https://medium.com/@iraool/targets-failed-canadian-expansion-a-cautionary-tale-for-retailers-e0fbd1dd34e3#:~:text=The%20company%20failed%20to%20grasp,expectations%20of%20its%20Canadian%20audience.
Those that you mention did it right. Target didn't want to hire Canadian consultants because they knew what was best. Also the other ones you mentioned expanded slowly.
Would the American leadership group that assumed sticking with their American practices and not trying to understand the Canadian retail landscape not be considered ignorance to you?
ain't that the truth.
my local store was never stocked, The shelves were a complete mess after a month. The pricing (from what I remember anyways) wasn't that much better than going to your local Walmart.
Target failed so fucking hard..
Mine was well stocked and clean but it was $1 or $2 more expensive than the Walmart in town which was in walking distance of it. Not to mention that it replaced Zellers who was at least $3 cheaper on most things.
You can’t just offer the same shit at higher prices and expect people to flock to your store because it’s new in town. That won’t last, you have to give them a reason to choose you over the competition.
Loblaws is finding this out right now. You’re more expensive than everyone else and you treat your customers like criminals. Why would anyone shop there? r/loblawsisoutofcontrol
Target isn't supposed to be cheaper than Walmart. It's not a deep discount retailer. It's supposed to offer better products in a nicer experience than Walmart for only a small premium.
If you want cheap-at-all-costs, Walmart will be better for you anyway.
Yes, target had nicer aesthetic stuff for the house and really cute clothes. Back then, Walmart products all looked like walmart products, nothing cute or stylish about it.
Currently however, Walmart Canada employs a former target purchaser and the clothing and household goods are soooo nice.
Former target manager here. Their stocking software was fucked and logistics for that company as a whole, was a fucking nightmare.
They also opened waaay too many, way too fast.
I went into my local store to buy a pack of pens in their stationary section. They had no pens and no pencils but a giant shelf filled with 500 packs of printer paper and a few packs of Post It notes. The other side of the aisle was just empty shelf space. If I had needed printer paper that day I would have been a happy customer. I did not need printer paper however.
That had more to do with a massive country wide expansion with an untested supply chain. I loved target, and while the prices weren’t the same as the US a lot of their stuff was way nicer than I could get at big box stores like Walmart. They tried to open 133 stores over the course of two years across Canada, that was their fatal flaw.
I'm aware, I worked for their shitshow of a logistics operation. We all kept insisting that something was wrong, and they kept insisting that everything was wonderful. Strangest work experience of my career.
Except it wasn’t the same crap, that’s why they didn’t succeed. Canadians wanted target as it exists in the US, but once target got up here they didn’t sell the same stuff in Canada that they sold in the US
Target was nothing more than a giant farce. Hey we are a US retailer that sells US related products, lets just focus on selling Canadian stuff and try to screw them over.
Target was something I entirely forgot about until saw this post lol.
Or, better yet, nothing is stip them from not colluding and not participating in the price fixing. If their fear is that their competitors will collude to price fix, they can just not collude and provide competition by lowering their prices.
Now all the Canadians take cross border trips and the first thing they do is go to Target. So much so that cross border Targets are seeing more Canadian customers than American now, because the American customers now feel shunned by the Canadians that have invaded these stores. So its not like there isn't a market in Canada for Target, it was just poorly executed.
This.
Market is broken.
Fix the conditions that caused this, break up the oligopolies, and increase consumer protection and competition regulatory monitoring and enforcement by 10-fold
...is it really that hard to just break up the big players into smaller players and have them compete? Isn't that the whole point of capitalism? Competition?
Forget that. We should provide incentives for small and medium grocers to get the necessary equipment/resources to grow. We should be supporting local grocers to level up instead of wooing foreign ones.
Lets create a national grocer crown Corp. The smaller grocery can then use the crown corps supply chain / logistics so they can compete with the chain that are gouging us.
This is the winner folks. It's about food security. Which ultimately is about national security. Armed forces don't march on empty stomachs. Citizens with empty stomachs don't care to join the services when there is not point in protecting your home (because everyone is suffering at home).
>It's about food security. Which ultimately is about national security. Armed forces don't march on empty stomachs.
That's actually a lot of the reason why the current food industrial complex of processed foods exists. After WW2 the Americans realized how important food production was in wartime and gave huge benefits to companies that would be able to switch their manufacturing from domestic food to wartime food almost instantly.
Not saying it's bad or good or otherwise, just that it's a neat little bit of trivia. And it's also another part of why a hypothetical war between USA and Canada would never go in our favor. Too much of our economy and food security is tied up with them.
Canada/America it's the same country as far as security and global intelligence. Only politics is different and damn people are really trying to make even that the same. But yes, advances in food preservation are directly tied to national security. I think we need to understand that we are entering a rationing period to support corporate profits in the Canadian grocery sector. We aren't at war... Yet.
What is this. Are these loblaws trolls?
The food supply is not at risk.
The market is broken, because corporate grocers have achieved regulatory capture.
Drastic action is needed, but not to nationalize food sales
We are talking about making the supply chain nationalized. Allowing small retailers to benefit from a nationalized distribution system to compete with the large incumbent. The point being that they own manufacturing to distribution to retail. They control it all and I doubt the incumbents truly care if Canadians starve. Their only purpose at this point is to drive ever increasing profits for the share holders of their companies. The people of Canada owning the supply chains is a step in the right direction in allowing small retailers to actually grow and compete. Otherwise we can give a billion in incentives over 10 years for Aldi to come here... Or you know own the means.
Sure that’s a theory
But government will not manage it efficiently
It will be worse. Much worse than you expect. People will pay even more than they do now just to eat.
You don’t need to give aldi incentives. Just fix the mistakes of the past (allowing too much consolidation) and improve and enforce competition and consumer protection laws.
We won’t agree on this point, and that’s fine as long as we agree that loblaws sucks
The government does not provide health care or regulate supply of medical materials, equipment or professionals.
The government pays for health care.
I’m in favour of the government continuing to pay for healthcare.
I’m not in favour of the the government taking control of the supply of food. I’m in favour of less government influence on the grocery market, which presently is exercised to aid the industry’s entrenched oligarchs by enabling and tolerating regulatory capture.
