Target got into the Canadian market with too many stores, too fast. Target should have been much more selective in opening stores in Canada. They should have focused on Canadian population centers, IE maybe 2 stores in Toronto, one in Ottawa, one in Montreal, maybe one in Winnipeg or Calgary, and one in Vancouver. Then build on that initial base.
Steven Manning, EXACTLY. At the very most they shouldn't have opened more than 25 stores throughout Canada initially. You don't go somewhere new and open 189 stores. That's stupidity on the part of Target. They could have made this work and they screwed it up by opening up too many stores too quickly.
Kaitie Montegomery We had a chain do the same here in southwest Arizona. Fresh & Easy opened a ton of stores all at once and now they're all gone. Poof!
BellyJae There was a regional grocery store chain that bought up all the Albertsons and some of the Safeway stores in Western Washington/Oregon called Haggen Grocery that did something similar to this in 2012. By 2015, Haggen was bankrupt, and closed 98% of all their stores.
Steven Manning It wasn't just that, they were unappealing stores, nothing to draw you in & high prices. Zellers was a great chain & missed by many. Target has no relationship with Cda. It was a very poor business move.
All my Canadian friends said the reason target closed was because they bought products for the Canadian market and therefore had stuff any other store had. The reason Canadians love Target is because they go across the border and buy American products at American prices and bring them back. With Canadian Target stores, having higher prices and sell things you can just get at Walmart... Then goodbye Target.
I'd agree with this. There are so many brands which Target carries in the U.S. which aren't available in Canada. Or, brands which we do have but there are more varieties/flavours. I remember going to a Target in Michigan and grabbing a Chap-Stick. I was blown away by the flavour options compared to what we have here. That's just a small example of many. This is what most Canadians were expecting - the same/similar brand selection as in the U.S., good pricing along with a clean, modern stores. When Target opened here I went once and that was it. The selection was terrible, the lighting was poor, and there were hardly any staff. Many empty shelves, and groups of shelving standing out in the open instead of being put away in storage or set up properly. I felt like I was shopping in a Biway (another Canadian retail reference) and that the store needed another few weeks to prepare. If Target would have had the same, or similar product selection as they do in the U.S. I think that they would have survived. Their logistics software issues would have been resolved in time (although whoever decided that they should have been the first customer on a new logistics system when rolling out in a new country should have been fired almost immediately for that. Anyone in IT should know not to rush headfirst into v1.0 of any application which handles anything mission critical). People would have given them a chance. It felt like Target tried to pull a bait & switch on us. The "we're coming!" ad campaigns were relentless. There were lineups for store openings as if it was Black Friday in the U.S. Instead, once you got inside, the Target which we got was nothing like the Target that we expected.
@@braydonvg03 if you did have super target you would get a deli and bakery and larger selection of groceries including both pizza hut and Starbucks and a optical but just so you know target isn't supposed to be cheap they are still expensive in the US either way but it makes sense for them to leave because of the low inventory
Exactly! My expectations was to have US items available in Canada and when I went into Target and seen the same items that Wal-Mart had but more expensive. I left the store in 20 minutes without purchasing anything and was very upset. I never went back and didn't care that they closed. If they do come back to Canada to retry in the future then I won't give them the time of day for the emotional scare still exists
Might be too late to mention but while the US and Australia both have Target stores, they are run by two entirely separate companies in which the only thing they have in common is the word Target and the bullseye.
@cpk1994 Target never licensed their business to Australia, a company just decided to wholesale steal the branding and things Target was doing in the US and made it happen in Australia.
Why would they open SO MANY STORES?! And so quickly. Generally speaking, we you enter a new market, you do a proof of concept and prove that people like your stores, it's also easier to keep operating because you don't have the expense of 130 stores...you only have 10 or 20. If they're struggling, it's not the end of the world. They can be propped up and worked with to get back in the green. But with THAT much overhead, it would be near impossible. Very strange strategy on the part of Target.
Yea I agree with ya. Target was either too ambitious or too over confident in thinking that they can steal some of Wal-Mart's Canadian consumers. They should've open only 10-20 stores in major cities like Toronto or Vancouver to test the waters.
I think it was way too much ambition. It could've been that their success in the States would carry over to Canada...then again, how has Canada's Wonderland survived a decade with Cedar Fair?
Target is so popular in the US, I guess they thought other countries would be just as enthusiastic? I think they should have opened at the most 30, and see how that went before building over 100. Bad business on their part.
A lot of Canadians wanted a Target, but we wanted a Target with the pricing of American stores (even compensated for the difference of the dollar). We didn't even get Targets with prices quite as good as the Zeller's they had taken over from.
The theory is called "economies of scale" meaning the more stores you have the cheaper each one is to operate because you buy in volume. Bottom line - they took a gamble and lost
Just a note on the last two Zellers in Canada. In 2019 the store in Nepean announced it was closing for good and started to liquidate. It'll be officially closed in 2020.
I live in Ottawa and there was a target 10 minutes from my house. At the time I thought it was great there was a target there, but I thought after they closed the doors I thought they moved too quickly. They should have moved in slowly to Canada opening a few stores in every city a year at least that way if it works they could open more stores rapidly if it fails they could sell the leases .
I agree. They could have gained experience with retail in Canada and it wouldn't have been so bad if they had lost money for a few years, because it would only have been a little bit.
A childhood memory of Sears Canada: As a licensed stationary steam plant engineer, My father was a Sears employee and operated the heating and air conditioning plant for Sears Midtown Plaza Saskatoon from the store opening in 1969 to his retirement in 1985. As a kid, some of my fondest memories of Sears Canada were that every Sunday morning dad had to go into the store (it was closed Sundays back in the 70s and very early 80's) and inspect the boilers/heating plant. Dad would often take us kids with him. One of my fondest memories was having the run of the toy department on a Sunday morning. Indeed, we got to zip down the dark isles on exotic new toys, bikes, trikes, electric cars, Big Wheels, etc. It was magical having a toy department entirely to ourselves on a Sunday morning. :-) Goodbye Sears Canada. You were part of my family. Indeed, our family home was filled with everything Sears - for decades. Indeed, growing up, Sears and Kenmore were really the only brand names with which i was familiar- LOL. We will miss you Sears Canada.
Great story. My family was s Sears family as well. Kenmore, weatherbeater paint, Sears tuff skins cloths, Allstate insurance & Craftsmens tools. All were built to last for generations... Sadly nothing is built to last....just memories...👍
My grandfather worked at the Sears tower in the 1970s as a manager in the men's apparel department. Sad to see the fate of Sears Roebuck and co. Certainly left a big legacy behind
Zellers closed because there prices were too low and weren’t making a profit, Target closed because there prices were too high and weren’t making a profit.
I loved Zellers. The Target that replaced the Zellers in Montréal had half empty shelves most of the time. It wasn't even worth the time going to see what they had.
A. Salmon Ik when I went to the zellers closest to me that got turned into a target and they offered less then zellers did for a more expensive price tag. I think the only time after that, that I stepped foot into that target was to get into the mall it was connected too lol.
Zeller's did fine with its "The lowest price is the law!" slogan and corporate culture until Walmart (then Wal-Mart) entered Canada, undercutting Z due to huge economies-of-scale buying power. I was furious that Canada allowed Wal-Mart in to compete on a field much skewed in its favour - and suck all that profit out of our country. 30 years later, I still avoid Walmart.
@@arnepianocanada I'm glad Walmart came to Canada. Don't know what I'd do without it. LOL. And lets be real. Zellers wasn't all that great even before Walmart arrived. Their stores were crappy and their prices weren't always the lowest even if that was their slogan. And also the quality of their merchandise was often bad as well. To me Walmart has generally decent quality stuff and they usually sell it at reasonable prices while Zellers often had crappy stuff that they tried to sell at not so reasonable prices. If Zellers had similar quality merchandise and they sold it at similar prices as Walmart, they might still be around today.
Target tried to do too much too quickly in Canada, and many of the Zellers locations were too small for the Target format. They also had severe supply chain issues and turned Canadian shoppers off with prices that were higher than US Target due to higher labour and transportation costs.
I live outside of Philadelphia (where I live three are three Target stores, two of them being a mile apart and occupying spaces that was once two prominent Philadelphia department store chains: John Wanamaker and Strawbridge & Clothier), and Target (before COVID) opened two "urban" (smaller footprint) stores in Center City as a demonstration that the company can operate stores on a smaller scale yet provide the same service like the standard stores outside of Center City.
