Target killing Canadian operations

[OnlinePoker]

Source: Globe and Mail

U.S. discounter Target Corp. is closing its money-losing stores in Canada after almost two troubled years here.

The Minneapolis-based retailer said on Thursday it filed an application for protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto.

“After a thorough review of our Canadian performance and careful consideration of the implications of all options, we were unable to find a realistic scenario that would get Target Canada to profitability until at least 2021,” said Brian Cornell, who became the new chief executive officer last summer.

Read more: http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/target-killing-canadian-operations/article22458161/?service=mobile

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In the scenario I read when this was only a possibility last week, they said Walmart may take over the stores. That would mean 4 Walmarts here for 400,000 population. I can't see it.

[jtuck004]

1. Getting ready to lose Radio Shack here. I sure miss the old one, but the new ones have nothing most

other places don't have.

When they were shelves full of loose transistors, and kits, and with people who could help you learn, they were useful. Now they are just taking up space in strip malls.

More people, less money.

[knightmaar]

2. Wow, did I read that title wrong the first time.

[OnlinePoker]

3. Unfortunately, you have to use the title as written

I definitely wanted to edit it.

[Blue_Tires]

4. How the hell do you lose money with a Target?

It should theoretically be impossible...

[OnlinePoker]

5. They didn't have same pricing or products as in the States

People here expected bargains but prices were no better than anywhere else. For the first year, shelves were half-empty because they never had a proper supply chain in place.

[Sopkoviak]

6. 90% of Canadians live within 2 hours of the border with the US

And the Loonie buys more here.

At least that what my snow-bird Canuck neighbors tell me here in Phoenix.

[OnlinePoker]

7. Not anymore

It's approaching the 80 cent mark after being near parity last year. This makes our exports cheaper, but travel outside the country more expensive. Add to that a restriction on staples like eggs and poultry products from the States (I think only Washington and Oregon) and people aren't going to be heading south. As for the 90% within 2 hours of the border, it doesn't mean everybody does it or can afford to do it. I haven't been to the U.S. since 2007 and I can see Washington State from my front window.

[Recursion]

8. Slate did a good post-mortem

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/01/15/target_closing_in_canada_these_pictures_show_why_it_failed.html

By all accounts, the adventure has been an unmitigated disaster—a story of a company trying to accomplish too much, too fast, with too little thought. Target opened 124 stores at once in 2013. Rather than build its own real estate, it purchased leases on buildings that had belonged to Zellers, a "dying low-end retailer," as Fortune puts it, whose locations were "dumpy, poorly configured for Target’s big-box layout, and were in areas not frequented by the middle class customers Target covets."

But that wasn't the real killer. Because it revved up so quickly, the company never had time to develop a working supply chain in Canada, which left its stores short on merchandise and full of empty shelves. After the market researchers Belus Capital Advisors published pictures of the barren aisles, it led to headlines like this from DailyMail.com

[daleo]

9. It's a nice clean look.

[Recursion]

10. There was a Safeway in DC that we called "the Soviet Safeway"

Its shelves looked like that.

Actually they all had nicknames: the Soviet Safeway, the Singles Safeway, the Unsafeway, El Safewayo, etc.