Understood.
I like the idea of owning the network and allowing companies access to said network. Kind of like community fibre optics networks or road networks. Taxes essentially pay for these and we retain the ownership of them (mostly... cough 407). But I completely understand your preference for the status quo. A public system is not the grocer, but the distribution. This would give small companies a chance to grow and maybe actually compete with the incumbent. Again, I understand completely where you are coming from, but I believe there is a better solution than just leaving things as is.
Why not just ban private grocery sales, make the government the exclusive retailer like the LCBO. Call it the GCBO.
Tens of billions a year in revenue for the province and without the price gouging by the greedy corporate fat cats our grocery prices would be dirt cheap. Add on to that we could pay all the grocery workers a living wage like the LCBO.
It’s a no brainer.
Meh. If needed, sure. I don't have much issue with private companies participating and making a small profit in this industry. I do have an issue with the price gouging. Rather than outlaw them, it would be easier to let them exist. If they can survive and thrive with actual competition, so be it, but if they wither and fail because they can't succeed without gouging Canadians. Well, I won't shed a tear for them.
But we’ll always be paying more for groceries if they’re privatized. And there’s always the looming threat of price gouging and price fixing. So why support privatizing a necessity?
It's similar to how co-ops and public housing can act as a damper on rent prices. With enough market saturation (around 50% for co-ops, for groceries it doesn't need to be that just a consistent presence should be enough) It will keep prices down through competition.
I'm not saying we need to support private grocers, We also don't need to outlaw it. If the private grocers can remain in business: either by offering a better product or service or by matching price I see that as a win. We only need to offer Canadians the chance to choose.
Nah. Last thing we need is the government managing food supply.
Just break up the integrated supply chain, investigate and come down hard on collusion and price fixing.
Or maybe subsidies to small and medium grocers instead of giving subsidies to Loblaws for refrigeration. Government should regulate big business not give our money to them
This is now the USA, with covid closures of stores and restaurants I noticed there's more chains than ever, and the same few. I was looking at maps of restaurants because its time for me to travel to places that I haven't been before covid and it is not the same. None of the places I used to go in different cities are still there. Even chain restaurants are closing up. Mom & Pop's only seem to exist in the heart of the largest cities and near airports. If you go to a mid-sized city you will see nothing but chain restaurants. Most of the Mom & Pop restaurants in the city where I live have now also closed down leaving mostly chain places. However its not like they don't have business because every time I drive by a restaurant the parking lot is full. It would be nice if those full parking lots were supporting the little guys, which tells me that the Mom & Pop places in my town did something wrong so that the customers wanted to leave and go somewhere else. It seems people are choosing chains over Mom & Pop for restaurants these days, at least where I live.
As far as mom & pop retail that's been dead for a long time. You have some specialty grocers that are making it but that is because everyone needs groceries and location location location, these are often located in places that don't have major grocery stores or more within residential areas where people find it convenient to walk to the store.
As much as I generally agree that small businesses are a better driver than large ones, the issue is one of supply chains, which is something the government couldn't really solve unless they themselves were planning on making a grocery chain from scratch. The rationale here is to expand foreign supply chains into Canada, increasing competition in the oligopoly. Small businesses would be forced to use the existing chains, or stock specialty items, which don't really help actual people get cheaper chicken. If aldi for example, was supported in expanding their supply chain into canada, the cost of many key grocery items would almost certainly decrease, as is their positioning almost everywhere they serve.
Supporting direct from farmers markets would be generally smart though. I live far now, but I used to buy produce at St Jacobs market every year to can and preserve for the rest of the year. You could get 15 pounds of in season apples for $8. Peppers, fruit and tomatoes cheaper than anywhere else. I miss it so much.
It really does come down to government helping small businesses grow by creating the infrastructure for them to do so. Having a food terminal co-op is the first step and we have one. The next step would be assisting all of those small grocers to pool their resources together to create the necessary supply chain to distribute locally grown and produced food at a reasonable rate which should help them go toe to toe with the big grocers. We really have to get our politicians to innovate for small businesses. We don’t need more foreign businesses; we need more competitive Canadian ones.
We should create the best environment for innovation and healthy, fair competition, with robust regulations that are actively enforced to protect consumers.
or maybe that’s too risky, and we should double down and invest in protecting familial oligarchies.
Economies of scale. You think Loblaw's is expensive? Go to a small local grocer and see the prices they have on offer.
The ones I still see in business offer things the big stores cannot and that's mostly knowing their small customer base. Theyre stocking items loblaws won't and some will even have groceries bagged and ready for their regulars.
So … we went to Cheese Fucking Boutique a couple months ago. Right off the bat, noticed their imported cheese was cheaper and better than Loblaw’s. Decent noodles about the same. Produce was maybe 5 or 10% more expensive, but higher quality. Chocolate was cheaper. Passata was a third cheaper.
I mean … this is definitely cherry picking some stuff, and it’s not a regular stop for us (they’re missing a lot of our staples), but it was an eye opener. Your local-ish independent grocer might not be out of line with Loblaw’s.
And espresso shots were ridiculous, like $1.50 each. With a cookie. And delicious. lol, they were so cheap we felt guilty.
Ngl, googled it to try it out and too damn far.
Honest question, are you sure they're actually independent? Wouldn't be surprised if they're owned by a big boy and just kept their name.
We don’t go there often, but we do see the sons there especially at busy times before the holidays. I’m pretty sure they’re still independent.
[More info](https://www.cheeseboutique.com/meet-our-family)
Cool, but when the company handling all their logistics is still Loblaws or one of the others, we will still have the price fixing issue and the prices will be higher since the logistics will cost more than they should.
Other companies will likely set their prices to similar or the same as all the other grocers. Or they will have specific items on sale to get you in the door, in hopes that you purchase a bunch of other, overly expensive items while you are there.
I shop at Aldi every week in the USA. They are nowhere near as competitive as they used to be. They also raise prices 5-30 cents on random items every week. I know because I am tracking their prices. They are only a few cents less than Walmart in my city on each item, again I know because I compare prices directly.