I am a Canadian business student and was in first year when this all went down. It became a course business study for us, to the point where it was a major essay question on the final. Anyway, here are the main reasons we discussed as to why Target failed so tremendously (in no particular order): 1. Logistics and distribution. There are a lot of things that fall under this category. Canada is a very large country with a small population. Just shipping in Ontario is expensive, let alone across provinces. If I am remembering correctly, when Target first moved to Canada, they only had one or two shipping distribution centres. This is part of the reason there were empty shelves, especially at the beginning. Another reason is that stores were designed with shelves that were less deep, so store managers had to order more often and ran out sooner. 2. Expectations vs Reality Canadians had already been shopping at Target in the states for years and thought they knew what to expect. However, when they came to Canada, the prices weren't the same, the products weren't the same, it was different! (Prices are higher in canada because of higher shipping costs and tighter regulations. They couldn't just use their US products because of differences in nutritional labeling, suppliers, etc. An example of this would be the price and quality difference between Canadian and American milk.) As a result, a lot of people who had been enthusiastic about Target were disappointed by their first impression. 3. Time Delay The video mentioned that Zellers stores closed for 9 months before reopening as Target. During that 9 months, people changed their shopping habits. When Target opened and people were disappointed, they found no reason to change back. So stores had lower than expected traffic. 4. Bad Management Target's management team for the Canadian expansion was made up of entirely American managers. They didn't understand the differences between the two countries, and set themselves up for failure because of it. 5. No website Target didn't have a functional website when they opened. They got one months later. But during that time people who were googling products or looking for selections were looking at other retailers, such as Walmart or Amazon. Once again, they lost traffic. 6. Differences in consumer habits The US is driven more by coupons than Canada is. Canadians tend to follow weekly fliers for where prices were the best. The very first week, Target's flier (read by everyone who intended to shop there) advertised 'sale' prices that were ABOVE the regular price of goods such as milk, etc. In comparison, Walmart or any other retailer advertising their actual sale prices would have taken all the customers looking for a good deal. 7. Prices were simply higher than the market price This follows number six. The problems in translating products and packaging and distribution into the Canadian market led to prices being simply higher than other stores, especially in the beginning. Consumers turned out to not be that loyal to the new Target when prices were higher. 8. Changing market cutting out department stores It's really no surprise that Target was struggling for months before closing. This happened to Zellers, this is happening to Sear, Giant Tiger isn't doing so hot... If you look at the large, flagship stores in malls, they are no longer stores aimed at the middle class like these. Stores have shifted to being either super luxury like Nordstrom (another store that entered Canada far more successfully) or to being super discount (Walmart or Dollarama). The market for this type of store is shrinking, and Canada already has Walmart to fill the gap. There are more reasons than this, but this is what I remember. I'm sorry that I don't have sources, but feel free to do some googling if you are curious. :)
Just to drive home one of your points: Canada's population is very, very tiny. For a long time I didn't realize how huge the gap between countries was. There are millions more people in California than in Canada. And huge swaths of Canada have such dramatic Arctic weather that they can't even build roads. They have to fly cargo in by helicopter. Everything--diapers, produce, machinery, construction materials... There are no simple answers there. Thank you for your excellent comment!
Bottom line could have been much simpler (although I understand that it was a class essay, so you all had to pad your answers :-P): they attempted to enter a new market too quickly with too many stores. They should have started in a large, populated area of Canada first (like metro Toronto or the Vancouver area) and expanded from there, rather than trying to suddenly appear all over Canada. They put too much emphasis on the Target brand, rather than on the fundamentals behind the brand (like the supply chain, as you alluded to early on).
Dude, as a regular viewer (august 2015) you have DEF. improved in every single areas of your series here. I almost can't believe how far this has come since it's inception. You truly captured the spirit of target in this episode, and I CANNOT say this enough, GREAT JOB!
+The Relaxed Gamer While sure people do things a lot better then me, I personally love doing this and over time I hope we cans improve even more now. Thanks for sticking with us, you're great.
You can def. tell you have a passion for this. I can hear the excitement in your voice. Some might say this is unprofessional, I say it adds to the overall personality of this channel. Some of the lines it sounds as if you're about to burst at the seams with excitement. Super stoaked for the next one! Keep 'em commin!
+Bright Sun Films one other thing to take in is the fact that when walmart first opened in canada they had two or three locations then opening 1 or 2 every year
As a former Target Canada employee, watching that segment of the team members doing planorama and setting up the store brought back serious memories. Man, that store had potential but from the inside it was clear that it was destined to fail from the beginning. It was a fun job while it lasted and I am proud to have been part of that tiny piece of interesting Canadian retail history.
I cried when Zellers got bought out by Target at our Mall.... curse the stupid Target! That is my biggest problem with the company, and I went only twice ever.
I agree!! I live in Winnipeg and Winnipegers love going to North Dakota to shop Target there. It was always associated with a get-a-way of sorts. Then they came to Wpg and opened I think 12 or so stores. We are a small city and that is way to many. I think it would have been smart to open one really large one and people would have flocked to it the same that has happened here with IKEA. Too bad they are gone, I enjoyed a lot of their products.
dude zellers was always such a dump everything was always scattered all over the floors and people were always shop lifting and eating the food in the stores before they even paid lol
In the US, Walmart is often associated with very low class service and customers. At many Walmarts, I don’t even feel safe parking my car in the parking lot, but at target, they target the same group of people and middle class, providing better services. I much prefer shopping at target at night than at a wal mart
I bet that's part of the problem they had in Canada. I can only speak for BC but here even the most "low class" or "ghetto" people are really nice and don't pose any threat. Walmart here is pretty safe and clean. Makes sense considering our median house price is around $900,000, closer to $1,300,000 in metro Vancouver.
Ignis Dracun very true, my Target and Walmart are very different, my Walmart is usually dirty and the customers who shop there are usually ghetto and low class, while my Target always has clean shelf’s and normal customers! I prefer shopping at Target since I feel safer there
I've always considered Target more "middle class" than Walmart in the US, but apparently that didn't translate well to Canada, where they probably treat people more equally :-P
I don’t know for the other provinces, but in Québec I remember people being confused my Target. There was close to no brand awareness prior to them opening. It looked like Zellers was clumsily rebranding itself, using the same color palette and the same stores. People kind of assumed they would sell the same lower tier quality products and didn’t even step foot in there.
A rebranding of Zellers. Interesting you should mention that. I remember walking through my local Target Canada store and thinking how this could easily have been an updated Zellers. If only HBC was willing to put some money into the brand to help Zellers shed it's "old, tired store" image.
@@drewpatterson8261Apparently they were in the process of renovating some stores in the early 2010s but I guess they realized it would’ve been too costly/not enough to bring back customers and that selling the chain off to Target was cheaper?
I clicked on this thinking it was gonna be an urban exploring video, but I still found this video quite intertesting ahaha (also i may have laughed way too hard at "eh, at least we have costco" so true 😂😂)
Where we live, we have three Walmart Supercentres, one Costco (soon to be two because the lines are so long), and Canada's largest Canadian Tire (with Marks).
I honestly think that part of why it failed is that they took away our Zellers, even though it was a dying brand, it was ours, it was Canadian. Replacing them with Targets felt like they were taking away a part of Canada. But that's my opinion.
January 2012: Zellers: Okay, I Hope Nothing Happens… March 2012: Zellers: NOOOOO July 2012: Zellers: I’m closing… December 2012: Zellers: Almost All My Locations Is Closed. March 3, 2013: Zellers: the last location is closing soon. March 26, 2013: Target: I’m The First To Open Up!!!!!! July 2013: Target: More are opening up… February 2014: Target: Lots Has Opened Up!!!!!!!!! July 2014: Target: Well, we’re not doing too well… January 2015: Target: we’re gonna closed forever! April 2015: Target: Goodbye :(
In the United States, Target fills the niche for shoppers who avoid Walmart because of their clientele, cleanliness, and business practices. I'm guessing that there's probably less income disparity and a stronger middle class in Canada so Walmart's stores aren't as much of a shitshow that will drive people away. Though I'm actually surprised to see Canadians so readily embrace Walmart considering its corporate values.
Yeah that was my main reason for shopping at Target as a Canadian. I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart anymore and I haven't for several years. Our Zellers turned into a Target and then a Lowes.
I think you nailed it. As for its cooperate values... I think shoppers rationalize that the same way we rationalize most cooperations methods and values. Especially, the agriculture industry (how they treat animals and quality of food), or the pharmaceutical industry pushing opioids for mild issues on the general public, claiming they weren't addictive. etc. etc. etc. Most people in Canada are complacent and happy with the way things are.
My mother’s former co-worker worked for Target Canada when they were around and told me that the way target handled this expansion was poorly rolled out, and was dead from the beginning. I love the look of these stores and it’s sad that it happened
Thought this was going to be an Urban exploration video... cant say im disappointed though, this was very interesting. And im from the UK so didnt really need any of this information.
“Despite the identical logo, name and type of outlets, Target Australia carries no corporate connection or relation to US discount retailer Target.[3]”
Just to add, Target Australia has no connection to Target USA. The only thing is common is the name and logo. Target America does not own Target Australia, they are independent companies.
Yeah Canadian taxes are fucking absurd. That is how my hometown stays alive, so many Canadians year round go to our mall. And every store. Because 8% tax.
Target Canada had laughable sections for automotive and tools. Also, it didn't make ANY sense to try to make it a "one stop shop" by including a grocery section including frozen and dairy, but no produce. Overall Target Canada didn't offer ANYTHING new. The same stuff already offered at existing retail stores in Canada, and for the most part equal or higher priced. There was really little intensive to shop there.
What the fuck are they selling in American/Canadian Target stores? Why are there grocery sections? Why are there automotive sections? Our Targets don't even really have tools. We have other chain stores that handle that shit. Like Bunnings for the latter - as for the former, we have Coles, Woolworths, ALDI - who would do grocery shopping at a fucking TARGET? Our Targets are mostly shit like clothes and toys and towels.
I live in Southern California and it is true, Targets here have anything you could ever want. Not all Targets have a grocery store, only the Super Targets do. They are about double the size of a normal Target. I think most Targets these days are Super Targets. The shelves are always well stocked and they change inventory often. There is even a Starbucks inside the one closest to my house. I go there a couple times a week at least. I never go in stinky ole Walmart.
I will post this separately, but I was actually involved in Target Canada's operations, and I can tell you the biggest problem was not the rapid expansion, it was the transition from Zellers to Target, and Target's back end problems. The transition just took too long; the amount of time from Zellers to Target meant that traffic patterns for customers changed, meaning that the same store at the same spot had less traffic as a Target than it did as a Zellers. When Walmart came to Canada, they took over Woolco, and that change to Walmart happened pretty much overnight; Walmart kept running Woolco during the transition, and when it came time, the stores were quickly reconfigured, repainted, and signage changed from Woolco to Walmart overnight. The big killer was the back end; Target's inventory management software was an absolute disaster. Basically because of Target Canada's IT issues, there were major issues flowing inventory to the stores, and often stores were either severely under stocked, or were insanely overstocked for a particular item. Furthermore, because of issues with the inventory management software, the central warehouses from which the stores got their stock from got insanely backed up; I was told that at one point, the warehouse in Calgary, which was already a massive 20,000+ square ft facility, was packed to the rafters with stuff, and they had hundreds of rented trailers packed with merchandise in the parking lot because they didn't have room in the warehouse. This meant that Target Canada was sitting on a lot of merchandise, and thus had tons of money and debt tied up in merchandise because of their inventory management issues. The difference between Target Canada and the US operation was the choice of IT software; Target Canada used a brand new retail management software, of which Target Canada was the first customer for, and was meant to be a end to end, one piece offering. It was totally different from what Target US used, and had a much higher learning curve, and a variety of quirks to it that made it difficult to use.
