The Off Topic Topic

[crazy canuck]

Target's really not that cheap.

That's not its niche.  Target aims to be a fancier Walmart where the customers can use their hands for something other than holding their nose.  Their prices are competitive but not rock bottom.

That's the issue right here. Walmart in Canada is not rock bottom. Walmart is where Target is in the US, Target Canada positioned it self above Walmart just like in the USA. That was a mistake. The market place was expecting & demanded in social media, a direct competitor to Walmart.

They wanted the same prices and selection as the US target stores.  If not, why bother shopping at the Canadian Target stores?  Just keep going to the US.

[crazy canuck]

That's the issue right here. Walmart in Canada is not rock bottom. Walmart is where Target is in the US, Target Canada positioned it self above Walmart just like in the USA. That was a mistake. The market place was expecting & demanded in social media, a direct competitor to Walmart.

What's rock bottom in Canada, in your opinion?

Canadian Tire?

[CountDeMoney]

They wanted the same prices and selection as the US target stores.  If not, why bother shopping at the Canadian Target stores?  Just keep going to the US.

One would think somebody along the line in planning at Target would've figured that one out.

[Jacob]

Canadian Tire?

There's space below CT, I'd think, but I guess no one is staking out that position.

I'm sort of thinking Giant Tiger, though I've never seen one outside of Ontario and Quebec... and I haven't been in one for many years, so I don't actually know where it sits (or if it's even around).

In Vancouver I'd say the Army & Navy Store is below Canadian Tire, but that's must an individual store.

[crazy canuck]

They wanted the same prices and selection as the US target stores.  If not, why bother shopping at the Canadian Target stores?  Just keep going to the US.

One would think somebody along the line in planning at Target would've figured that one out.

The other thing I never really understood about it was even if they were successful in luring Canadians away from the American Target locations - why would they want to do that?   Why not just build more stores closer to the border to attract the business?   

[crazy canuck]

Canadian Tire?

There's space below CT, I'd think, but I guess no one is staking out that position.

I'm sort of thinking Giant Tiger, though I've never seen one outside of Ontario and Quebec... and I haven't been in one for many years, so I don't actually know where it sits (or if it's even around).

In Vancouver I'd say the Army & Navy Store is below Canadian Tire, but that's must an individual store.

It used to be Zellers but that is was what Target bought up to come to Canada.

[Malthus]

That's the issue right here. Walmart in Canada is not rock bottom. Walmart is where Target is in the US, Target Canada positioned it self above Walmart just like in the USA. That was a mistake. The market place was expecting & demanded in social media, a direct competitor to Walmart.

What's rock bottom in Canada, in your opinion?

Dollar stores? Goodwill?

[The Brain]

"Only" a burrito?

[Josephus]

I never really think of Canadian Tire as a junk store like Wal Mart.

I will always buy hardware stuff like tools or car accessories from CT. They sell normal-brand stuff.

I would never get caught inside a Dollar Store or WalMart,though. For a self-styled socialist I do have an aversion to poor people

Malthus...you remember Bi-Way...or maybe your parents never shopped there. Not sure if they were all over Canada or just Ontario. they closed in the 90s I think.  They were lower than Zellers was.

[Admiral Yi]

The one advantage of Dollar Store and its ilk is they're relatively small, so you don't have to walk past acres of lardasses to get what you need.

[Malthus]

I never really think of Canadian Tire as a junk store like Wal Mart.

I will always buy hardware stuff like tools or car accessories from CT. They sell normal-brand stuff.

I would never get caught inside a Dollar Store or WalMart,though. For a self-styled socialist I do have an aversion to poor people

Malthus...you remember Bi-Way...or maybe your parents never shopped there. Not sure if they were all over Canada or just Ontario. they closed in the 90s I think.  They were lower than Zellers was.

Never went to BiWay - though we did sometimes go to Honest Ed's (which fit the same market, I think).

I read somewhere that the BiWays mostly converted into Dollaramas ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollarama

[crazy canuck]

For a self-styled socialist I do have an aversion to poor people

Its because you don't want anyone to be poor. 

[Jacob]

Josephus, is Giant Tiger still around? And where would you rank it compared to Bi-Way?

[Tonitrus]

Oil isn't the only industry suffering....

Things are tough in the weed market too.

Growers struggle with glut of legal pot in Washington
Washington's legal marijuana market opened last summer to a dearth of weed. Some stores periodically closed because they didn't have pot to sell. Six months later, the equation has flipped, bringing serious growing pains to the new industry.