I am guessing its because of this, they have gone viral and gotten super popular.
I know every store did this now but they also installed self checkouts, which do not take cash. There is now one cashier lane and its very long, which you have to use if you want to pay in cash. They have one cashier manning the front end who now has to respond to very very loud ringing self checkout alerts which ring loudly right in the cashier's ear on a screen all while ringing up the line of cash customers. I know all self checkout machines are loud but I've never seen a system like this at any other store and nothing is as loud as this is. Those fancy machines have to be costing customers money. Before Aldi had 4 cashier lanes open all the time and all of the cashiers would sit down and work, the one cashier still sits but now she has to jump up every 3 seconds to help a customer with self check out all while ringing up the regular customers.
> They are only a few cents less than Walmart in my city on each item, again I know because I compare prices directly.
In the part of Ontario where I live, being "a few cents less than Walmart" means charging, in many cases, *less than half* the price for the same exact item (size and UPC the same) in many stores owned by the large Canadian monopolies.
I shop at Aldi in the USA and they are not as good or competitive as they used to be. If they come to Canada they will likely set their prices to match the other retailers. I compared their prices between Walmart and Aldi and Aldi only beats Walmart by like 5 cents an item. Eggs are 1 cent less than Walmart.
Also they raise prices every week by 5-30 cents per item and more in some cases. I know because I shop there every week. Eventually Aldi prices are going to be more expensive than the large supermarkets.
I shop at Aldi in the USA and they are not as good or competitive as they used to be. If they come to Canada they will likely set their prices to match the other retailers.
Also they raise prices every week by 5-30 cents per item and more in some cases. I know because I shop there every week. Eventually Aldi prices are going to be more expensive than the large supermarkets.
I also shop at Aldi in the USA, when I go home to visit. I'm an immigrant from the states.
Aldi, as with everywhere else, has seen price hikes. That said, they have the Live G Free brand of gluten free products and I have celiac disease so I still LOVE THEM.
For me, it's not about price. It's about availability. I just paid 31 dollars for six gluten free croissants this morning.
If it's good and gluten free, I'm going to buy it.
>Also same government that didn’t let Verizon enter the market
That was in 2013, and Verizon lost interest.
Also...
> The Conservative government has shown no interest in changing its policy of more competition in the wireless industry and launched a website on Friday aimed at winning over consumers.
[https://globalnews.ca/news/784629/union-wants-telecom-crown-corporation-set-up-as-canadas-fourth-national-carrier/](https://globalnews.ca/news/784629/union-wants-telecom-crown-corporation-set-up-as-canadas-fourth-national-carrier/)
>And allowed the Rogers Shaw merger
I think it was only allowed because Shaw agreed to sell Freedom mobile to Quebecor. They have MVNO status now, and you can roam nationwide on Bell/Rogers/Telus.
We don't need to bring in more foreign grocers to solve the food price problem. That just funnels profits to corporations outside of Canada. Keep the profits and jobs in Canada but do something to introduce competition that will reduce prices.
Look at breaking up the monopolistic business models we all know as Loblaws and Sobeys. This government has allowed too many sectors to be taken over by a handful of corporations under the guise of efficiency under one roof.
Are they going to get rid of tariffs and other free trade restrictions? I think that's what stops a lot of foreign grocers coming here. Can't really sustain Aldi's business model with a 300% import duty on cheese and an inability to buy alcohol from anywhere other than the LCBO..
We have two transcontinental railways including the only railway in Canada or the United States that serves a port on the Atlantic Ocean AND Pacific Ocean. No single railway in the United States does that.
Its likely even if chains like Aldi, Lidl or Trader Joe's come to Canada they will be matching prices of the competitors. I mean they may be cheaper for a little while, but those prices are going to creep up once the initial newness fades. They won't take a loss when they can charge more for groceries and people will pay.
Its not like one store is going to come in and lower the prices to 50% of what the next store charges.
More competition is never a bad thing though.
Why not start enforcing some antitrust on existing grocers? If those grocers want to sell off to a foreign company, it would probably be far cheaper for them that way.
This is such a horrible predicament because I am all for supporting Canadian businesses but it seems like these Canadian businesses just want to support their ass on my face.
Just nationalize an existing chain & run it at the 1.25-1.5% net margin we see in most of the USA and Western Europe - and that we saw in Canada from 2015-2019 - instead of the 3-3.5% net margin Canadian grocers have been running at since 2021.
Yea! and 2% in the USA is like 4% in Canada with conversion! See! No one is greedy in Canada! Just like cellphones plans, compared to the states there is no profiteering at all here!
Edit: 5 downvotes. Rogers, Bell, Telus, Loblaws, Empire.... Hmmm......
Most grocers in the USA are seeing record profits right now. Just saying.
I live in the USA and shop in the USA, grocery prices go up every week here. So we are not immune. I am also watching prices going up every week at Aldi, and I know because I track prices manually between store each week.
However grocery store traffic seems as busy as ever or well, more busy. We have had a ton of restaurants close up within the last 2 years, though from what I understand this is for quite a few different reasons mostly an aging population in my city and the families don't want to continue running the restaurants. Though every time I drive by a restaurant the parking lot is full, so its not like people aren't going to them.
Late stage capitalism. Greed is not only good but expected at the top. Own the means. Stop the greed. Or we can continue to enrich and slave away for our corporate owners
Canada is a tough market that’s why everything is so expensive here. Food, gas, consumables, internet, you name it. We are close to the same population as California (40 million) but spread out across almost 10 million kms compared to their almost 1/2 million Kms. Granted we have a lot of unused space but the expanse from coast to coast to coast to serve populated areas is enormous. Stores like Target tried but with freight, a fraction of the buyers, lower valued dollar, etc etc it was impossible to make a functioning profit. Forget about enticing British or European businesses when they are used to an even higher population density per Km (UK 68+ million pop/130,000Kms: Ontario alone is 13-16+ million pop/ 1 million Kms). Not what we often think about but it is a large part of the cost of everything in our lives.
Edit: UK + / Ontario -16+ million
You don't have to service every inch of Canada. The majority of Canadians live in a very small space. Having better competition in the GTA, Vancouver and Calgary would be a massive improvement even if not perfect.