@@BokeemWoodbeezy Not only that, there were also user caused errors as well. Sometimes the dimensions were wrong, the case quantities were off, etc. Great example was what I've heard happen once; one store got like 100 dresses of the same style and size in a shipment, and they were going WTF. When HQ looked into the matter, they discovered the issue; the store was supposed to get only 10 dresses, but due to an error in how the item was entered into the system, it was entered as being 1 set = 10 dresses, and when the picking order came to the warehouse, they picked 10 sets of 10 dresses, or 100 dresses. Needless to say, this error was fixed and the extra dresses sent back to the distribution warehouse, but there were countless other errors similar to this as well.
I was part of the team that set up the IT infrastructure in the three target warehouses in Calgary/Milton/Cornwall, we were a 3rd party so didn't work directly for target but these warehouses were all over 1 million sq feet!
+Pedro Dorantes I love target myself, and i always tend to go there over wal-mart. However... there is one i visited in Illinois. My friend and i were walking over to the shampoo section when a sudden... aroma, came to our attention. I turned to him with a rather befuddled look and said, "...Dude. Whys it smell like sperm in this spot?" Literally, for 3 isles, it smelled like that. And ended abruptly before and after. We stood by out of the smell range and watched other people look at eachother too. It was quite gross and funny at the same time.
+Bright Sun Films Yeah man, this was actually excellent. I expected just your typical amateur RUclipsr doing a powerpoint presentation but this had an interview, camerawork, and great usage of videos and photos.
I've just sat and watched all of your Abandoned videos and you've gotten much better at this "documentary-style" recording. Going back and watching Discovery Island is cringey! Well done, keep it up.
"Who likes walmart?" Not San Francisco, CA though, they pulled out bc it was harming the city's economy. The nearest one is either one hour drive or crossing a bridge.
Canada is only a "bad market for retailers" owing to the fact we have a relatively small population stretched over an enormous physical space. This is the key factor making the cost of logistics and distribution high compared to a lot of other countries. Unfortunately for Target, almost every aspect of their implementation and roll-out was done badly, so much in so that it's now regarded as a textbook business case of "what not to do" when expanding into a foreign market.
Very True, I remember when they took down our local zellers and brought target. I remember when you first Go through the Doors it smelt like a dead Body, A lot of people complained about that.
Canada's population is not "stretched" anywhere. 60% of the country lives along the St. Lawrence seaway in the southeast, where urbanization is continuous.
How much of it wasn't bilingual? I work for a closeout retailer in the US and we've been getting a lot of Target Canada merchandise lately (Target US cannot sell it in their stores because of different UPC codes). I've noticed almost all of the products are bilingual with English and French printed on the packaging.
Agreed! I saw so many big problems with their expansion into Canada, right from the get-go. When they first announced their take-over of Zellars spaces and opening ~200 stores, I turned to my mother and said, "They're not going to last". There are three big reasons I think their venture failed: 1.They came in too large, too quickly. -they should have opened a few stores in large urban centres (ie: Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal & Calgary), and then tested what was going to work and what wasn't. They hugely missed the boat in thinking everything was going to work out so quickly and in such as big scale. And really they thought knew how to please Canadian shoppers, and really they had no clue. They should have started small and slowly expanded, it was what WalMart did when they first came into Canada, and they have done really well. 2. Bad price competition & merchandise selection. -coming into a country where there is not a lot of competition for retail, they had comparatively no prices that could compete with other retailers. Their clothes were cheaper quality but more expensive in price than WalMart AND Old Navy, so why would I go there if I wanted cheap? Their groceries were average to expensively priced and not diverse, I'd rather go to my local Sobey's and shop the sales so I can also get things like fresh fruit and actual things I can cook, rather than warm up in a microwave! I only ever saw snacks and frozen food there! Also, their diversification and selection in clothing & sizes were terrible. In the end, the only things I bought there were school supplies, and I was not impressed with their selection of even that. 3. They were poorly stocked. -walking into a half-empty store (even before they said they were pulling out, it was like that!) doesn't make me feel confident that I'm going to find the things I'm looking for. In fact not once did I walk in and find the things I was looking for. I went at three different times to shop at Target, every time looking for something different and they just never had any of it. The few things I bought there were incidental purchases. "Well, I'll need some new notebooks soon anyways, and the prices are about the same as WalMart, I'll just grab them anyways." I'm sure there were other reasons they may have failed, but these were the ones I saw from a shopper's perspective. In general I was not impressed with my Target experiences and was not sad to see them go.
This was Target Canada's marketing strategy: "We may not have all the products our competitor carries, but what we do have we will charge you more for it. A lot more." I can't imagine why they failed.
Being from canada, we were amazed by target. It looked beautiful. But every time when i would go there nobody really bought anything. No one ever had a full or even half full cart. Our currency is so shit that target was expensive and not even worth shopping there. Its a shame though makes me want to move to the US
Scott Carmichael. I'm sure Canada sucks too, which is awful because I know this SUPPOSED to be a great nation that actually stands up for everyone's guaranteed (by constitution or by nature) personal freedoms.
Zellers was THE SHIT. When I moved out from my parents I'd blow my paycheques there buying stuff for the kitchen , bathroom etc... That's also where I bought my pants all the time, just slacks that did their job well. Now that all my slacks are worn to shit, I tried a pair at sears, the field testing is good but now sears has gone tits up too. I don't know where to buy slacks from anymore :(
Same fam. I loved it so much. I used to go there with my grandparents when I was a kid, and when my boyfriend and I got together in 2009, their restaurant was our place. Wed go there and sit on the furniture and talk, check out the toy section, look at the clothes and art supplies, normal stuff for people in their late teens. I'm 26 now, and my bf is 27, we talk about it all the time. There's no stores like Zellers left. :(
Matt Roy if you are in the gta, you could try going to the tanger outlet mall that's south of barrie. I got a pair of jeans from the gap for only $13, when the normal price was $70
I live in Canada, and have been to the Canadian Targets when they were around. Only times they really got customers were when it opened, and when it closed.
Awesome video! I work at a Target in the U.S. and durning orientation they briefly mentioned the failed expansion into Canada and it kinda left me with more questions than I had before they brought it up. This is such a comprehensive look into its downfall, well done. And now I know!
+Broyale26 He's just saying that because it's the trendy thing to say. Wal-Mart hate is super popular among mindless drones these days. Dollars to donuts, he has an iPhone too.
Hunter Ross I asked because I see this same thing repeated throughout social media. People say, "OMG, have to go to Wal-Mart FML" and i'm like, "you also drive a crappy American car or a Kia, watch Dancing with the Stars, eat Fast-food, make Uber jokes, own an iPhone, etc., but, yeah, Wal-Mart gives you a faux existential crisis. Mmkay". The same people who mock Wal-Mart shoppers, but look indistinguishable from them.
two stores opened in my city, Saskatoon sk, which is a really fucking random city btw. everyone was really excited about it but it didn't last long because target sucked here. simple as that. They closed pretty much as soon as they opened. those two target locations still remain empty.
Watching this after the Abandoned Zellers video really shows mow much you've changed your tone, lol! I love how two videos you've made 4 years apart connect so well!
I remember seeing the start and end of target here. There were a few stores that opened in Calgary, but none did very good. Most of us just continued to go to Superstore and Walmart. I personally rarely went to Target. None of my family members rewlly went there either.
Target australia has no connection to Target America, We simply borrowed the name. Target opened in australia as Empororam in 1926, before being renamed Lindsay's target in 1973 and adopting Target in 1985, with Target Country being the rural and regional arm. The Group has been owned by wesfarmers since 2007.
+muchzshroom Only thing i bought at Target was my smartphone (a nexus 5, which was sold by rogers). I already had a phone with rogers and wanted to buy a nexus 5 with them as well. Since i didn't want a long term contract, i wanted to pay for the phone in full right away and transfer my pay-as-you-go funds i already had with Rogers from my old phone. Ended up staying there for two hours as the seller was trying to figure out how to do that -_- ... Never went to Target again after that heh. Among other things, prices were too high (compared to Wall-Mart) and they didnt have much stuff anyway.
He does that when... This video gets popular Alot of people asking him Many likes He does it in a different video, he doesn't want to do it to waste money going there, but IDK why he didn't went there when he was maybe near there and like the Abandoned nick studio he was on a trip and he was around near there so decided to go there
As an employee under the first year of target Canada i can tell you i knew this company wouldnt last just from a corporate standpoint! They didnt know we had Thanksgiving at a different time which was why none of the stores were decorated and in the winter they were more concerned giving us winter hats and gloves then what people wanted which was shovels (we had 0 winter equipment)
Total lack of care about Canadian cultural and general-living needs. You'll think for all their joking about us in igloos and mollusks they'd have thought about snow - and it takes about 10 seconds to enter "Canadian calendar holidays" in a search engine. I wonder what they had set up for non-USA Boxing Day? :(
I wasn't surprised that target was going to be doomed from the start. I was living in Vancouver BC at the time and the first week of walking into target I noticed the high prices for low quality stuff. My first thought was they can't price it that high. The only time that's acceptable here is when the stuff is pretty good. Us Canadians aren't going to spend lots of money on crappy stuff. So everybody I knew said it was going to fail the first week it opened. Our predictions came true just 2 years later
kevshorty I remember the fun of going to the USA to shop once when the Canadian dollar was higher so the US was cheaper. My family loved going to target then! But the stuff target Canada provided was Walmart quality with a higher price point. Sure, target has a better reputation than Walmart, but from a practical sense few people are going to shop at target when the quality was the same at the cheaper stores around us, with no new items.
