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Why Canada Is Headed for a Retail Bloodbath - Sears Canada Could Be the Canary
in the Mineshaft Target has struggled since it entered the country. ●Walmart
has laid off 1,000 employees this year. ●Chapters/indigo, Danier, Reitman's and
Bikini Village are all closing stores. ●Jacob's, Bowrings and Bombay are
operating under court proceedings. Reitmans - closing stores and rebranding.
Mexx Canada in bankruptcy. Just to name a few. Two factors are hitting retailers
at the same time, creating the perfect storm for a retail bloodbath. 1)
Oversaturation: There are too many retailers chasing too few dollars in Canada.
Compounding the oversaturation problem is that the majority of the spending
power in Canada is concentrated in an area that is a few thousand miles long and
a hundred miles wide, which is expensive to service. 2) Digital Retailing:
Although we spend a third online of what Americans spend, digital retailing is
taking a big bite out of bricks and mortar retail sales. This will get way worse
over time. If medium and large retailers can't figure out a way to make their
online offering pick up the slack of its offline sister, expect them to continue
to shutter stores, lay off employees and become targets for cheap acquisition.
We predict three outcomes if medium and large retailers can't effectively
address oversaturation and the digital threat:
| 1. A culling of the marketplace: Chains
will merge, be acquired, go bankrupt or leave Canada until some sort
of economic equilibrium is achieved. |
| 2. Commercial real estate drop: If stores
continue to close and retail tenants can't be replaced fast enough,
the public companies that own many of our malls (commercial real
estate investment trusts or REITs), will have to compete more
aggressively for a shrinking pool of major tenants. "Compete more
aggressively" usually means lower their rents, resulting in lower
revenues for mall owners. This will put downward pressure on the
share prices of normally stable REITS. |
| 3. Supplier chaos: Behind every retailer
that is suffering stands hundreds or thousands of its suppliers who
are suffering too. For many of these suppliers, the chain that is
failing is their biggest client. Suppliers' orders get reduced,
their payment schedules get stretched, wreaking havoc with their
cash flow, and any future certainty of repeat sales disappears as
retailers plan on a month to month basis.
huffingtonpost.ca |
Canada's Gov't will be investigating your 'unfair' pricing - Aims to cut retail
price gap with U.S. - Watch Out Retailers! It's always been the
complaint for years. It's fueled cross-border shopping that takes billions from
Canadian retailers. And when the Canadian Push started, most Canadians thought
prices would come down - and they've done the opposite. Prices have actually
gone up. But now the government is stepping in by introducing a law to boost the
authority of the Competition Bureau to investigate suspected cases of price
discrimination and pursue court orders compelling companies to produce documents
justifying differences in prices. "It is called geographic price
discrimination," Moore said at an event in a Toronto-area toy store. "It
involves charging Canadians more than Americans for the exact same product
simply because of where we live." Moore said that the government is not
trying to regulate retail prices. The idea is to give consumers information
about unfair prices. Which means - watch out retailers here comes your bad
press. The bill, tabled in the Commons today, will: ● give the commissioner
of competition the power to investigate suspected cases of price discrimination.
● give the commissioner of competition the power to obtain court orders
compelling companies to produce documents to prove the difference in what they
charge is reasonable.
businessweek.com
cbc.ca
Canada police 'can search phones' after arrest
Canadian police can search the contents of a mobile phone after arrest, the
Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. In a 4-3 decision, the court said a warrant
was not needed as long as the search is directly related to the suspected crime
and records are kept. The outcome is opposite from a similar case decided in the
US Supreme Court in June. In a unanimous decision, the US high court said
searches of mobile phones must require a warrant, with few exceptions.
bbc.com
73% of Canadians want in-store pick up vs. home delivery - 23% of all online
sales are ship-to-store With e-commerce well behind the U.S. Canadians
are right up there with their expectations. when going online to purchase an
item that is unavailable at a local store, 73 per cent of Canadian consumers
said it is important for retailers to offer the option of having the item
shipped to the store for pickup instead of home delivery. In the past six
months, nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of customers who made online purchases
have opted for in-store pickup. The study also found retailers risk losing up to
17 percent of customers to competitors if they do not offer the convenience
of a ship-to-store option.
gnom.es
Canada's Black Friday
sales weakest in 3 years - traffic same as LY - Cyber Monday up 12%
Mexx Canada's 95 stores files Bankruptcy - Dutch
parent Mexx declared bankruptcy in Amsterdam as well
Toronto area police recover baby taken in vehicle
theft
Oakville, Ontario, Halton Regional Police Service implements Project
H.O.L.I.D.A.Y. They're including ORC in their program! Project
H.O.L.I.D.A.Y. will run from December 1, 2014 to January 31st, 2015. High
Enforcement on Repeat Offenders. Organized Retail Crime/Property
Crime Thefts from Vehicles & Residential Break and Enters: Increased levels of
visible/plain clothes police, Partnered work between Police and Retail
Representatives (Loss Prevention) combined with Education, Strategic Deployment,
Enhanced Investigative Strategies and devotion of additional investigative
resources. Links to Services/Mental Health - Impaired Drivers - Domestic
Incidents - Alcohol Related Issues - Youth Issues oakvillenews.org
Two men arrested in card-skimming operation going on across the Prairies in
Western Canada Police allege the men used fraudulent debit and credit
card terminals to steal people's card information as they made legitimate
transactions in stores. The investigation started following a tip in July that a
card-skimming operation was going on across the Prairies. Police used video
surveillance to identify four suspects. The frauds allegedly happened in
Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but police said they determined the group
was based in Saskatoon. While executing a search warrant at an apartment in the
city last Thursday, police said a man, 41, returned to the residence and was
promptly arrested. A second man, 39, was arrested this morning. Police found
numerous items that they believe were fraudulently obtained. Police are
continuing to investigate and have now asked for warrants for three other men
they believe are involved.
cbc.ca
2 women sentenced to jail for Birks $10,735 Grab and Run robbery in Carrefour
Laval in Montreal Two women who pleaded guilty to theft and
assault-related charges were sentenced to jail time after attempting to rob a
Birks jewelry store this weekend in the Carrefour Laval shopping centre. Police
said the women arrived at Birks around 2 p.m. on Saturday. According to Const.
Franco Di Genova of Laval police, when one woman asked to try on a watch that
cost $10,735, the other woman pepper-sprayed the store security guard. Di Genova
said both women ran for it, fleeing the mall and running to the nearby Sheraton
Hotel. Di Genova said when police tried to arrest them a few minutes later, one
of the officers was pepper-sprayed before they were successfully apprehended.
The women, from the Toronto area and Halifax, were charged with a litany of
offences, including theft, armed assault, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and
possession of a prohibited weapon.
cbc.ca
Man steals puppy from Nanaimo pet store
Someone definitely has their Grinch on after a man made off with a Daschund/Chihuahua
puppy from Paws N Jaws in a Nanaimo mall yesterday. According to Nanaimo RCMP, a
clerk at the local pet store in the North Town Centre mall said she was showing
a female customer a dog at about 3:30 p.m. when a male asked to see a puppy.
When the clerk returned another dog to its kennel and returned to the puppy
area, she noticed one of the two Daschund/Chihuahua puppies was missing. Staff
and police believe the male suspect put the puppy inside his jacket and walked
out of the store.
globalnews.ca |
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