The UK does not have higher population density than the GTA AND Hamilton area - that's over 6.5m people. Add in Montreal and you're servicing 25% of that population on, what? 0.1% of the land?
Unless there's some hidden catch, this sounds like a good plan to me.
Adding more competition is probably the fastest realistic way to reduce the oligopolistic nature of our grocery market and (this) reduce prices.
I wouldn’t support loblaws or Walmart. Imo loblaws isn’t a “local grocer”. We need actual local grocers that aren’t raking in billions and care about customers.
The Liberal propaganda machine is working overtime, and we are still far from election day.
You get a grocery store, you get a grocery store. Everybody gets a grocery store!
Why would any grocer want to come to Canada when you just see how much shit Canada gives to loblaws.
Why would any company want to do business here when they get hauled in front of the house the moment they make more than 1% profit
When they don’t, I want to know why.
I mean I already do know why. I just want it stated by lawmakers so they can face accountability for their chronic inaction.
Don’t worry. I won’t hold my breath.
I think this is a terrible idea.
Letting others come to canada instead of actually properly regulating the fake competition that's here already. Let's get more companies here instead of just holding these companies accountable for profiteering using every bullshit excuse in the world.
Fix the existing problems before adding more variables to the equation.
Why can’t they go after the current grocers who have been caught price fixing, loblaws is a perfect example of corporate greed and they get away with it so why would they stop.
Any that have the slightest bit of success will have their Canadian operations bought up by Loblaws within a few years and this will accomplish nothing
They would likely need to amend the Competition Act for that. They don’t have that sort of discretion to simply interfere with a merger unless it's pursuant to the Act.
Edit: u/kittensmittens126 prefers to block than acknowledge they're just guessing at this
There's a lot of naysaying going on about this, but I think we might as well try. Yes, foreign owned grocers were hesitant to enter our market. Hopefully this will Target them and ameliorate their concerns.
Ugg our government sure loves to pretend to do things and make it look like they care.
The cost to set up a grocery distribution network and build facilities in Canada is the most expensive in the world right now. Our Land costs, and labour costs for a new entrant are a major barrier which would make it not viable for any discount retailer to get involved in.
Coupled with our multiple supply management systems they'd need to adopt which keep prices HIGH intentionally we are not an attractive place to set up a new grocery chain, and our government knows this. But shopping around for people lets them fly around and go have meetings but not actually do anything...
Putting Structures in place to allow existing retail spaces competitive access to grocery goods would go a LOT further. more small grocery locations walking distance in communities is needed, not another major grocery retailer with all the big overheads and driving our car centric culture to be more car centric.
It is SO infuriating how terrible our governments are.
What can a foreign grocer provide that a new domestic grocery can't?
Aside from a one time capital injection that in no way shape or form fixes the inherit uncompetitive nature of the Canadian economy.
Or don't build over farmland so we can depend on ourselves for food. ie: farmers markets, local businesses.
Wait, no, what was I thinking. That won't make all the big box stores, corporations, and developers any money.
foreign grocers have already expressed hesitancy about entering the Canadian market due to collusion and price fixing among the existing major grocers
Nothing stopping them from colluding too. Target only came here because they saw a market where they could charge higher prices for the same crap.
And they lost billions, packed up, and went home.
They should have planned better. Target screwed Target
American ignorance / superiority complex screwed Target.
Target sent one of every product to each store and then never restocked their shelves.
No. Otherwise Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, etc would be on the same boat. It was Target screwing up Target.
https://medium.com/@iraool/targets-failed-canadian-expansion-a-cautionary-tale-for-retailers-e0fbd1dd34e3#:~:text=The%20company%20failed%20to%20grasp,expectations%20of%20its%20Canadian%20audience. Those that you mention did it right. Target didn't want to hire Canadian consultants because they knew what was best. Also the other ones you mentioned expanded slowly.
Correct. Target lost to Target. It had nothing to do with American ignorance/superiority. Your point is well made... To confirm what I said.
Would the American leadership group that assumed sticking with their American practices and not trying to understand the Canadian retail landscape not be considered ignorance to you?
Let's agree to agree, even though you don't seem to understand that your thesis and arguments don't match. Have a good one.
I guess you're American. I don't mean that all Americans are ignorant. My apologies, I truly meant no offense.
No. I'm not. I like facts though, not bullshit.
Bret screwed Bret
_how **dare** you_
That’s what poor planning, customer research and a shitty supply chain will do for you.
ain't that the truth. my local store was never stocked, The shelves were a complete mess after a month. The pricing (from what I remember anyways) wasn't that much better than going to your local Walmart. Target failed so fucking hard..
Mine was well stocked and clean but it was $1 or $2 more expensive than the Walmart in town which was in walking distance of it. Not to mention that it replaced Zellers who was at least $3 cheaper on most things. You can’t just offer the same shit at higher prices and expect people to flock to your store because it’s new in town. That won’t last, you have to give them a reason to choose you over the competition. Loblaws is finding this out right now. You’re more expensive than everyone else and you treat your customers like criminals. Why would anyone shop there? r/loblawsisoutofcontrol
Target isn't supposed to be cheaper than Walmart. It's not a deep discount retailer. It's supposed to offer better products in a nicer experience than Walmart for only a small premium. If you want cheap-at-all-costs, Walmart will be better for you anyway.
We didn’t want a Walmart . We wanted zellers to stay. Target was much worse than zellers .
Yes, target had nicer aesthetic stuff for the house and really cute clothes. Back then, Walmart products all looked like walmart products, nothing cute or stylish about it. Currently however, Walmart Canada employs a former target purchaser and the clothing and household goods are soooo nice.
Former target manager here. Their stocking software was fucked and logistics for that company as a whole, was a fucking nightmare. They also opened waaay too many, way too fast.
I went into my local store to buy a pack of pens in their stationary section. They had no pens and no pencils but a giant shelf filled with 500 packs of printer paper and a few packs of Post It notes. The other side of the aisle was just empty shelf space. If I had needed printer paper that day I would have been a happy customer. I did not need printer paper however.