No Target sucked and closed because the prices they charged for their products were insanely high. They did not figure out that people in Canada liked target in the states not for the company but the prices..
That is a popular misconception that a lot of people had. I worked at a Target store in Toronto, a very expensive place to shop. One day a customer said to me that they had just come back from the States, and the prices here were not much different from there. Our cost of living is higher than the States, so our economy cannot accommodate the prices they charge in the U.S. anyway. I also saw a price comparison between Target and Walmart. They took, I believe, 30 common items people would purchase and compared prices. The result was virtually identical. Prices were not to blame. They came into Canada opening too many stores too quickly. If you notice, Nordstrom and Saks are going a lot slower. They learned from Targets mistake.
The Target in the mall near me wasn't well stocked, and was pretty much the exact same thing as a Walmart, and wasn't any cheaper price wise. They opened way too fast in Canada
I live in America and although there's 20 different types of grocery stores near me (Whole Foods, Walmart, Tom Thumb, Kroger, sams club, Costco, sprouts, etc.) I love going to target the most. It's so much fun to go in there I could stay In there for hours
I watch a lot of channels like yours, but you actually get interviews from the people who work there.I watch a lot of channels like yours, but you actually get interviews from the people who work there. I'm going to pay to watch your movie tomorrow, I can't wait. And even if it's free, I don't know, I'll pay and still enjoy it. You are LITERARY a genius my guy
It's to bad the Targets closed. I live in America so it shocks me to see them closed. The Target that i sometimes shop at is still open. It's just a long as drive so me and the family don't go often.
Bros Of Decay The closed ones are allover Canada. They lost money in Canada and closed up shop. But in America they still sell stuff. They are not closed in America. Only the Canada stores closed. But i don't know where those closed stores are. I know where the closest Target is to this house. Because like i said America still has Targets. It's just the one my family shops at is a good bit of a drive away. So we can't go often.
cartergamegeek target Canada was basically a different company, that's why they added the Canada at the end. Almost every American company that comes to Canada opens up as a new company by adding the Canada at the end. After they didn't do well here, target Canada closed up shop and left, but in no way affected what happening in the states
Adesh Bhullar My point was Target does well in America. So it just shocks me that the market in Canada was not right for Target. It's a good store. So to see it fail is shocking. But Canada has a different market. So things often go bad. But to someone like me that lives in America it's a shock it failed. I would have never guessed that Target would fail in Canada. They do well here so the logic of going to Canada was solid. But then they did poorly and closed. Because i did not follow news from Canada i did not know Targets in Canada closed. So this video was interesting to me. This just goes to show how different places and people can often get different reactions to your company and goods. Often times in a bad way you were not expecting.
No one I know is really sad to see target leave Canada because they opened too fast and all the stuff they had was garbage. When the stores first opened no one was impressed and just wanted Zellers back
As an American, if you had to give me a choice between Target and Walmart, I'd choose Target any day. Even though they sell most of the same stuff, I just feel like certain things at Target have better quality than they do at Walmart. Plus at my local Target, the workers are a lot nicer than the ones at my local Walmart.
+riley sunderland Target has some cool unique stuff. I remember as a kid my mom would always take us to the states before the school year started to get all the cool school supplies Target had. Zellars was kinda like Target too and had some cool unique stuff. Walmart is more basic stuff. Basically no Kmart, no Target, no Zellars, Sears basically gone, I think Future Shoppe and Best Buy are leaving Canada too, I think all the Saan stores closed, Eatons is gone, is the Bay even around anymore? Basically the whole country is going to shit as far as shopping goes. Sounds like almost every chain is gone. I wonder what is the reason for all of this. Surely Walmart can't be the reason it's mostly just a bunch of cheap crap that didn't even really compete with the other stores really.
+WaterspoutsOfTheDeep Yeah, Canada's market just seems weird. Like I think Canada relies mostly on Canadian brands than American brands from what I hear. But then again, the only thing I really know about Canada is Tim Horton's, bagged milk, and everything I learned from How I Met Your Mother (which I'm pretty sure was all stereotypes) But idk about Canadian Walmarts, but if you go to almost any Walmart in the states like in the middle of the night, it's quite sketchy. My cousin went there at like 2 am one time and she said someone tried to sell her weed, and there was nothing but people just walking around smoking blunts. Probably wouldn't surprise me if Canadian Walmarts were the same around that time of night.
riley sunderland lmao that sounds like an exaggeration. Unless here in sin city las vegas the walmarts are magically the only walmarts not sketchy late at night haha.
I actually just watched this and had to back up and make sure I actually heard the quality drop for real and it wasn't just like something wrong with my ears haha
I randomly clicked on this video expecting a few teens exploring an abandoned building, I was pleasantly surprised with the very well written and well shot educational video. Nice Work!
+Brian Masters Me too! Rarely do I watch an entire video that's more than 10 minutes, especially one that I see in my "suggested" and want to check out, but this one was very informative and interesting. I love Target and it's sad that it didn't work out in Canada.
Target's "brand" is somehow being considered morally superior to Wal-Mart and a general feeling of having higher status, despite being almost exactly the same store. I guess this intangible value didn't translate to Canadians as well. Also: why SO many stores? As i understand: Canada's population is considerably lower than the U.S. Were there even enough people to support such a volume of stores? , even if: they were fairly successful in capturing a significant fraction of the consumer base?
Calling them the "same" store is a bit of a reach idk about walmarts in Canada but in the US the type of people it attacts the cleanliness and how the stores are run is awful. Having worked in both target definitely operates a lot differently and they treat their employees a lot better.
My understanding was that Target's management believed the only way they could get into Canada and establish themselves was by doing it big and fast. Zeller's problems solved their space problem but ... the Zellers' locations weren't quite where they would have liked to have been had they been in the States (Zeller's was a bit more discount-oriented and didn't locate as close to the more middle-class base that Target likes). Also they had to adapt the stores' interior a bit for their displays to work. Perhaps not enough.
Mullet, one has to take into consideration that the Canadians who are close to the border come to the states to shop. This in turn hurts the Canadian Communities. We are told that it helps the US economy but that is a lie because the Canadians buy out what we Americans will and want to purchase, but can't because of being sold out. They scam the Canadian taxes too by cutting off tags etc and telling the Border crossing that they do not have anything new. It is the Canadians who are coming to the States and buying things in the US and not claiming what they bought at the border that is hurting the Canadians.
Caio brown's 2nd Channel Australian & New Zealand's department stores don't sell groceries. You have to go to a supermarket (which is kinda annoying). Target Australia doesn't sell groceries either.
Lmaooo, the picture you used of the shopping mall at the beginning of the video is literally THE MALL I WORK AT. Thats actually hilarious, i was watching this video trying to forget about going to work tomorrow😂😂😂 0:24
ALSO. They took the space that used to be the Zellers/ recently empty Target and turned it into a food market with vendors, and now I work at a bakery in the market😅😅
CanadianWarMachine Famous players still exists as a subsidiary of ciniplex many community's still have famous players. They are not yet a real topic because they aren't yet abandoned although if things keep going not well for theatres you might be looking at something worth talking about in a few years.
Future shop was pricey but good. I bought a lot of my old stereo stuff there. Its gone, now we have Best Buy. I cant complain. They have almost everything and the prices are not bad.
Sure Canada is a tough market to break into, with its small population and all. But I put the blame on the Canadian Target CEO. Opening 100 stores in a year is overly ambitious and a sure sign of his ego mania. He takes the company down the drain, thousands loose their jobs, but the Ceo gets a golden handshake! This isn't Targets first store opening. How could they get it so wrong?!? I see these empty stores everyday. Even Canadian stores don't want to move in.
It seems like it was a fashion trend at the time. American Apparel did the same a few years before Target decide to buy Zellers. Also Davids Tea did the same. So if they could do it means it will always work. Yes 2 overpriced trendy brand small sized stores compared to a department store American Apparel opened 1000+ stores between U.S and Canada in one continuous roll out
Jeremy Puflett, I live in Upstate NY, right by Canada. We get a LOT of snow but even I knew that this person meant the inside of Targer is cleaner than Walmart.
Target seems nicer than Wal-Mart, it feels more welcoming and colorful (even if its mostly red :) Also at the target i usually go to they have a plastic target dog on a bench, i think it's a cute touch.
RythmBoy Target in the US is a very different case though. Not sure if this reflects all of Canada, but our closest Target was absolute garbage. Management was awful and so was the selection. And employees clearly had no clue what they were doing. It was just Zellers with a fresh coat of paint.
Adding on to that, they had an awful website. The site did not show you what they sold. Why would I go to a store when I have no idea if they have what I need when I can check Walmart's website and be sure that not only do they sell the item that I want but also have it in stock?
Target got into the Canadian market with too many stores, too fast. Target should have been much more selective in opening stores in Canada. They should have focused on Canadian population centers, IE maybe 2 stores in Toronto, one in Ottawa, one in Montreal, maybe one in Winnipeg or Calgary, and one in Vancouver. Then build on that initial base.
Steven Manning, EXACTLY. At the very most they shouldn't have opened more than 25 stores throughout Canada initially. You don't go somewhere new and open 189 stores. That's stupidity on the part of Target. They could have made this work and they screwed it up by opening up too many stores too quickly.
Kaitie Montegomery We had a chain do the same here in southwest Arizona. Fresh & Easy opened a ton of stores all at once and now they're all gone. Poof!
BellyJae There was a regional grocery store chain that bought up all the Albertsons and some of the Safeway stores in Western Washington/Oregon called Haggen Grocery that did something similar to this in 2012. By 2015, Haggen was bankrupt, and closed 98% of all their stores.
BellyJae Also shady partnerships that ballooned prices of items compared to its competitors.
Steven Manning It wasn't just that, they were unappealing stores, nothing to draw you in & high prices. Zellers was a great chain & missed by many. Target has no relationship with Cda. It was a very poor business move.
All my Canadian friends said the reason target closed was because they bought products for the Canadian market and therefore had stuff any other store had. The reason Canadians love Target is because they go across the border and buy American products at American prices and bring them back. With Canadian Target stores, having higher prices and sell things you can just get at Walmart... Then goodbye Target.
