Future Shop...gone
 

i'm guessing the internets killed them?

Wow!
I think of ALL the electronics I have bought from FS over the years. I have seen big electronic stores close over the years (Multitech Warehouse, A&B Sound etc) but this is big.
Come to think of it, I goto Best Buy usually now anyway

i believe best buy and future shop are owned by the same company, so it's not that future shop has gone, it's that they're consolidating.

i could be wrong, of course / things may have changed since i last knew about this

edit: nm, just read the article - i was right, this isn't news, it's just that a couple of future shops will technically close. consolidation in a dying market, this is normal for non growth markets.

but, yet more jobs in Canada lost... i wouldn't be all that confident in Canada's housing market and economy over the next few years, a recession is coming, we are seeing so many red flags, this is a small one, but one of many.

"The company said it was shutting down 66 Future Shop stores effective immediately. Meanwhile, another 65 stores will be closed for a week while they're converted to Best Buy stores."

a lot of jobs being lost .. Am I lucky to even have a job now? Lol

fair point, but it's only half - that's life in consolidation. Could be worse, could be all.

it is totally true what they say, future shop and best buy totally canalize each other's sales, they were being wasteful. if i were in their leadership, this is a move I'd have done YEARS ago.

hindsight does have the fortune of being 20/20, though :)

YES. unless you're in a very specialized area that is secular or you're just that good, you are bang on

this is just rhetoric, but people I know in my profession that I know are leaving Vancouver, Alberta, and Toronto to move to other countries as they just either are under employed, not challenged enough, or can't find jobs.

I did it, and could name about 20-30 people that are now outside of Canada, and maybe 50+ that are outside of Vancouver. Some of this would have happened naturally, but I really think there is a premium amount due to the lagging economy.

I'm guessing the Coquitlam Center FS will be one that's closing forever, considering there's a Best Buy just a block away :facepalm:

I honestly have no sympathy for the stores or their staff, after being blatantly lied to by their salesdroids repeatedly.

some of these locations are literally next door to each other like the ones in surrey central city so i am expecting a lot of bloodletting to happen...

Tbh this was bound to happen sooner or later. Every time I go to a future shop, it's pretty close to dead inside and people really just go in to look at stuff.

I gerbers def killed it but future shop prices have always been on the high side for me

2 years ago they closed all the best buys on the island leaving only Future Shops. It would be weird if they changed back to best buys, makes me wonder if they'll leave the island altogether.

Talk about wasting money, when they built the new Uptown mall here both Best Buy and Future Shop were anchors, Best Buy is still paying the lease on their space.

Either way, it doesn't really matter to me. I haven't bought any major electronics in years and If I do need something I get it from places like NCIX. I hate the whole process of stuff ordering online, paying shipping, and waiting, but at least the selection is better.
Never mind the fact that Future Shop/Best Buy's prices on cables and stuff was downright insulting.

i picked a product off the shelf a few weeks ago at a Future Shop, took it to the checkout and they wouldn't let me pay until i went back and got a sales guy, because of the commission bullshit.

i said i don't want to, they said i have to! lol fuck that, i just left.

So, an American company (Best Buy) Buys a Canadian company (Future Shop) and within 15 years, Future Shop has been swallowed up and consolidated in the parent company? Didnt an American company (Burger King) just buy a Canadian Company (Tim Hortons) recently?

hmmmm....

Tim Horton's is a Canadian public company.

That's bullshit.

Commission salesmen on things like consumer electronics, appliances, etc these days are redundant.
At least for me, I do my research extensively before I buy something and dealing with a salesman is usually a useless interaction. Usually I know more about these things than the salesmen do.
I've even caught a few bullshitting their way through specs and things, and man do they get upset when you call them out on it.

there are so many fs right next to bb.. so now the majority are going to be converted to bb?

They've been firing people since January at CHQ. It was only a matter of time since both stores were cannibalizing sales from each other and their overall sales numbers were shit.

some other numbers/info coming in.

-500 full time/1000 part time jobs gone.

-gift cards, orders, warranties honoured at Best Buy.

The top management reasoning was that the two retailers offered a completely different products (FS - high-med) (BB - low-med)/ service to customers - think Infinity vs. Nissan.


An interesting fact:

"In March 2001, American-based Best Buy acquired Future Shop for $580 million Canadian. Future Shop was to be run as a separate division as "Best Buy Canada". The acquisition caused Khosrowshahi to step down as president."

Mar 2001 - Mar 2015 - anyone think this provision was built into the buy agreement? Maybe that was the payback period for the 580mil.

Is there a list of future shops that are gonna be closed?

If big box stores can't survive, the little ones aren't going to either... Sad for current retail store owners and perspective entrepreneurs.

I'm hardly surprised by the closure. The only thing I have to wonder is -- with the immediate closure of some stores and the rapidly appraching closing of others, does this mean they are not going to have any sort of clearance sale?

i have access to their cost vs sale value and its not a surprising as there are very few products with any sort of notable overhead. things like headphones and cables is where they make their money, ut on tv's and game consoles for example they make less than 10$ on sales in many cases. the real problem is their competition. competition will always lower prices

i see their furniture as over prices but thats all vendor direct and not actually carried by futureshop

Nope. They'll just move the inventory to be sold at the BestBuys.