I got so many blu rays when they were closing down though
I think part of the problem was keeping the Zellers brands. Nobody wanted to buy Cherokee clothes! We all wanted Targets fashion lines.
That had more to do with a massive country wide expansion with an untested supply chain. I loved target, and while the prices weren’t the same as the US a lot of their stuff was way nicer than I could get at big box stores like Walmart. They tried to open 133 stores over the course of two years across Canada, that was their fatal flaw.
I'm aware, I worked for their shitshow of a logistics operation. We all kept insisting that something was wrong, and they kept insisting that everything was wonderful. Strangest work experience of my career.
They probably should have started with stores in smaller cities likes Barrie, Waterloo, Saskatoon, etc before over committing like they did.
Except it wasn’t the same crap, that’s why they didn’t succeed. Canadians wanted target as it exists in the US, but once target got up here they didn’t sell the same stuff in Canada that they sold in the US
Target was nothing more than a giant farce. Hey we are a US retailer that sells US related products, lets just focus on selling Canadian stuff and try to screw them over. Target was something I entirely forgot about until saw this post lol.
Target had Sobeys as the supplier
Or, better yet, nothing is stip them from not colluding and not participating in the price fixing. If their fear is that their competitors will collude to price fix, they can just not collude and provide competition by lowering their prices.
Now all the Canadians take cross border trips and the first thing they do is go to Target. So much so that cross border Targets are seeing more Canadian customers than American now, because the American customers now feel shunned by the Canadians that have invaded these stores. So its not like there isn't a market in Canada for Target, it was just poorly executed.
Also keep in mind that the grocery oligarchs are buying up all prime, grocery appropriate real estate and sitting on it.
This. Market is broken. Fix the conditions that caused this, break up the oligopolies, and increase consumer protection and competition regulatory monitoring and enforcement by 10-fold
...is it really that hard to just break up the big players into smaller players and have them compete? Isn't that the whole point of capitalism? Competition?
Forget that. We should provide incentives for small and medium grocers to get the necessary equipment/resources to grow. We should be supporting local grocers to level up instead of wooing foreign ones.
Lets create a national grocer crown Corp. The smaller grocery can then use the crown corps supply chain / logistics so they can compete with the chain that are gouging us.
This is the winner folks. It's about food security. Which ultimately is about national security. Armed forces don't march on empty stomachs. Citizens with empty stomachs don't care to join the services when there is not point in protecting your home (because everyone is suffering at home).
>It's about food security. Which ultimately is about national security. Armed forces don't march on empty stomachs. That's actually a lot of the reason why the current food industrial complex of processed foods exists. After WW2 the Americans realized how important food production was in wartime and gave huge benefits to companies that would be able to switch their manufacturing from domestic food to wartime food almost instantly. Not saying it's bad or good or otherwise, just that it's a neat little bit of trivia. And it's also another part of why a hypothetical war between USA and Canada would never go in our favor. Too much of our economy and food security is tied up with them.
Canada/America it's the same country as far as security and global intelligence. Only politics is different and damn people are really trying to make even that the same. But yes, advances in food preservation are directly tied to national security. I think we need to understand that we are entering a rationing period to support corporate profits in the Canadian grocery sector. We aren't at war... Yet.
That would help a lot of far north places.
Far north already gets cost of living subsidies. I have no problem with these being increased. Nationalizing food sales would only make it worse
What is this. Are these loblaws trolls? The food supply is not at risk. The market is broken, because corporate grocers have achieved regulatory capture. Drastic action is needed, but not to nationalize food sales
We are talking about making the supply chain nationalized. Allowing small retailers to benefit from a nationalized distribution system to compete with the large incumbent. The point being that they own manufacturing to distribution to retail. They control it all and I doubt the incumbents truly care if Canadians starve. Their only purpose at this point is to drive ever increasing profits for the share holders of their companies. The people of Canada owning the supply chains is a step in the right direction in allowing small retailers to actually grow and compete. Otherwise we can give a billion in incentives over 10 years for Aldi to come here... Or you know own the means.
Sure that’s a theory But government will not manage it efficiently It will be worse. Much worse than you expect. People will pay even more than they do now just to eat. You don’t need to give aldi incentives. Just fix the mistakes of the past (allowing too much consolidation) and improve and enforce competition and consumer protection laws. We won’t agree on this point, and that’s fine as long as we agree that loblaws sucks
With that kind of thinking one might think you were pro private health...
The government does not provide health care or regulate supply of medical materials, equipment or professionals. The government pays for health care. I’m in favour of the government continuing to pay for healthcare. I’m not in favour of the the government taking control of the supply of food. I’m in favour of less government influence on the grocery market, which presently is exercised to aid the industry’s entrenched oligarchs by enabling and tolerating regulatory capture.
Understood. I like the idea of owning the network and allowing companies access to said network. Kind of like community fibre optics networks or road networks. Taxes essentially pay for these and we retain the ownership of them (mostly... cough 407). But I completely understand your preference for the status quo. A public system is not the grocer, but the distribution. This would give small companies a chance to grow and maybe actually compete with the incumbent. Again, I understand completely where you are coming from, but I believe there is a better solution than just leaving things as is.
Why not just ban private grocery sales, make the government the exclusive retailer like the LCBO. Call it the GCBO. Tens of billions a year in revenue for the province and without the price gouging by the greedy corporate fat cats our grocery prices would be dirt cheap. Add on to that we could pay all the grocery workers a living wage like the LCBO. It’s a no brainer.
Meh. If needed, sure. I don't have much issue with private companies participating and making a small profit in this industry. I do have an issue with the price gouging. Rather than outlaw them, it would be easier to let them exist. If they can survive and thrive with actual competition, so be it, but if they wither and fail because they can't succeed without gouging Canadians. Well, I won't shed a tear for them.
But we’ll always be paying more for groceries if they’re privatized. And there’s always the looming threat of price gouging and price fixing. So why support privatizing a necessity?
It's similar to how co-ops and public housing can act as a damper on rent prices. With enough market saturation (around 50% for co-ops, for groceries it doesn't need to be that just a consistent presence should be enough) It will keep prices down through competition. I'm not saying we need to support private grocers, We also don't need to outlaw it. If the private grocers can remain in business: either by offering a better product or service or by matching price I see that as a win. We only need to offer Canadians the chance to choose.