I'd agree with this. There are so many brands which Target carries in the U.S. which aren't available in Canada. Or, brands which we do have but there are more varieties/flavours. I remember going to a Target in Michigan and grabbing a Chap-Stick. I was blown away by the flavour options compared to what we have here. That's just a small example of many.
This is what most Canadians were expecting - the same/similar brand selection as in the U.S., good pricing along with a clean, modern stores. When Target opened here I went once and that was it. The selection was terrible, the lighting was poor, and there were hardly any staff. Many empty shelves, and groups of shelving standing out in the open instead of being put away in storage or set up properly. I felt like I was shopping in a Biway (another Canadian retail reference) and that the store needed another few weeks to prepare.
If Target would have had the same, or similar product selection as they do in the U.S. I think that they would have survived. Their logistics software issues would have been resolved in time (although whoever decided that they should have been the first customer on a new logistics system when rolling out in a new country should have been fired almost immediately for that. Anyone in IT should know not to rush headfirst into v1.0 of any application which handles anything mission critical). People would have given them a chance.
It felt like Target tried to pull a bait & switch on us. The "we're coming!" ad campaigns were relentless. There were lineups for store openings as if it was Black Friday in the U.S. Instead, once you got inside, the Target which we got was nothing like the Target that we expected.
@@amp4240 did Canada have super target obviously not target greatland because it also got killed kinda
@@realluser-smore-2519 nope, we didn’t have target long enough for them to start throwing out company spin-offs
@@braydonvg03 if you did have super target you would get a deli and bakery and larger selection of groceries including both pizza hut and Starbucks and a optical but just so you know target isn't supposed to be cheap they are still expensive in the US either way but it makes sense for them to leave because of the low inventory
Exactly! My expectations was to have US items available in Canada and when I went into Target and seen the same items that Wal-Mart had but more expensive. I left the store in 20 minutes without purchasing anything and was very upset. I never went back and didn't care that they closed. If they do come back to Canada to retry in the future then I won't give them the time of day for the emotional scare still exists
That guy you interviewed who ran the mall was actually a good interviewee!
His voice was fucked
@@TacoMonster4eva truly
Zellers was sick
Might be too late to mention but while the US and Australia both have Target stores, they are run by two entirely separate companies in which the only thing they have in common is the word Target and the bullseye.
Same thing with Kmart, it's massively successful over here in Australia whilst it's literally dying over in America
Cubriffic it’s dead.
There is actually this company called big w in Australia which is basically just Walmart but Australian
@cpk1994 Target never licensed their business to Australia, a company just decided to wholesale steal the branding and things Target was doing in the US and made it happen in Australia.
Big W isn’t Walmart lol the W stands for Woolworths, the Australian supermarket chain who is the parent company
Since Walmart was mentioned quite often in this video, I'd love to see a video about Walmart abandoning the German market in the mid-2000s.
And the problems Wal-Mart has had in Japan, too!
And in Korea
Back when it was still Waltons, they left Australia. At least that's the story I was given back when I was kid, I'm now 54.
they dont do too well in brasil
@@diogowerneck5936 The Aussie stores are owned and operated by an Australian business. I'm not sure about Brasil's stores.
Why would they open SO MANY STORES?! And so quickly. Generally speaking, we you enter a new market, you do a proof of concept and prove that people like your stores, it's also easier to keep operating because you don't have the expense of 130 stores...you only have 10 or 20. If they're struggling, it's not the end of the world. They can be propped up and worked with to get back in the green. But with THAT much overhead, it would be near impossible. Very strange strategy on the part of Target.
Yea I agree with ya. Target was either too ambitious or too over confident in thinking that they can steal some of Wal-Mart's Canadian consumers. They should've open only 10-20 stores in major cities like Toronto or Vancouver to test the waters.
I think it was way too much ambition. It could've been that their success in the States would carry over to Canada...then again, how has Canada's Wonderland survived a decade with Cedar Fair?
Target is so popular in the US, I guess they thought other countries would be just as enthusiastic? I think they should have opened at the most 30, and see how that went before building over 100. Bad business on their part.
A lot of Canadians wanted a Target, but we wanted a Target with the pricing of American stores (even compensated for the difference of the dollar). We didn't even get Targets with prices quite as good as the Zeller's they had taken over from.
The theory is called "economies of scale" meaning the more stores you have the cheaper each one is to operate because you buy in volume. Bottom line - they took a gamble and lost
They missed the target.
lol
This pun is criminal
Joseph Stalin play on words
Did you stay up all night writing that one?
ha ha ha 💀😂
Just a note on the last two Zellers in Canada. In 2019 the store in Nepean announced it was closing for good and started to liquidate. It'll be officially closed in 2020.
good
Looks like both have closed now
@@josedcarrillo24 Its coming back!
@@johnmachenzie1613 Nope. That is one big scam.
@@onewhitedude Zellers Is relaunching again in early 2023
I live in Ottawa and there was a target 10 minutes from my house. At the time I thought it was great there was a target there, but I thought after they closed the doors I thought they moved too quickly. They should have moved in slowly to Canada opening a few stores in every city a year at least that way if it works they could open more stores rapidly if it fails they could sell the leases .
I agree as that is what Walmart did.
YoungGun9934 yo Ottawa girl here too
I agree. They could have gained experience with retail in Canada and it wouldn't have been so bad if they had lost money for a few years, because it would only have been a little bit.
A childhood memory of Sears Canada: As a licensed stationary steam plant engineer, My father was a Sears employee and operated the heating and air conditioning plant for Sears Midtown Plaza Saskatoon from the store opening in 1969 to his retirement in 1985. As a kid, some of my fondest memories of Sears Canada were that every Sunday morning dad had to go into the store (it was closed Sundays back in the 70s and very early 80's) and inspect the boilers/heating plant. Dad would often take us kids with him. One of my fondest memories was having the run of the toy department on a Sunday morning. Indeed, we got to zip down the dark isles on exotic new toys, bikes, trikes, electric cars, Big Wheels, etc. It was magical having a toy department entirely to ourselves on a Sunday morning. :-) Goodbye Sears Canada. You were part of my family. Indeed, our family home was filled with everything Sears - for decades. Indeed, growing up, Sears and Kenmore were really the only brand names with which i was familiar- LOL. We will miss you Sears Canada.
Great story. My family was s Sears family as well. Kenmore, weatherbeater paint, Sears tuff skins cloths, Allstate insurance & Craftsmens tools. All were built to last for generations... Sadly nothing is built to last....just memories...👍
Good story
Robert Grosse I went to the midtown boilers once and all I got was arrested
My grandfather worked at the Sears tower in the 1970s as a manager in the men's apparel department. Sad to see the fate of Sears Roebuck and co. Certainly left a big legacy behind
As an American, I can't imagine my life without Target. It's strange how a store can become such a big part of your life.
Zellers closed because there prices were too low and weren’t making a profit, Target closed because there prices were too high and weren’t making a profit.
I loved Zellers. The Target that replaced the Zellers in Montréal had half empty shelves most of the time. It wasn't even worth the time going to see what they had.
A. Salmon Ik when I went to the zellers closest to me that got turned into a target and they offered less then zellers did for a more expensive price tag. I think the only time after that, that I stepped foot into that target was to get into the mall it was connected too lol.
Giant tiger being fucking drunk is still marching on
Zeller's did fine with its "The lowest price is the law!" slogan and corporate culture until Walmart (then Wal-Mart) entered Canada, undercutting Z due to huge economies-of-scale buying power. I was furious that Canada allowed Wal-Mart in to compete on a field much skewed in its favour - and suck all that profit out of our country. 30 years later, I still avoid Walmart.
@@arnepianocanada
I'm glad Walmart came to Canada. Don't know what I'd do without it. LOL.
And lets be real. Zellers wasn't all that great even before Walmart arrived. Their stores were crappy and their prices weren't always the lowest even if that was their slogan. And also the quality of their merchandise was often bad as well. To me Walmart has generally decent quality stuff and they usually sell it at reasonable prices while Zellers often had crappy stuff that they tried to sell at not so reasonable prices.
If Zellers had similar quality merchandise and they sold it at similar prices as Walmart, they might still be around today.
Target tried to do too much too quickly in Canada, and many of the Zellers locations were too small for the Target format. They also had severe supply chain issues and turned Canadian shoppers off with prices that were higher than US Target due to higher labour and transportation costs.
I live outside of Philadelphia (where I live three are three Target stores, two of them being a mile apart and occupying spaces that was once two prominent Philadelphia department store chains: John Wanamaker and Strawbridge & Clothier), and Target (before COVID) opened two "urban" (smaller footprint) stores in Center City as a demonstration that the company can operate stores on a smaller scale yet provide the same service like the standard stores outside of Center City.
I am a Canadian business student and was in first year when this all went down. It became a course business study for us, to the point where it was a major essay question on the final. Anyway, here are the main reasons we discussed as to why Target failed so tremendously (in no particular order):
1. Logistics and distribution.
There are a lot of things that fall under this category. Canada is a very large country with a small population. Just shipping in Ontario is expensive, let alone across provinces. If I am remembering correctly, when Target first moved to Canada, they only had one or two shipping distribution centres. This is part of the reason there were empty shelves, especially at the beginning. Another reason is that stores were designed with shelves that were less deep, so store managers had to order more often and ran out sooner.
2. Expectations vs Reality
Canadians had already been shopping at Target in the states for years and thought they knew what to expect. However, when they came to Canada, the prices weren't the same, the products weren't the same, it was different! (Prices are higher in canada because of higher shipping costs and tighter regulations. They couldn't just use their US products because of differences in nutritional labeling, suppliers, etc. An example of this would be the price and quality difference between Canadian and American milk.) As a result, a lot of people who had been enthusiastic about Target were disappointed by their first impression.