By GENE JOHNSON
The Associated Press


Washington's legal marijuana market opened last summer to a dearth of weed. Some stores periodically closed because they didn't have pot to sell. Prices were through the roof.

Six months later, the equation has flipped, bringing serious growing pains to the new industry.

A big harvest of sun-grown marijuana from eastern Washington last fall flooded the market. Prices are starting to come down in the state's licensed pot shops, but due to the glut, growers are — surprisingly — struggling to sell their marijuana. Some are already worried about going belly-up, finding it tougher than expected to make a living in legal weed.

"It's an economic nightmare," says Andrew Seitz, general manager at Dutch Brothers Farms in Seattle.

State data show that licensed growers had harvested 31,000 pounds of bud as of Thursday, but Washington's relatively few legal pot shops have sold less than one-fifth of that. Many of the state's marijuana users have stuck with the untaxed or much-lesser-taxed pot they get from black market dealers or unregulated medical dispensaries — limiting how quickly product moves off the shelves of legal stores.

"Every grower I know has got surplus inventory and they're concerned about it," said Scott Masengill, who has sold half of the 280 pounds he harvested from his pot farm in central Washington. "I don't know anybody getting rich."

Officials at the state Liquor Control Board, which regulates marijuana, aren't terribly concerned.

So far, there are about 270 licensed growers in Washington — but only about 85 open stores for them to sell to. That's partly due to a slow, difficult licensing process; retail applicants who haven't been ready to open; and pot business bans in many cities and counties.

The board's legal pot project manager, Randy Simmons, says he hopes about 100 more stores will open in the next few months, providing additional outlets for the weed that's been harvested. Washington is always likely to have a glut of marijuana after the outdoor crop comes in each fall, he suggested, as the outdoor growers typically harvest one big crop which they continue to sell throughout the year.

Weed is still pricey at the state's pot shops — often in the $23-to-$25-per-gram range. That's about twice the cost at medical dispensaries, but cheaper than it was a few months ago.

Simmons said he expects pot prices to keep fluctuating for the next year and a half: "It's the volatility of a new marketplace."

Colorado, the only other state with legal marijuana sales, has a differently structured industry. Regulators have kept a lid on production, though those limits were loosened last fall as part of a planned expansion of the market. Colorado growers still have to prove legal demand for their product, a regulatory curb aimed at preventing excess weed from spilling to other states. The result has been more demand than supply.

In Washington, many growers have unrealistic expectations about how quickly they should be able to recoup their initial investments, Simmons said. And some of the growers complaining about the low prices they're getting now also gouged the new stores amid shortages last summer.

Those include Seitz, who sold his first crop — 22 pounds — for just under $21 per gram: nearly $230,000 before his hefty $57,000 tax bill. He's about to harvest his second crop, but this time he expects to get just $4 per gram, when he has big bills to pay.

"We're running out of money," he said. "We need to make sales this month to stay operational, and we're going to be selling at losses."

Because of the high taxes on Washington's legal pot, Seitz says stores can never compete with the black market while paying growers sustainable prices.

He and other growers say it's been a mistake for the state to license so much production while the rollout of legal stores has lagged.

"If it's a natural bump from the outdoor harvest, that's one thing," said Jeremy Moberg, who is sitting on 1,500 pounds of unsold marijuana at his CannaSol Farms in north-central Washington. "If it's institutionally creating oversupply ... that's a problem."

Some retailers have been marking up the wholesale price three-fold or more — a practice that has some growers wondering if certain stores aren't cleaning up as they struggle.

"I got retailers beating me down to sell for black-market prices," said Fitz Couhig, owner of Pioneer Production and Processing in Arlington.

But two of the top-selling stores in Seattle — Uncle Ike's and Cannabis City — insist that because of their tax obligations and low demand for high-priced pot, they're not making any money either, despite each having sales of more than $600,000 per month.

Aaron Varney, a director at Dockside Cannabis, a retail shop in the Seattle suburb of Shoreline, said stores that exploit growers now could get bitten in the long run.

"Right now, the numbers will say that we're in the driver's seat," he said. "But that can change. We're looking to establish good relationships with the growers we're dealing with."

[Josquius]

Those "Destroy the world, mwa ha ha" bad guys never made sense.
Though I do remember one film...where the bad guys weren't quite destroy the world but wipe out humanity.
They were on to something,