Canadian Tire: New and Improved

FTLComm - Prince Albert - Monday, June 18, 2001

The massive rebuilding and expansion of Prince Albert's Canadian Tire outlet is finally completed as it is nearly double the size it was prior to the construction project. The major shake up in Canadian retail is far from over, WalMart entered the Canadian market place by buying out the Woolco (Woolworth's mass market chain) and turned these stores into Canadian versions of the American retail WalMart stores. Now the second phase of that development is kicking in as WalMart always made its mark by situating its stores apart from other malls and retail outlets often on the periphery of urban centres. In Prince Albert the new WalMart store is nearing completion and Canadian Tire and felt obliged to improve its store before WalMarts new facility came on line. Similar developments are taking place all across the country as WalMart is divesting itself of its former Woolco buildings and locations and setting up its own places on the edges of cities across the country. This massive struggle to out big one another has not been without serious dislocation and many casualties. K-Mart gave up in Canada while Zellers now provides the backbone of the revenue for the Bay, Eatons is gone and the Sears upscale version using a few fancy Eaton's stores is a laughable flop. Only Zellers and Canadian Tire continue to score in the Canadian retail marketplace and WalMarts scurry to build new outlets shows that it is far less than dominating the marketplace. The real losers have been the consumer, instead of this head to head conflict of retail giants producing a bonanza of bargains the consumer has seen two things happen. Product quality decline and the number of choices drastically reduced. Since WalMart stocks its stores with cheap, but limited numbers of products it continues to offer low prices but the consumer has much less to choose from. Pro-Hardware and Revy have concentrated on building outlets that are simply to large to be located anywhere but in the largest urban centres and for people not in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Regina or Saskatoon the marketplace has actually shrunk. What we should expect to develop are more and more niche marketers who will discover that the big box stores are missing the specialties that the consumer demands and we should see a resurgence in diversified small retailers, unfortunately these will most like by in franchise chains. In the meantime its time to start checking out eCommerce and see what's online.