3. Time Delay
The video mentioned that Zellers stores closed for 9 months before reopening as Target. During that 9 months, people changed their shopping habits. When Target opened and people were disappointed, they found no reason to change back. So stores had lower than expected traffic.
4. Bad Management
Target's management team for the Canadian expansion was made up of entirely American managers. They didn't understand the differences between the two countries, and set themselves up for failure because of it.
5. No website
Target didn't have a functional website when they opened. They got one months later. But during that time people who were googling products or looking for selections were looking at other retailers, such as Walmart or Amazon. Once again, they lost traffic.
6. Differences in consumer habits
The US is driven more by coupons than Canada is. Canadians tend to follow weekly fliers for where prices were the best. The very first week, Target's flier (read by everyone who intended to shop there) advertised 'sale' prices that were ABOVE the regular price of goods such as milk, etc. In comparison, Walmart or any other retailer advertising their actual sale prices would have taken all the customers looking for a good deal.
7. Prices were simply higher than the market price
This follows number six. The problems in translating products and packaging and distribution into the Canadian market led to prices being simply higher than other stores, especially in the beginning. Consumers turned out to not be that loyal to the new Target when prices were higher.
8. Changing market cutting out department stores
It's really no surprise that Target was struggling for months before closing. This happened to Zellers, this is happening to Sear, Giant Tiger isn't doing so hot...
If you look at the large, flagship stores in malls, they are no longer stores aimed at the middle class like these. Stores have shifted to being either super luxury like Nordstrom (another store that entered Canada far more successfully) or to being super discount (Walmart or Dollarama). The market for this type of store is shrinking, and Canada already has Walmart to fill the gap.
There are more reasons than this, but this is what I remember. I'm sorry that I don't have sources, but feel free to do some googling if you are curious. :)
Leanna G One difference between Canada and the USA is the flags. Canada's flag has one maple leaf while the USA's flag has 50 stars and 13 stripes.
Just to drive home one of your points: Canada's population is very, very tiny. For a long time I didn't realize how huge the gap between countries was. There are millions more people in California than in Canada. And huge swaths of Canada have such dramatic Arctic weather that they can't even build roads. They have to fly cargo in by helicopter. Everything--diapers, produce, machinery, construction materials...
There are no simple answers there.
Thank you for your excellent comment!
Add labelling in French and English double the costs.
@@no_peace the issue isn't the cold the issue in the north is water, forest and many many First Nations communities. Laws complex about use of land.
Bottom line could have been much simpler (although I understand that it was a class essay, so you all had to pad your answers :-P): they attempted to enter a new market too quickly with too many stores. They should have started in a large, populated area of Canada first (like metro Toronto or the Vancouver area) and expanded from there, rather than trying to suddenly appear all over Canada. They put too much emphasis on the Target brand, rather than on the fundamentals behind the brand (like the supply chain, as you alluded to early on).
Dude, as a regular viewer (august 2015) you have DEF. improved in every single areas of your series here. I almost can't believe how far this has come since it's inception. You truly captured the spirit of target in this episode, and I CANNOT say this enough, GREAT JOB!
+The Relaxed Gamer While sure people do things a lot better then me, I personally love doing this and over time I hope we cans improve even more now. Thanks for sticking with us, you're great.
You can def. tell you have a passion for this. I can hear the excitement in your voice. Some might say this is unprofessional, I say it adds to the overall personality of this channel. Some of the lines it sounds as if you're about to burst at the seams with excitement. Super stoaked for the next one! Keep 'em commin!
+Bright Sun Films one other thing to take in is the fact that when walmart first opened in canada they had two or three locations then opening 1 or 2 every year
As a former Target Canada employee, watching that segment of the team members doing planorama and setting up the store brought back serious memories. Man, that store had potential but from the inside it was clear that it was destined to fail from the beginning. It was a fun job while it lasted and I am proud to have been part of that tiny piece of interesting Canadian retail history.
Wheres the Zellers abandoned video? Like if you want it!
I agree I miss zellers
I cried when Zellers got bought out by Target at our Mall.... curse the stupid Target!
That is my biggest problem with the company, and I went only twice ever.
i agree it was sad when zellers closed down forever
There's still a Zellers in my city. If I'm not wrong it's the last one
I think you missed the Target of the video.
I think targets biggest mistake was opening that many stores at once in a new country.
that's probably why
What they should of done is open one in every major city for the first 5 years, and then expanded .
I agree!! I live in Winnipeg and Winnipegers love going to North Dakota to shop Target there. It was always associated with a get-a-way of sorts. Then they came to Wpg and opened I think 12 or so stores. We are a small city and that is way to many. I think it would have been smart to open one really large one and people would have flocked to it the same that has happened here with IKEA. Too bad they are gone, I enjoyed a lot of their products.
Same thought, they should have opened maybe 50 or so, watched closely to see how it was working out then they should have gone from there.
+BQ 44 speaking of which they are currently constructing one right now :)
"At least we have Costco."
Yes. Thank God.
Yes I love Costco
Me too. ☺
no way. lol
Aztronyr oh yeah ! Best fries ever
My dad works there as a manager
“Target will not become profitable until 2021”
2020: *no.*
2021: Still no
YES IS COME BACK RIGHT NOW
2099: Target: sorry Canada
Dont worry canada XIMART is on the way
Coming from the future 2022:
FREAKING NO*
dude zellers was always such a dump everything was always scattered all over the floors and people were always shop lifting and eating the food in the stores before they even paid lol
greenlegocats123 maybe
no they did not... zellers was the best store of mai early childhood
Sounds just like Kmart, today.
Cow cow?? Why are you here
How did i find you here lol
In the US, Walmart is often associated with very low class service and customers. At many Walmarts, I don’t even feel safe parking my car in the parking lot, but at target, they target the same group of people and middle class, providing better services. I much prefer shopping at target at night than at a wal mart
not really the same in canada
I bet that's part of the problem they had in Canada. I can only speak for BC but here even the most "low class" or "ghetto" people are really nice and don't pose any threat. Walmart here is pretty safe and clean.
Makes sense considering our median house price is around $900,000, closer to $1,300,000 in metro Vancouver.
Agreed
Ignis Dracun very true, my Target and Walmart are very different, my Walmart is usually dirty and the customers who shop there are usually ghetto and low class, while my Target always has clean shelf’s and normal customers! I prefer shopping at Target since I feel safer there
Where I live they are both normal stores that sell the same stuff under different names
target wasnt even offering good prices in canada. the deals sucked. walmart smashed them.
Same in the U.S
I've always considered Target more "middle class" than Walmart in the US, but apparently that didn't translate well to Canada, where they probably treat people more equally :-P
we have the same prices in the us... y’all
I don’t know for the other provinces, but in Québec I remember people being confused my Target. There was close to no brand awareness prior to them opening. It looked like Zellers was clumsily rebranding itself, using the same color palette and the same stores. People kind of assumed they would sell the same lower tier quality products and didn’t even step foot in there.
A rebranding of Zellers. Interesting you should mention that. I remember walking through my local Target Canada store and thinking how this could easily have been an updated Zellers. If only HBC was willing to put some money into the brand to help Zellers shed it's "old, tired store" image.
@@drewpatterson8261Apparently they were in the process of renovating some stores in the early 2010s but I guess they realized it would’ve been too costly/not enough to bring back customers and that selling the chain off to Target was cheaper?
I clicked on this thinking it was gonna be an urban exploring video, but I still found this video quite intertesting ahaha (also i may have laughed way too hard at "eh, at least we have costco" so true 😂😂)
same
same
Same
Ayy same
Still interesting
Where we live, we have three Walmart Supercentres, one Costco (soon to be two because the lines are so long), and Canada's largest Canadian Tire (with Marks).
I walked into Target for the first time & found very little selection, higher prices & no bargans. Never came back.
Geez, I miss my Zellers.
Is it weird that I can smell Zellers when I think about it?
I honestly think that part of why it failed is that they took away our Zellers, even though it was a dying brand, it was ours, it was Canadian. Replacing them with Targets felt like they were taking away a part of Canada. But that's my opinion.
Totally know what you’re talking about with the smell!
Canada
Zellers: Were going bankrupt
*Target has joined the chat*
*Target removed Zellers*
*Target has left the chat*
Technically, Zellers outlasted Target! They had a couple of stores left closed just recently.
Nice pfp
lowkey the whole plan was to fuck Zellers up lmao
THAT IS EXACTLY LIKE TARGET GREATLAND AS WELL
January 2012: Zellers: Okay, I Hope Nothing Happens…
March 2012: Zellers: NOOOOO
July 2012: Zellers: I’m closing…
December 2012: Zellers: Almost All My Locations Is Closed.
March 3, 2013: Zellers: the last location is closing soon.
March 26, 2013: Target: I’m The First To Open Up!!!!!!
July 2013: Target: More are opening up…
February 2014: Target: Lots Has Opened Up!!!!!!!!!
July 2014: Target: Well, we’re not doing too well…
January 2015: Target: we’re gonna closed forever!
April 2015: Target: Goodbye :(
In 2008, during a three day trip to Canada, I managed to go to a Zeller's. I was 15.
Zachary Watson i fucking loved zellers
I was so young, I don't even remember what Zellers was like. ALL I KNOW IS TARGET STOLE ZELLERS. NOT ONLY THAT, NOW SEARS IS LEAVING CANADA!
My mall still has the big white and red tile area behind where the zellers logo used to be. It looks depressing.
Zachary Watson well now you are 23 ._. ok happy birthday
Rip zellers
i don't know how i came upon this or why i even watched it, but i'm pretty high at this moment and this was very enjoyable
+axel vega Ill take it
Being high is illegal your gonna get arrested
+axel vega it happens
+axel vega same i just stubled upon this vid and im getting interested as fuck in it
+axel vega hahahaha same here!!
In the United States, Target fills the niche for shoppers who avoid Walmart because of their clientele, cleanliness, and business practices. I'm guessing that there's probably less income disparity and a stronger middle class in Canada so Walmart's stores aren't as much of a shitshow that will drive people away. Though I'm actually surprised to see Canadians so readily embrace Walmart considering its corporate values.
