all that makes me elitist... then I guess you got me there

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by ZEDGE


What does this even mean? An area with houses 20-30 years old looks 20-30 years old? Wow.. amazing. You could drive around Huntington, Beddington, Thorncliff, and dozen other areas for the same effect.

The elitism of this place is disgusting. I think its time for a long term break, to many d bags here.

That seems to trigger a bigger response than usual for a casual NE joke/stereotype.

L

[speedog]

What's more amusing is how far btimbit is off in their statement of how old these areas are Marlborough dates back 49 years to 1967 and Forest Lawn dates over 100 years ago although the bulk of it dates either from the mid-30's to the early 60's.

As far as schooling, Marlborough has 5 schools serving about 8,500 people and Forest Lawn has 6 schools serving about 7,900 people - that's probably a better ratio than any newer community (Arbour Lake - 3 schools for 10,400 and Tuscany - 3 schools for 19,300). Maybe btimbit needs to take the blinders off when driving through these two communities.

[eblend]

Went to Target yesterday, place was packed, people were looking for bargains. I figure I drop by as well to see if anything was on clearance, and to my surprise, not really. They do have items for clearance, lots of toys and stuff, but most of the other stuff is still full price. It's a sad place to be really, I don't care much for Target but it sucks for the employees, still showing up to work knowing that the ship is going down.

I went in solely to see if they had a tent on sale that I saw on RDF, they did, so I bought one for my parents, and another one for my friend this AM as he was interested after I told him about it. There are some random items for clearance, but it isn't a whole store deal.

Overall, got a 2 x $249 dollar Woods 8 person tent for $75 bucks each, couldn't go wrong.

[speedog]

Shit, I'm gonna bite once more - ZEDGE is spot on. It really is unfortunate that there are those out there that look down over their noses at others because those others happen to opt to purchase or rent a home in Marlborough or Thorncliffe or where ever, look down at those who have quite happily opted to work at Target or be a 19+ year guy at Tenaris Pipe.

Why is it so acceptable for some to be so critical of those who are perfectly fine with a blue collar career that affords them a comfortable home in older community? Truly, I don't get it and it can't be the way one was raised because I have a brother-in-law who has a very comfortable income (easy 6+ figures) who has also evolved into the most elitist snob, no ass-hole (call him as he is), that one could meet - a man who was brought up in a small town in a blue collar family. Maybe a true 2-class system is what these elitist pricks want - them and just the serfs and probably a future world where forums won't allow the serfs to exist.

Anyhow, ZEDGE has mused about a break from here - myself, I've kind of done the same thing - used to be a regular weekly top 10 poster and now am easily not. Many times I've had a post ready to be submitted and have then opted not to bother because of whom I was responding to. Just wasn't worth it because I'd probably get sucked further into some abyss created by a moron who isn't aware of what they are or appear to be on-line.

btimbit and their ilk, well my family's paths and their's most likely won't cross and I'm quite okay with that - hell, if I wasn't related to my brother-in-law, then that relationship would've evaporated many, many years ago and certainly of no detriment to either of us. Never the less, I'll sign off in this thread because I'm going to go to the scourge of the many, Superstore, to stock up on the family's weekly grocery needs - on par with Target to many.

[JRSC00LUDE]

I like Superstore. And Costco.

[btimbit]

Originally posted by speedog
What's more amusing is how far btimbit is off in their statement of how old these areas are Marlborough dates back 49 years to 1967 and Forest Lawn dates over 100 years ago although the bulk of it dates either from the mid-30's to the early 60's.

I wasn't the one that brought up the age of the areas ZEDGE was. I simply said it's as though those areas stopped progressing 20-30 years ago, not that that's when they were built

Originally posted by Xtrema


That seems to trigger a bigger response than usual for a casual NE joke/stereotype.

L

No kidding. Think I touched a nerve. Make a crack about crackheads and hillbillies and speedog goes off about elitism and class systems He's right, I think he does need a break from beyond. He always seems to take every single comment he reads here at literal face value, he's going to give himself a heart attack.

And for the record I'm probably one of the most blue collar guys on here

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally posted by btimbit

People in Beddington and Thorncliff are at least partially educated, and the areas and people have progressed along with the rest of society. Go to Marlborough and it's like nothing has changed in decades. And no, not just the buildings.

I lived in Thorncliffe for more than 7 years and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between much of it and Marlborough on an unmarked street. It's not a particularly good area. Same with Huntington, less so with Beddington.

[btimbit]

At least it's on the proper side of Deerfoot.



Anyway, Target..... Still never been there. Lots of people mentioning Superstore. I want to like superstore, I like a lot of President's Choice items as well as their prices, but it's often not worth the hassle. If I'm driving and see one that doesn't look busy I'll sometimes drop in. What's really underrated is that loblaws Wholesale Club. Never seems as busy, much better prices. Like a mini Costco almost, not as good but doesn't require a membership

[Squishy]

Targets mobile section is clearing things out already if anyone needs phone cases or accessories. I overheard it will be a couple of weeks before things start going on sale. I haven't followed the whole thread but can anyone confirm when things start going on sale? I really didn't see much when I went yesterday.

[J-D]

Originally posted by Squishy
Targets mobile section is clearing things out already if anyone needs phone cases or accessories. I overheard it will be a couple of weeks before things start going on sale. I haven't followed the whole thread but can anyone confirm when things start going on sale? I really didn't see much when I went yesterday.

It's going to a liquidator so I don't think the sales will be that great. They always just jack up the prices and then put it on "sale".

[sputnik]

Originally posted by ZEDGE

Go to plenty, we got nothing on the yokels south of the border.

Completely agree.

In Winnipeg the Walmart stores are pretty typical. Yoga pants moms and immigrants. Nothing that out of the ordinary. Sure there is bit of a white-trash contingent but its not that obvious.

If I drive 3 hours south to Fargo ND it is as if I am in a completely different world. I have never seen so many toothless 30-something year old meth heads and people bigger than some Volkswagen models. If you haven't been to a Walmart in the US (especially ones in smaller towns) you are in for quite the experience.