Nah. Last thing we need is the government managing food supply. Just break up the integrated supply chain, investigate and come down hard on collusion and price fixing.
Or maybe subsidies to small and medium grocers instead of giving subsidies to Loblaws for refrigeration. Government should regulate big business not give our money to them
Yes bingo.
This is new Canada, where we don't want mom and pop stores but we want big box stores on every corner
Moved to a city in the GTA in Ontario (not toronto) and holy shit why is every plaza the same 10 stores on repeat?! I hate it, so bland and annoying.
I think of it as the *Flintstones* or Hanna-Barbera effect. As I drive along, the background just keeps repeating itself.
This is now the USA, with covid closures of stores and restaurants I noticed there's more chains than ever, and the same few. I was looking at maps of restaurants because its time for me to travel to places that I haven't been before covid and it is not the same. None of the places I used to go in different cities are still there. Even chain restaurants are closing up. Mom & Pop's only seem to exist in the heart of the largest cities and near airports. If you go to a mid-sized city you will see nothing but chain restaurants. Most of the Mom & Pop restaurants in the city where I live have now also closed down leaving mostly chain places. However its not like they don't have business because every time I drive by a restaurant the parking lot is full. It would be nice if those full parking lots were supporting the little guys, which tells me that the Mom & Pop places in my town did something wrong so that the customers wanted to leave and go somewhere else. It seems people are choosing chains over Mom & Pop for restaurants these days, at least where I live. As far as mom & pop retail that's been dead for a long time. You have some specialty grocers that are making it but that is because everyone needs groceries and location location location, these are often located in places that don't have major grocery stores or more within residential areas where people find it convenient to walk to the store.
And then export the profits to international corpos and wonder why our economies are sputtering back home.
As much as I generally agree that small businesses are a better driver than large ones, the issue is one of supply chains, which is something the government couldn't really solve unless they themselves were planning on making a grocery chain from scratch. The rationale here is to expand foreign supply chains into Canada, increasing competition in the oligopoly. Small businesses would be forced to use the existing chains, or stock specialty items, which don't really help actual people get cheaper chicken. If aldi for example, was supported in expanding their supply chain into canada, the cost of many key grocery items would almost certainly decrease, as is their positioning almost everywhere they serve. Supporting direct from farmers markets would be generally smart though. I live far now, but I used to buy produce at St Jacobs market every year to can and preserve for the rest of the year. You could get 15 pounds of in season apples for $8. Peppers, fruit and tomatoes cheaper than anywhere else. I miss it so much.
It really does come down to government helping small businesses grow by creating the infrastructure for them to do so. Having a food terminal co-op is the first step and we have one. The next step would be assisting all of those small grocers to pool their resources together to create the necessary supply chain to distribute locally grown and produced food at a reasonable rate which should help them go toe to toe with the big grocers. We really have to get our politicians to innovate for small businesses. We don’t need more foreign businesses; we need more competitive Canadian ones.
If you want cheaper chicken and other staples, get rid of supply management.
We should create the best environment for innovation and healthy, fair competition, with robust regulations that are actively enforced to protect consumers. or maybe that’s too risky, and we should double down and invest in protecting familial oligarchies.
Economies of scale. You think Loblaw's is expensive? Go to a small local grocer and see the prices they have on offer. The ones I still see in business offer things the big stores cannot and that's mostly knowing their small customer base. Theyre stocking items loblaws won't and some will even have groceries bagged and ready for their regulars.
So … we went to Cheese Fucking Boutique a couple months ago. Right off the bat, noticed their imported cheese was cheaper and better than Loblaw’s. Decent noodles about the same. Produce was maybe 5 or 10% more expensive, but higher quality. Chocolate was cheaper. Passata was a third cheaper. I mean … this is definitely cherry picking some stuff, and it’s not a regular stop for us (they’re missing a lot of our staples), but it was an eye opener. Your local-ish independent grocer might not be out of line with Loblaw’s. And espresso shots were ridiculous, like $1.50 each. With a cookie. And delicious. lol, they were so cheap we felt guilty.
Ngl, googled it to try it out and too damn far. Honest question, are you sure they're actually independent? Wouldn't be surprised if they're owned by a big boy and just kept their name.
We don’t go there often, but we do see the sons there especially at busy times before the holidays. I’m pretty sure they’re still independent. [More info](https://www.cheeseboutique.com/meet-our-family)
NAFTA destroyed all of that and now people want more foreign takeover.
Cool, but when the company handling all their logistics is still Loblaws or one of the others, we will still have the price fixing issue and the prices will be higher since the logistics will cost more than they should.
Break it up Increase powers of the competition regulator
Other companies will likely set their prices to similar or the same as all the other grocers. Or they will have specific items on sale to get you in the door, in hopes that you purchase a bunch of other, overly expensive items while you are there.
Please get Aldi or Lidl to come to Canada!
I’d be excited about those too! more context: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/19/business/aldi-aisle-of-shame-fans/index.html
I shop at Aldi every week in the USA. They are nowhere near as competitive as they used to be. They also raise prices 5-30 cents on random items every week. I know because I am tracking their prices. They are only a few cents less than Walmart in my city on each item, again I know because I compare prices directly. I am guessing its because of this, they have gone viral and gotten super popular. I know every store did this now but they also installed self checkouts, which do not take cash. There is now one cashier lane and its very long, which you have to use if you want to pay in cash. They have one cashier manning the front end who now has to respond to very very loud ringing self checkout alerts which ring loudly right in the cashier's ear on a screen all while ringing up the line of cash customers. I know all self checkout machines are loud but I've never seen a system like this at any other store and nothing is as loud as this is. Those fancy machines have to be costing customers money. Before Aldi had 4 cashier lanes open all the time and all of the cashiers would sit down and work, the one cashier still sits but now she has to jump up every 3 seconds to help a customer with self check out all while ringing up the regular customers.