Yeah that was my main reason for shopping at Target as a Canadian. I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart anymore and I haven't for several years. Our Zellers turned into a Target and then a Lowes.
Are you in Regina? Because it also went Zellers-Target-Lowes.
Ontario.
Walmarts here are clean
I think you nailed it.
As for its cooperate values... I think shoppers rationalize that the same way we rationalize most cooperations methods and values. Especially, the agriculture industry (how they treat animals and quality of food), or the pharmaceutical industry pushing opioids for mild issues on the general public, claiming they weren't addictive. etc. etc. etc.
Most people in Canada are complacent and happy with the way things are.
My mother’s former co-worker worked for Target Canada when they were around and told me that the way target handled this expansion was poorly rolled out, and was dead from the beginning. I love the look of these stores and it’s sad that it happened
Liam K I live in USA so JOKES ON YOU!!
Thought this was going to be an Urban exploration video... cant say im disappointed though, this was very interesting. And im from the UK so didnt really need any of this information.
+Martin ruclips.net/video/iD8ubUSkTsw/видео.html
Bright Sun Films b
funny.. I found this video cause i found a n Urban exploration video and i didnt want that, i wanted to know the facts of why
Lol me too
I think Bright Sun Films should do a Fresh Easy episode. It died at USA so fast.
“Despite the identical logo, name and type of outlets, Target Australia carries no corporate connection or relation to US discount retailer Target.[3]”
I remember when there was a Zellers in my town.
Of course, it ain't there no more :P
Same here.
Same!
+SonicOtakuSNG my target used to be zellers. i remember loving that store.
Feel yo
There's still one like 15 mins from me lol
Just to add, Target Australia has no connection to Target USA. The only thing is common is the name and logo. Target America does not own Target Australia, they are independent companies.
NSW Railway Videos thank you
Yes . Target USA web site it up and shine....
many stores opened too.
It's okay, dude. You can say 'absurdly-high taxes.'
You don't have to replace it with 'Canada is, um... er... bad for retail' every time.
The Rageaholic didn't expect you to be here. I love your W.A.S.P. mythos. Are you doing a ReIdolized short mythos?
yes especially in Quebec
Do some research. Canada has a lower commercial tax rate over than the US since the elimination of Capital taxes.
Yeah Canadian taxes are fucking absurd. That is how my hometown stays alive, so many Canadians year round go to our mall. And every store. Because 8% tax.
People still need to buy their stuff somewhere and spend their money.
It is either at target or somewhere else. Taxes have nothing to do with that.
Target Canada had laughable sections for automotive and tools. Also, it didn't make ANY sense to try to make it a "one stop shop" by including a grocery section including frozen and dairy, but no produce. Overall Target Canada didn't offer ANYTHING new. The same stuff already offered at existing retail stores in Canada, and for the most part equal or higher priced. There was really little intensive to shop there.
They were essentially a fancier, pricier Giant Tiger.
^ OMG, yes!
What the fuck are they selling in American/Canadian Target stores? Why are there grocery sections? Why are there automotive sections? Our Targets don't even really have tools. We have other chain stores that handle that shit. Like Bunnings for the latter - as for the former, we have Coles, Woolworths, ALDI - who would do grocery shopping at a fucking TARGET?
Our Targets are mostly shit like clothes and toys and towels.
LordofFullmetal targets here (California) sell anything you'd ever need
I live in Southern California and it is true, Targets here have anything you could ever want. Not all Targets have a grocery store, only the Super Targets do. They are about double the size of a normal Target. I think most Targets these days are Super Targets. The shelves are always well stocked and they change inventory often. There is even a Starbucks inside the one closest to my house. I go there a couple times a week at least. I never go in stinky ole Walmart.
I somehow found your channel just as suggestions from YT, totally subscribed after the Nickelodeon Abandoned though! Great stuff :)
Thanks!
+Bright Sun Films same and I miss the target store. R.I.P target
same
I will post this separately, but I was actually involved in Target Canada's operations, and I can tell you the biggest problem was not the rapid expansion, it was the transition from Zellers to Target, and Target's back end problems.
The transition just took too long; the amount of time from Zellers to Target meant that traffic patterns for customers changed, meaning that the same store at the same spot had less traffic as a Target than it did as a Zellers. When Walmart came to Canada, they took over Woolco, and that change to Walmart happened pretty much overnight; Walmart kept running Woolco during the transition, and when it came time, the stores were quickly reconfigured, repainted, and signage changed from Woolco to Walmart overnight.
The big killer was the back end; Target's inventory management software was an absolute disaster. Basically because of Target Canada's IT issues, there were major issues flowing inventory to the stores, and often stores were either severely under stocked, or were insanely overstocked for a particular item.
Furthermore, because of issues with the inventory management software, the central warehouses from which the stores got their stock from got insanely backed up; I was told that at one point, the warehouse in Calgary, which was already a massive 20,000+ square ft facility, was packed to the rafters with stuff, and they had hundreds of rented trailers packed with merchandise in the parking lot because they didn't have room in the warehouse. This meant that Target Canada was sitting on a lot of merchandise, and thus had tons of money and debt tied up in merchandise because of their inventory management issues.
The difference between Target Canada and the US operation was the choice of IT software; Target Canada used a brand new retail management software, of which Target Canada was the first customer for, and was meant to be a end to end, one piece offering. It was totally different from what Target US used, and had a much higher learning curve, and a variety of quirks to it that made it difficult to use.
Basically, Target Canada bought a terrible ERP system that mismanaged their supply chain.
@@BokeemWoodbeezy Not only that, there were also user caused errors as well. Sometimes the dimensions were wrong, the case quantities were off, etc. Great example was what I've heard happen once; one store got like 100 dresses of the same style and size in a shipment, and they were going WTF. When HQ looked into the matter, they discovered the issue; the store was supposed to get only 10 dresses, but due to an error in how the item was entered into the system, it was entered as being 1 set = 10 dresses, and when the picking order came to the warehouse, they picked 10 sets of 10 dresses, or 100 dresses. Needless to say, this error was fixed and the extra dresses sent back to the distribution warehouse, but there were countless other errors similar to this as well.
@@ThePointblank Interesting to read. Thanks for sharing.
I posted my own message before reading this, but... this. This is why it's Target's fault.
I was part of the team that set up the IT infrastructure in the three target warehouses in Calgary/Milton/Cornwall, we were a 3rd party so didn't work directly for target but these warehouses were all over 1 million sq feet!
I love target.... It's a nicer Walmart, more organized and cleaner
+Pedro Dorantes I love target myself, and i always tend to go there over wal-mart. However... there is one i visited in Illinois. My friend and i were walking over to the shampoo section when a sudden... aroma, came to our attention. I turned to him with a rather befuddled look and said, "...Dude. Whys it smell like sperm in this spot?" Literally, for 3 isles, it smelled like that. And ended abruptly before and after. We stood by out of the smell range and watched other people look at eachother too. It was quite gross and funny at the same time.
Me to it's the best and Walmart has crappy stuff
Yeah I agree, but ya know, we Americans love cheap stuff
+garuru96 sperm doesnt hve a smell dude, you creepy
Most guys who masturbate know it has a very distinct smell. So your nose is either not able to pick it up, or yours has no aroma.
What the heck did i just watch? I liked it but like such unique content. You know what, subscribed.
+jacob carroll I thought this comment was going a completely different direction then it did haha thanks Jacob!
+Bright Sun Films Yeah man, this was actually excellent. I expected just your typical amateur RUclipsr doing a powerpoint presentation but this had an interview, camerawork, and great usage of videos and photos.
+jacob carroll Same here, man.
+I habe a peepee Fat
+redcatjack idiot
I was expecting exploring an abandoned target, but it was interesting either way.
+kaner Vid yeah, me too
Lol me too! 😄😄😄😆😆😆😺😺😺😸😸😸😝😝😝
Some information you left out: Target had MASSIVE supply chain issues which left stores looking like they came from 1950’s Soviet Union
I've just sat and watched all of your Abandoned videos and you've gotten much better at this "documentary-style" recording. Going back and watching Discovery Island is cringey! Well done, keep it up.
+Jocie Pup Discovery island is #rough
SEE A FULL TOUR INSIDE HERE ruclips.net/video/iD8ubUSkTsw/видео.html
"Who likes walmart?" Not San Francisco, CA though, they pulled out bc it was harming the city's economy.
The nearest one is either one hour drive or crossing a bridge.
That's funny at because I live in Welland Ontario and I visit the Seaway Mall pretty often.
You should do one on Hastings :o
There is like a thousand abandoned targets in Canada!!!
Bright Sun Films
Canada is only a "bad market for retailers" owing to the fact we have a relatively small population stretched over an enormous physical space. This is the key factor making the cost of logistics and distribution high compared to a lot of other countries. Unfortunately for Target, almost every aspect of their implementation and roll-out was done badly, so much in so that it's now regarded as a textbook business case of "what not to do" when expanding into a foreign market.
#Amazon
Very True, I remember when they took down our local zellers and brought target. I remember when you first Go through the Doors it smelt like a dead Body, A lot of people complained about that.
Canada's population is not "stretched" anywhere. 60% of the country lives along the St. Lawrence seaway in the southeast, where urbanization is continuous.
How much of it wasn't bilingual? I work for a closeout retailer in the US and we've been getting a lot of Target Canada merchandise lately (Target US cannot sell it in their stores because of different UPC codes). I've noticed almost all of the products are bilingual with English and French printed on the packaging.
Agreed! I saw so many big problems with their expansion into Canada, right from the get-go. When they first announced their take-over of Zellars spaces and opening ~200 stores, I turned to my mother and said, "They're not going to last". There are three big reasons I think their venture failed:
1.They came in too large, too quickly.
-they should have opened a few stores in large urban centres (ie: Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal & Calgary), and then tested what was going to work and what wasn't. They hugely missed the boat in thinking everything was going to work out so quickly and in such as big scale. And really they thought knew how to please Canadian shoppers, and really they had no clue. They should have started small and slowly expanded, it was what WalMart did when they first came into Canada, and they have done really well.
