Future Shop Closes Doors In Canada

[FraserB]

Future Shop has closed down in Canada, consolidating under the Best Buy brand.

http://www.am980.ca/2015/03/28/futur...across-canada/

Hopefully this means that the warranties and whatnot are still going to be honored at Best Buy for Future Shop products.

[Redlined_8000]

damm!!! Does this mean some of the current future shop locations will turn into best buy? I hope so.... the Shawnessy future shop is so Convenient.


EDIT: yup they will convert some stores. Lol guess I should read

[GTS4tw]

Damn, Future Shop and Best Buy are only a couple of blocks apart here. Guess that means they are gone and another mall here gets closer to being totally empty.

Target and Futureshop in the same mall, so much real estate that's gotta hurt.

[BigMass]

BB and Futureshop are often close together so expect tons of store closings and very few conversions. Less product selection as, even though the same company, FS and BB often had some small product differences allowing for some sort of selection which will now be lost. The amount of layoffs will be huge. Another negative is that FS is a big box store and takes up so much space that the real estate will remain empty for a long time just like Target. So much empty huge retail coming on the market during a recession like Calgary is experiencing now will be a huge negative on our economy. Not good at all.

[J.M.]

Damn this sucks, I actually didn't mind going into Future Shop every now and then.

[NoPulp]

Well this sucks... In Lethbridge they're across the street from each other. They actually had a lot of different product, for example FS has a huge car audio section and BB had nothing.

[eblend]

The article says that futureshop.ca site was unavailable, just went there, no mention of anything like this..

Regardless, if they close the one in Shawnessy I sure as hell won't be making special trips to Deerfoot Meadows to buy random small shit, I will just buy online or shop elsewhere.

[ZenOps]

Iconic Canadian tech store. Sure they occasionally had seedy business practices, but hey - so were most other electronics stores through the decades.

I wonder if they will have a blowout sale, or if their inventory will simply be absorbed by bestbuy.

[Kijho]

I was looking at some sales on FS's website in one tab -- checking up the morning news in another tab..... This definitely sucks, I liked FS!

Bestbuy's has always seemed so... un-organized.. ?

[firebane]

Best Buy or Future Shop can't remember which closed down a bunch of stores a couple of years ago and this really isn't surprising.

I don't recall the last time I stepped inside a FS or BB.

[birdman86]

Damn...I always preferred FS over BB. Does anyone know if this is effective immediately? I've got to go in for a price match refund thing....

[dirtsniffer]

I always thought they carried the same over priced crap. Maybe bought a movie from them once in a while.

Memory express any day.

[blairtruck]

i was in futureshop on thursday. it was dead. the car audio section had one deck. and speakers were like 5 years old and never dusted. i walked thru the whole store and never once was asked if i needed help.
i don't find a difference between fs or bb. just the fs are closer.

[bulaian]

After some 33 years as one of Canada’s largest electronics retailer, Future Shop will be closing http://mobilesyrup.com/2015/03/28/fu...sing-downdown.


This morning, Future Shop owner Best Buy, which purchased the Canadian retailer in 2001 for $580 million, announced that it will close down 66 of Future Shop’s 131 retail locations. The remaining 65 will be temporarily closed before being reopened as new Best Buy locations.

The company decided to pursue this course of action after it did an internal review of its Canadian locations and found that many of its Best Buy and Future Shop locations were located next to one another.

As a result of the closures, 500 full-time and 1000 part-time employees will lose their jobs. Best Buy says the affected individuals will receive severance, employee assistance and outplacement support, though it hasn’t said exactly how generous any of these will be.

“Any decisions that impact our people are never taken lightly; our first priority is to support them through this change,” said Ron Wilson, the president and COO of Best Buy Canada, in a press release. “I want to express my appreciation to the employees who are leaving, for their contributions to Best Buy Canada.”

After it finishes the cull, Best Buy will have 192 locations across Canada, including 56 dedicated mobile stores.

If there’s any silver lining to this news, it’s that Best Buy locations will accept any Future Shop gift cards Canadians may have lying around. Additionally, the company will also honour any existing product orders, pre-orders, service appointments and warranty claims.

We’ll update this article as we learn more.

[lilmira]

Originally posted by bulaian

The company decided to pursue this course of action after it did an internal review of its Canadian locations and found that many of its Best Buy and Future Shop locations were located next to one another.

No way, I never realize that they are right next to each other.

[firebane]

Originally posted by lilmira


No way, I never realize that they are right next to each other.

Yeah no shit you can't tell me the execs didn't know this. Sounds like an excuse to do cut backs in a dying market.

[16hypen3sp]

Kind of a shame in a way... Last thing I bought from FS was Destiny. FS in Red Deer always had way smoother and less busy midnight releases so I usually went there for that sort of thing. Always BB for pretty much everything else.

Back when I had my RSX, I wanted an aftermarket stereo and went to BB for an install quote and it seemed way too high. Went down the street to FS and it was done that day for half the price.

I figured this was going to happen eventually.

[dj_rice]

Futureshop always had cheaper pricing on items than Best Buy some cases even when it was the same company.

[HiTempguy1]

I always found it odd how there were futureshops and bestbuys next to each other.

Of course, they actually did carry different stock. Things like computers and tv's and appliances, typically each store minimized overlap.

Futureshop was definitely better though. What excites me is that if BB went too far in the culling, a place like memory express or ncix could scoop up a HUGE market share. Blows my mind memex isnt in Red Deer yet, the market is huge there compared to shitty-ass compusoft lol

[AE92_TreunoSC]

Makes lots of sense but still big news.

I always hated dealing with future shops in the North growing up, I always went to BB first then checked FS if BB didn't have what I wanted.

Sucks that it means more layoffs in our province.