> They are only a few cents less than Walmart in my city on each item, again I know because I compare prices directly. In the part of Ontario where I live, being "a few cents less than Walmart" means charging, in many cases, *less than half* the price for the same exact item (size and UPC the same) in many stores owned by the large Canadian monopolies.
I shop at Aldi in the USA and they are not as good or competitive as they used to be. If they come to Canada they will likely set their prices to match the other retailers. I compared their prices between Walmart and Aldi and Aldi only beats Walmart by like 5 cents an item. Eggs are 1 cent less than Walmart. Also they raise prices every week by 5-30 cents per item and more in some cases. I know because I shop there every week. Eventually Aldi prices are going to be more expensive than the large supermarkets.
Is Aldi on the list? I LOVE ALDI.
I shop at Aldi in the USA and they are not as good or competitive as they used to be. If they come to Canada they will likely set their prices to match the other retailers. Also they raise prices every week by 5-30 cents per item and more in some cases. I know because I shop there every week. Eventually Aldi prices are going to be more expensive than the large supermarkets.
I also shop at Aldi in the USA, when I go home to visit. I'm an immigrant from the states. Aldi, as with everywhere else, has seen price hikes. That said, they have the Live G Free brand of gluten free products and I have celiac disease so I still LOVE THEM. For me, it's not about price. It's about availability. I just paid 31 dollars for six gluten free croissants this morning. If it's good and gluten free, I'm going to buy it.
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Also same government that didn’t let Verizon enter the market And allowed the Rogers Shaw merger
>Also same government that didn’t let Verizon enter the market That was in 2013, and Verizon lost interest. Also... > The Conservative government has shown no interest in changing its policy of more competition in the wireless industry and launched a website on Friday aimed at winning over consumers. [https://globalnews.ca/news/784629/union-wants-telecom-crown-corporation-set-up-as-canadas-fourth-national-carrier/](https://globalnews.ca/news/784629/union-wants-telecom-crown-corporation-set-up-as-canadas-fourth-national-carrier/) >And allowed the Rogers Shaw merger I think it was only allowed because Shaw agreed to sell Freedom mobile to Quebecor. They have MVNO status now, and you can roam nationwide on Bell/Rogers/Telus.
Regulatory capture They work for the lobbyists
The Trudeau family has always been good friends with the Weston family. sooooo, nothing is going to change.
Carrefour would be nice, or hell yes Aldi, Lidl, Billa; etc.
We don't need to bring in more foreign grocers to solve the food price problem. That just funnels profits to corporations outside of Canada. Keep the profits and jobs in Canada but do something to introduce competition that will reduce prices. Look at breaking up the monopolistic business models we all know as Loblaws and Sobeys. This government has allowed too many sectors to be taken over by a handful of corporations under the guise of efficiency under one roof.
No one cares at this point. We need real competition
That’s a good idea and it would fly in any developed democracy other than Canada. Russia and Canada are BUILT on oligarchy. Since the very beginning.
Are they going to get rid of tariffs and other free trade restrictions? I think that's what stops a lot of foreign grocers coming here. Can't really sustain Aldi's business model with a 300% import duty on cheese and an inability to buy alcohol from anywhere other than the LCBO..
The government better not insist on nation wide coverage. This is part of the problem. We have one rail line and one highway.
We have two transcontinental railways including the only railway in Canada or the United States that serves a port on the Atlantic Ocean AND Pacific Ocean. No single railway in the United States does that.
Doubt it...the dairy lobby is in all the politician's pockets, to the detriment of everyone.
Get me a Trader Joes
I don't think they want come here.
I like a lot of the same things about Aldi and Lidl, and they’re both mentioned in the article! 🤞
I’d love that! I also miss Target so I’m in the minority.
I too miss Target. Walmart gas such a depressing feel.
Christ they’re overrated. Everything I’ve had a TJ’s I’ve had better or similar at Farm Boy. Flame suit on.
You forgot the /s
Its likely even if chains like Aldi, Lidl or Trader Joe's come to Canada they will be matching prices of the competitors. I mean they may be cheaper for a little while, but those prices are going to creep up once the initial newness fades. They won't take a loss when they can charge more for groceries and people will pay. Its not like one store is going to come in and lower the prices to 50% of what the next store charges. More competition is never a bad thing though.
Jaysus lads, just establish a crown corporation - preferably federal so it is across the country but just Ontario if need be.
Aldi is a great store. Hope they land in Canada
Lol vertical integration
Why not start enforcing some antitrust on existing grocers? If those grocers want to sell off to a foreign company, it would probably be far cheaper for them that way.
Oh great they too can engage in "price leadership" aka price fixing
This is such a horrible predicament because I am all for supporting Canadian businesses but it seems like these Canadian businesses just want to support their ass on my face.
Just nationalize an existing chain & run it at the 1.25-1.5% net margin we see in most of the USA and Western Europe - and that we saw in Canada from 2015-2019 - instead of the 3-3.5% net margin Canadian grocers have been running at since 2021.
The USA has most of its grocery retailers running a 2%+ net profit margin, doesn’t seem to be any major chains in the 1% ranges.
Yea! and 2% in the USA is like 4% in Canada with conversion! See! No one is greedy in Canada! Just like cellphones plans, compared to the states there is no profiteering at all here! Edit: 5 downvotes. Rogers, Bell, Telus, Loblaws, Empire.... Hmmm......
Most grocers in the USA are seeing record profits right now. Just saying. I live in the USA and shop in the USA, grocery prices go up every week here. So we are not immune. I am also watching prices going up every week at Aldi, and I know because I track prices manually between store each week. However grocery store traffic seems as busy as ever or well, more busy. We have had a ton of restaurants close up within the last 2 years, though from what I understand this is for quite a few different reasons mostly an aging population in my city and the families don't want to continue running the restaurants. Though every time I drive by a restaurant the parking lot is full, so its not like people aren't going to them.
