Bryan

Name one that has even tried. Big Box is a fairly new thing in Canada. Walmart bought good locations, the same ones they operate profitably today. They did their homework and did not buy the poor locations. After the purchase, they continued to operate them as Woolco for quite some time so that they could get a good understanding of Canadian's shopping habits, and how the distribution system that was in place worked. When they first changed the name over to Walmart, they literally just changed the sign outside. They gradually transformed those Woolco's and continued to keep them profitable the whole time. Then they expanded by building new locations and expanding existing ones. Each new step only happened when the last one was worked out.

Retail failures anywhere are not rare. Still waiting for an example of a big box failure. Even most of the Target locations in Canada were far too small to be called that. Ikea, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, THOSE are foreign big box outlets. And they did it right -- a few stores at a time, the right size in the right location, only expanding when each existing store reached expectations, and the distribution was in place to handle the expansion. And Canadian stores that used to be smaller that became Big box are also doing very well. Canadian Tire and Loblaws in particular have expanded tremendously and have been very profitable in doing so. The issue is not and has never been Canada vs US economic conditions. Well run businesses have success on either side of the border, poorly run ones don't.

I wonder if they are looking at this as an opportunity to re-establish themselves. It would be pretty funny if they moved into the failed Target locations. The American Sears Holdings actually owns a majority stake of Sears Canada now. Sears Holdings also owns K-Mart -- they could be looking at making a comeback with that brand. Most of the former Zellers locations were K-marts in the first place.

A lot of misinformation in that article. The Canadian rule is still 182 days. The American rules was ALWAYS only 120 days. The thing that's changed, is the two borders are now sharing information, so the US is now able to enforce their 120, when before it was almost impossible. In short, any Canadian that stayed longer than 120 days in the US without a specific permit was already breaking the law in the US.

Wrong. One good store vs 133 really bad ones. They would not have lost more. It wasn't a gamble, it was incompetence. Exactly what I said, SMALL stores with very few locations, with a head office that was in trouble in their original market to begin with. I've never heard of Big Lots, we never got any. Liquidation World we did have, but it was VERY small, and and barely a step above Salvation Army -- old, used, damaged, CRAPPY stuff only. Looked like a church basement rummage sale. Seriously. I've never seen a Sam's Club in Canada. They repeatedly announced they were opening them here, but never actually did. What they "closed" were empty lots that had nothing there in the first place. The K-Marts continued on when the US company filed for bankruptcy -- Hudson's Bay bought them. Sears is in trouble, for sure, but they had been doing well for 70 some years, that's hardly a failed experiment, it's just at the end of it's life (just as Sears is in the US). None of those Canadian locations you listed were even remotely close to being "big box" stores. You could fit 20 of them inside an average Costco or Ikea. Any of the real big boxes that I've seen come here have been very successful.

It wasn't cheaper, they lost billions of dollars. Most of the existing leases were for buildings and locations that were not suitable for Target. Attempting to come in that way was pure stupidity from the start. What big ones have failed? A few that had very few really small stores and were already in trouble in the US, sure. But Big Box outlets? None that I can recall. Target's failure really is unique in that they did everything wrong right from the beginning, and displayed an astounding level of incompetence at every turn.

No. No inventory. None. All of it was liquidated before Target took over the leases. You're right about the biggest mistake though -- the supply chain was already there and they foolishly chose to cast it aside and try to build their own from the ground up without doing any due diligence on the market they were entering. Other foreign companies have not had the issues Target did. The Ikea in Winnipeg is exactly the same as the one in Bloomington. The Marshalls in Winnipeg are exactly the same as the ones in North Dakota and Minnesota. Cabela's in Winnipeg are exactly the same as the ones in North Dakota and Minnesota. They carry THE SAME products that people expect to see in those stores. In most cases, even the prices are really close (close enough at least that going down to the US for those particular stores was no longer worth it). What Target should have done, was build ONE test store. Purpose build a full-size Super Target in the best possible location. I'd locate it in Winnipeg not because I live there, but because it's the closest Canadian market to the Target Head Office. Run it not as a for profit business, but as an experiment for what does and doesn't work. Even now, they could close all of the Targets EXCEPT the Polo Park one, and use that to regroup for their next expansion attempt down the road.

You're mistaken on several levels. First, Zellers had not been a "five and dime" for a very long time. They were a full service department store. Remember, Target started out as a discount/clearance store too. Things change. Second, Target didn't take on ANYTHING from Zellers. All stock and fixtures were liquidated before they came in, and all of the stores were completely gutted and fully remodelled from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. There was no connection to Zellers at all. Their shittiness was entirely their own creation.

The problem was they weren't duplicating anything. Not the Zellers experience, not the Target experience. The stores were their own brand of shitty. The problem was not that Canadians didn't embrace Target, it's that we are still waiting to see an actual Target in Canada.

I wouldn't get too excited yet, but I wasn't even remotely concerned by the CPC's lag in the polls before either. Anyone who didn't know that Harper would eventually retake the lead has not been paying attention for the past 10-12 years.

