BestBuy closes Canadian Future Shop affiliate

[Feanor]

Of interest to Canadians and possibly BestBuy fans in the US: BestBuy, owner of Future Shop suddenly closed down its entire Future Shop operation on Saturday -- workers arrived Saturday am to discover they had no jobs ... Future Shop shutters Canadian stores, will rebrand as Best Buy - The Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/future-shop-closes-canadian-stores/article23677084/)

Actually I'm surprised it took them so long.

BestBuy bought the formerly Canadian company a few years ago. Future Shop always sold essentially the same electronic and media stuff as BestBuy, the main difference being that Future Shop also sold large appliances. After the acquisition, to my surprised BestBuy not only kept all the Future Shop stores open, but opened BestBuy stores too, the latter often located quite close to the former. They also maintained both BestBuy and Future Shop websites; separate news fliers were distributed in most localities.

Clearly there was duplication. Something had to give, and I'm just surprised it took BestBuy so long to do something about it. A reflection on BestBuy in general in wonder?

About halve of the 131 Future Shop locations will reopen as BestBuys -- presumably those not close to existing BestBuy locations. However staff will have to formally apply for BestBuy jobs. Of note, Future Shop employes received commissions on their sales whereas BestBuy employees do not.

~*~

This closure is further others in Canada. The biggy was Target's disastrous failure in the Canadian market after only a couple of years in business here, rumoured to cost Target about $5 billion in losses. The other, more minor item is TigerDirect is closing all its B&M outlets but will continue to sell online.

[Hyfi]

Maybe they will put a few of the upscale Magnolia centers in so you can check out B&W, McIntosh, and Sanus Faber

[3db]

Maybe they will put a few of the upscale Magnolia centers in so you can check out B&W, McIntosh, and Sanus Faber

Maybe in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto but I think that would be the extent of it. Not enough of a population base.

I saw this coming when Best Buy bought Future Shop. IHO, Futureshop was a much better chain with much better service and it all eroded when Best Buy bought them.

[Feanor]

Maybe {upscale Magnolia centers} in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto but I think that would be the extent of it. Not enough of a population base.

I saw this coming when Best Buy bought Future Shop. IHO, Futureshop was a much better chain with much better service and it all eroded when Best Buy bought them.

I'm not holding my breath for Magnolia centers anywhere in Canada but I agree if it happens it will only be in a few up-market locations.

BestBuys strategy vis-a-vis FutureShop was always a bit weird. Clearly given the many locations had BOTH shops, they were competing with each other. Why support the duplicate overhead? On theory has it that shops are merely for browsing with really shopping being done online, and hence fewer B&M locations are necessary.

[ForeverAutumn]

I had 2 Future Shops and 1 Best Buy within a 10 KM radius of my home. Not to mention 3 Staples stores which sells a lot of the same items as FS and BB. And 1 Tiger Direct. Something definitely had to give...at least in my neck of the woods.

I used to hate FS because they were paid commission and, therefore, I felt, not trustworthy. I always preferred BB. But when we were buying our TV last Fall, the FS guys were far more knowledgeable. Our salesman said that because they are paid commission, they are more motivated to learn about the products. They have to know what they are talking about to make the sale. The Best Buy sales people don't care if you buy something or not...they get paid regardless. That made sense, I guess.

I always liked the price match between the two. Because they would sometimes run different sales, you could see a sale in the BB Flyer and then go to FS who would match the price and also give you 10% of the difference. That also never made sense to me from a business standpoint, but I saved a lot of money! :)

[Feanor]

I had 2 Future Shops and 1 Best Buy within a 10 KM radius of my home. Not to mention 3 Staples stores which sells a lot of the same items as FS and BB. And 1 Tiger Direct. Something definitely had to give...at least in my neck of the woods.

I used to hate FS because they were paid commission and, therefore, I felt, not trustworthy. I always preferred BB. But when we were buying our TV last Fall, the FS guys were far more knowledgeable. Our salesman said that because they are paid commission, they are more motivated to learn about the products. They have to know what they are talking about to make the sale. The Best Buy sales people don't care if you buy something or not...they get paid regardless. That made sense, I guess.

I always liked the price match between the two. Because they would sometimes run different sales, you could see a sale in the BB Flyer and then go to FS who would match the price and also give you 10% of the difference. That also never made sense to me from a business standpoint, but I saved a lot of money! :)

I've never bought a whole lot in either FF or BB, but I've had fairly good as well as pretty bad service in both stores. The one thing I liked about both was their liberal return policy. Anyway my local BB and FF stores were located with in 2 blocks of each other; I won't miss FF.

It's fitting that you mentioned Staples. I have come to much prefer Staples over the other two where they carry similar merchandize, (not to mention stuff Staples carries and they don't).

BTW, I'm definitely going to miss the TigerDirect store; I used to buy a fair bit of computer-related stuff there.