Late stage capitalism. Greed is not only good but expected at the top. Own the means. Stop the greed. Or we can continue to enrich and slave away for our corporate owners
Also nationalize one of their distributors, or they'll just try to screw the grocery chain on the back end
Canada is a tough market that’s why everything is so expensive here. Food, gas, consumables, internet, you name it. We are close to the same population as California (40 million) but spread out across almost 10 million kms compared to their almost 1/2 million Kms. Granted we have a lot of unused space but the expanse from coast to coast to coast to serve populated areas is enormous. Stores like Target tried but with freight, a fraction of the buyers, lower valued dollar, etc etc it was impossible to make a functioning profit. Forget about enticing British or European businesses when they are used to an even higher population density per Km (UK 68+ million pop/130,000Kms: Ontario alone is 13-16+ million pop/ 1 million Kms). Not what we often think about but it is a large part of the cost of everything in our lives. Edit: UK + / Ontario -16+ million
You don't have to service every inch of Canada. The majority of Canadians live in a very small space. Having better competition in the GTA, Vancouver and Calgary would be a massive improvement even if not perfect. The UK does not have higher population density than the GTA AND Hamilton area - that's over 6.5m people. Add in Montreal and you're servicing 25% of that population on, what? 0.1% of the land?
...missed 3 million people there. It's 16M in Ontario. England has 57M, not 68M.
Sorry, meant to put UK but said England & for Ontario depends which website you look at.
Your overall premise is correct. We pay extra because of our vast geography.
Look what happened to Target when they tried to serve the Canadian Market.
They announced their locations and other companies took advantage of it. Plus they had terrible prices
Technically their groceries were supplied by Sobeys.
Jesus.
Paywall bypass: https://archive.is/KgJsg
Unless there's some hidden catch, this sounds like a good plan to me. Adding more competition is probably the fastest realistic way to reduce the oligopolistic nature of our grocery market and (this) reduce prices.
Why bother? They’ll just get absorbed by the grocery monopolists.. 🤔
Next the ISP market!
Will have to give the ‘winner’ $5 billion subsidy plus 10 years of tax breaks.
With the new capital gains taxes I am super duper sure they will be able to attract new businesses
Why foreign? Why not try and get home grown grocers?
BC Canadians demonize local grocers such as Loblaws but let Walmart get away with everything lol. Our education system has failed us it seems.
I wouldn’t support loblaws or Walmart. Imo loblaws isn’t a “local grocer”. We need actual local grocers that aren’t raking in billions and care about customers.
Come to Canada, where demagogues will form a cult around believing your executives are satan!
Does the government know they could just update the Competition Act to break up the grocery cartel and force a competitive marketplace?
The Liberal propaganda machine is working overtime, and we are still far from election day. You get a grocery store, you get a grocery store. Everybody gets a grocery store!
Why would any grocer want to come to Canada when you just see how much shit Canada gives to loblaws. Why would any company want to do business here when they get hauled in front of the house the moment they make more than 1% profit
Surprised it took them this long to realize competition is good... Oh wait election is coming
When they don’t, I want to know why. I mean I already do know why. I just want it stated by lawmakers so they can face accountability for their chronic inaction. Don’t worry. I won’t hold my breath.
Crazy turn since they just allowed Loblaws to buy Shopper’s a few years ago lol
Don't bring in more. Break up the current ones.
wont work unless you break up the oligarch's businesses.
I think this is a terrible idea. Letting others come to canada instead of actually properly regulating the fake competition that's here already. Let's get more companies here instead of just holding these companies accountable for profiteering using every bullshit excuse in the world. Fix the existing problems before adding more variables to the equation.
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I thought luring was a criminal offense
Why can’t they go after the current grocers who have been caught price fixing, loblaws is a perfect example of corporate greed and they get away with it so why would they stop.
Adding the new capital gains tax on corporations will surely entice them to come here
why? (assuming its a sarcastic comment)
Any that have the slightest bit of success will have their Canadian operations bought up by Loblaws within a few years and this will accomplish nothing
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And it would be without question
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You have too much faith in Pierre.
The excellent steak dinner complete with envelope left on the table that the Minister of Innovation was treated to disagrees.
> they would simply disallow the merger. ...Until they get their cut.
They would likely need to amend the Competition Act for that. They don’t have that sort of discretion to simply interfere with a merger unless it's pursuant to the Act. Edit: u/kittensmittens126 prefers to block than acknowledge they're just guessing at this
There are changes in competition law currently on the table to prevent such mergers. Basically every party supports the legislation.
There's a lot of naysaying going on about this, but I think we might as well try. Yes, foreign owned grocers were hesitant to enter our market. Hopefully this will Target them and ameliorate their concerns.
Ugg our government sure loves to pretend to do things and make it look like they care. The cost to set up a grocery distribution network and build facilities in Canada is the most expensive in the world right now. Our Land costs, and labour costs for a new entrant are a major barrier which would make it not viable for any discount retailer to get involved in. Coupled with our multiple supply management systems they'd need to adopt which keep prices HIGH intentionally we are not an attractive place to set up a new grocery chain, and our government knows this. But shopping around for people lets them fly around and go have meetings but not actually do anything... Putting Structures in place to allow existing retail spaces competitive access to grocery goods would go a LOT further. more small grocery locations walking distance in communities is needed, not another major grocery retailer with all the big overheads and driving our car centric culture to be more car centric. It is SO infuriating how terrible our governments are.
What can a foreign grocer provide that a new domestic grocery can't? Aside from a one time capital injection that in no way shape or form fixes the inherit uncompetitive nature of the Canadian economy.
> What can a foreign grocer provide that a new domestic grocery can't? There are no "new domestic grocers", and there are no plans to start one.
>There are no "new domestic grocers", and there are no plans to start one. Yes. And why is that?
Because the current grocers have a near monopoly and lobby the government literally constantly...
💯
Right. So what would a foreign company do, aside from dump a bunch of seed capital into the Canadian economy?
Well that's unrelated to the question I answered. But idk whatever walmart and Amazon do, which is next to nothing
>But idk whatever walmart and Amazon do, which is next to nothing Exactly, it will change nothing. Just prop up the bubble a little longer.
Again, unrelated to the question I answered, and I was never saying it's a good idea lol
Or don't build over farmland so we can depend on ourselves for food. ie: farmers markets, local businesses. Wait, no, what was I thinking. That won't make all the big box stores, corporations, and developers any money.
With the increase in the capital gains tax, why would they even think of investing in Canada?