True. The "unhappy vets" are simply those who never would have voted Conservative anyway trying to play politics.

Target Canada's management was completely incompetent right from the start. They bought an existing reasonably successful chain of stores that already had supply and distribution chains in place. They not only cast those all aside, they failed to have their own in place before they re-opened the stores. For many months, the shelves were mostly empty. There was literally no reason for anyone to shop there for almost the first full year because they didn't have anything in stock to buy. They trained customers to stop even checking to see what was in store. They trained customers to ignore the flyers because they were nothing but a tease advertising products they didn't have. Then there is the pricing for the stock they did have. Nobody expected the same pricing as in the US. The thing is, they also were not expecting Target to have the highest prices in town -- which is what happened on many of their stock. They weren't even coming close to competing on price with other stores that were already operating in the local market. Forget Walmart, they couldn't even compete with existing Canadian retailers like Loblaws, Shoppers Drug Mart or Canadian Tire. Virtually every thing on the shelves at Target could be easily found for a lower price inside the same shopping centre that the Target was located. It really makes me wonder what Target was expecting in the Canadian market. It seems like they mistakenly thought that Canadian liked the Target name and would support it no matter what. Canadians never cared one way or the other for Target as a name. What they liked was the experience of shopping at the stores. Target Canada brought none of that experience with them.

Clearly it's been quite some time since you've actually read it. They used to be somewhat conservative two owners ago. That has not been the case for several years, especially since Paul Godfrey took over.

That's a fair point. The Sun wears their bias on their sleeves almost as blatantly as the Star does.

They are. As I mentioned before, I use them for the things that American businesses refuse to ship across the border.

Count me in those as well. I ordered a whole bunch of my christmas shopping stuff online, almost all of them from American retailers. There were different reasons for each purchase. In nearly every case, the price after shipping, exchange, and duty was still significantly less. In many cases, that was so even in US versions of the store we do have outlets of in Canada. In some cases the price was less of an issue, so much as having the item in stock was. Some of the stores, there simply was no Canadian equivalent.

Agreed. It requires you to be a Shaw or Rogers digital cable subscriber, then offers up content that for the most part is already part of the on-demand feature of your cable service. It's really weak compared to Netflix.

This is continuing to be the biggest price reduction on anything I've ever seen. I paid 70.0 a litre yesterday. When is the last time we saw prices that low in Canada?It would be nice to pretend that this is a price correction -- that the high prices were just a bubble that has burst, and we are now back to "real" pricing.

A one day group excursion can be good if it's a place you've never been to so you can get a sense of where you're going to spend more time the rest of the trip. But the whole vacation being lead around with the same group? Yeah, I can't understand why anyone goes on those. Maybe people who have anxiety issues??

That's the big one for sure. A lot of packaged trips serve a very functional purpose: allowing people to see as much as they can in a very limited time with as little stress as possible. For long, take-your-time trips you pretty much have to be retired. A working family with kids is going to get one MAYBE two weeks at a time to see whatever they want to see. In a week, you're just not going to have much time to explore and wander around. I definitely hear you about the gift shop! While I still prefer to have a resort as my home base to explore from, I just have no interest in ever going on another group excursion. You invariably get rushed through (or right past) things you really wanted to spend time at, while spending an excruciatingly long time at places that are of no interest.

He's left of centre on virtually all policies, just slightly less left than the LPC and NDP. We also have campaigns where the leaders tell us what they will do if elected. Why even have that if what the people who DIDN'T vote for you get to veto those promises? Democracy is still fully in force at the next election.

There is real truth to that. Many Conservatives are disappointed that harper has been nowhere near as conservative as we were lead to believe. He's been an improvement over what came before, but the bar was set so low. He's definitely governed way too far to the left for my liking. He's been way too soft, and nowhere near the authoritarian that I was hoping for. The problem for Liberals (and NDPers) is thinking that disillusioned Conservatives will move even more left if they aren't happy. In protest they might say they would for polls between elections, but that's just not going to happen on the ballots. For the opposition to really replace Harper before he decides to leave on his own, they need to move to right of him.

Gah!! It's only 5C in Istanbul right now!! When you hear of Europeans taking beach vacations in Turkey... are they going in the summer???

It's incredible how volatile vacation pricing is. Airfare, hotels, and pre-arranged packages are all over the map on any given day. Sometimes it even matters what time of day. I've seen prices drop considerably at around 3am, then go right back up by 5am, repeating that cycle for several days straight. (I work nights and it was a slow week )

Online sellers are still travel agents. That's all I ever use too (though it's usually Redtag for me). I didn't think to check Expedia -- they don't do bookings to Cuba, so I never bookmarked them. Some all-inclusives really are horrible, some can be a really good experience. A lot of it is going to depend on what you were expecting/looking for. The package prices are often less than flight only, so even if you have no intention of staying on the resort, it's peace of mind that if things go south with what other adventures you were pursuing, there is always a shower, a bed, a beer, and a meal waiting for you.