2. Bad price competition & merchandise selection.
-coming into a country where there is not a lot of competition for retail, they had comparatively no prices that could compete with other retailers. Their clothes were cheaper quality but more expensive in price than WalMart AND Old Navy, so why would I go there if I wanted cheap? Their groceries were average to expensively priced and not diverse, I'd rather go to my local Sobey's and shop the sales so I can also get things like fresh fruit and actual things I can cook, rather than warm up in a microwave! I only ever saw snacks and frozen food there! Also, their diversification and selection in clothing & sizes were terrible. In the end, the only things I bought there were school supplies, and I was not impressed with their selection of even that.
3. They were poorly stocked.
-walking into a half-empty store (even before they said they were pulling out, it was like that!) doesn't make me feel confident that I'm going to find the things I'm looking for. In fact not once did I walk in and find the things I was looking for. I went at three different times to shop at Target, every time looking for something different and they just never had any of it. The few things I bought there were incidental purchases. "Well, I'll need some new notebooks soon anyways, and the prices are about the same as WalMart, I'll just grab them anyways."
I'm sure there were other reasons they may have failed, but these were the ones I saw from a shopper's perspective. In general I was not impressed with my Target experiences and was not sad to see them go.
This was Target Canada's marketing strategy: "We may not have all the products our competitor carries, but what we do have we will charge you more for it. A lot more." I can't imagine why they failed.
Being from canada, we were amazed by target. It looked beautiful. But every time when i would go there nobody really bought anything. No one ever had a full or even half full cart. Our currency is so shit that target was expensive and not even worth shopping there. Its a shame though makes me want to move to the US
Agreed, I miss target stores and their nice clean aesthetic. Even the nicer walmarts just have this trashy cheap feel to them.
Yeah, because Canada is better than the US, end.
Venomous. Lol
Target in the states are really good, I love going shopping there haha
Scott Carmichael. I'm sure Canada sucks too, which is awful because I know this SUPPOSED to be a great nation that actually stands up for everyone's guaranteed (by constitution or by nature) personal freedoms.
Zellers was lit I hated when it was gone ;-;
Same :(
Zellers was THE SHIT. When I moved out from my parents I'd blow my paycheques there buying stuff for the kitchen , bathroom etc...
That's also where I bought my pants all the time, just slacks that did their job well. Now that all my slacks are worn to shit, I tried a pair at sears, the field testing is good but now sears has gone tits up too. I don't know where to buy slacks from anymore :(
Same fam. I loved it so much. I used to go there with my grandparents when I was a kid, and when my boyfriend and I got together in 2009, their restaurant was our place. Wed go there and sit on the furniture and talk, check out the toy section, look at the clothes and art supplies, normal stuff for people in their late teens. I'm 26 now, and my bf is 27, we talk about it all the time. There's no stores like Zellers left. :(
Matt Roy if you are in the gta, you could try going to the tanger outlet mall that's south of barrie. I got a pair of jeans from the gap for only $13, when the normal price was $70
Me too
I live in Canada, and have been to the Canadian Targets when they were around. Only times they really got customers were when it opened, and when it closed.
Remus Lupin Good day sir from Canada! Greetings to you from Scooby in the USA! ❤
Awesome video! I work at a Target in the U.S. and durning orientation they briefly mentioned the failed expansion into Canada and it kinda left me with more questions than I had before they brought it up. This is such a comprehensive look into its downfall, well done. And now I know!
Thanks!
my grade 12 welding class is now located in this target they also have remote control car races in the front
Cool
Cool
I used to go to Zellers as a kid. Such memories.
Yep
I remember when my local one closed. Still abandoned to this day
+The Omnilution 2.0 It's the first and only store I shoplifted when I was 12yo. Stole some yo-yos and a pokemon bag xD
Yo zellers in Sudbury was the shit
+Leukus Same here, its sad.
I remember a about 3/4 years ago Calgary had a few targets.. I got to go only once and I really liked it tbh. A lot better than Walmart.
+SimpleFuse Oh shit whaddup
From Calgary !!
Calgary sucks. Edmonton is better.
+Bricks n' Bricks .. And who asked for your opinion?
+Shin Higaku The person who posted a RUclips comment.
Costco > Walmart
Agreed.
Eh depends
They have free snacks and bomb ass croissants (thank you former roommates mom!), Costco is better no question.
Walmart > XIMART
i hate myself every time i have to shop at walmart.
+Hunter Ross Why?
+Broyale26 Because it is a terrible corporation.
+Broyale26 He's just saying that because it's the trendy thing to say. Wal-Mart hate is super popular among mindless drones these days. Dollars to donuts, he has an iPhone too.
TheBigCray I am not a trendy person, I just shared my opinion
Hunter Ross I asked because I see this same thing repeated throughout social media. People say, "OMG, have to go to Wal-Mart FML" and i'm like, "you also drive a crappy American car or a Kia, watch Dancing with the Stars, eat Fast-food, make Uber jokes, own an iPhone, etc., but, yeah, Wal-Mart gives you a faux existential crisis. Mmkay". The same people who mock Wal-Mart shoppers, but look indistinguishable from them.
I still miss Target :( I liked it way better than Walmart.
The Viet Vegan I still have it in u.s.
Same the decor and clothes were way better than Walmart 😩 ugh I miss it so much.
I wish Canada didn’t have a huge tax fee! Like it would have been impossible for us Canadians pay the same price as Americans.
ikr
I feel honored I bought a giant teddy bear from target before it shut down, still hav it haha.
two stores opened in my city, Saskatoon sk, which is a really fucking random city btw. everyone was really excited about it but it didn't last long because target sucked here. simple as that. They closed pretty much as soon as they opened. those two target locations still remain empty.
Watching this after the Abandoned Zellers video really shows mow much you've changed your tone, lol! I love how two videos you've made 4 years apart connect so well!
I'd love to see a full Zellers one. I have a coffee cup from their in-store restaurant.
Zellers curly fries were the bomb
And I have socks from Zellers, but you don't see me bragging about it.
I CRAVE Zeller's hot chicken sandwiches 😭
I still have a shopping bag from zellers
Since when did Zellers have an in-store restaurant (Mine was in a mall before it was replaced by Target, so forgive me if I'm wrong)
I remember seeing the start and end of target here. There were a few stores that opened in Calgary, but none did very good. Most of us just continued to go to Superstore and Walmart. I personally rarely went to Target. None of my family members rewlly went there either.
Salabetta but why? What was the difference between them both?
Target had all the same stock as any other mid range department store, minus the customer loyalty.
Target australia has no connection to Target America, We simply borrowed the name. Target opened in australia as Empororam in 1926, before being renamed Lindsay's target in 1973 and adopting Target in 1985, with Target Country being the rural and regional arm. The Group has been owned by wesfarmers since 2007.
Target Australia was owned by Coles Myer between 1985 and 2006, who was at that time part of the largest ever business in Australia.
Target will not become profitable until 2021
2020: bruh
2021: *Are you sure about that?*
I used the bathroom in Target once or twice. It was pretty nice. Never bought anything though
Egbert Wadman I'm not fat, you're fat! Go back to your target and buy your fatty fats you fat fat fatty
Egbert Wadman Shut your big fat flappy cheeks, your one to talk! I saw you in the back smelling all the kiddie underwear you fat creepy creep!
+muchzshroom I feel like being in elementary school again...
+Jibran Khan It was hilarious though
+muchzshroom Only thing i bought at Target was my smartphone (a nexus 5, which was sold by rogers). I already had a phone with rogers and wanted to buy a nexus 5 with them as well. Since i didn't want a long term contract, i wanted to pay for the phone in full right away and transfer my pay-as-you-go funds i already had with Rogers from my old phone. Ended up staying there for two hours as the seller was trying to figure out how to do that -_- ...
Never went to Target again after that heh. Among other things, prices were too high (compared to Wall-Mart) and they didnt have much stuff anyway.
Damn, I remember going Zellers a lot when I was younger...
+ohsnapitzmj OMG same here, it always had a weird smell!
+ohsnapitzmj some great childhood memories going to Zellers with my grandma as a kid :-(
Yep.
crap I remember that
Me too I miss that store there was a little restaurant in side them too. I'm definitely going to go and visit ottawa to see the zellers there.
I clicked on this thinking it was going to be a video exploring an empty target lol
He kinda does though.
Same lol
me too, well disappointed
Same
He does that when...
This video gets popular
Alot of people asking him
Many likes
He does it in a different video, he doesn't want to do it to waste money going there, but IDK why he didn't went there when he was maybe near there and like the Abandoned nick studio he was on a trip and he was around near there so decided to go there
As an employee under the first year of target Canada i can tell you i knew this company wouldnt last just from a corporate standpoint!
They didnt know we had Thanksgiving at a different time which was why none of the stores were decorated and in the winter they were more concerned giving us winter hats and gloves then what people wanted which was shovels (we had 0 winter equipment)
Total lack of care about Canadian cultural and general-living needs. You'll think for all their joking about us in igloos and mollusks they'd have thought about snow - and it takes about 10 seconds to enter "Canadian calendar holidays" in a search engine. I wonder what they had set up for non-USA Boxing Day? :(
Oh dang Autocorrupt! ...Igloos and MUKLUKS
@@arnepianocanada our store drove customers right next door to canadian tire because they had more winter equipment then we did
I wasn't surprised that target was going to be doomed from the start. I was living in Vancouver BC at the time and the first week of walking into target I noticed the high prices for low quality stuff. My first thought was they can't price it that high. The only time that's acceptable here is when the stuff is pretty good. Us Canadians aren't going to spend lots of money on crappy stuff. So everybody I knew said it was going to fail the first week it opened. Our predictions came true just 2 years later
kevshorty I remember the fun of going to the USA to shop once when the Canadian dollar was higher so the US was cheaper. My family loved going to target then! But the stuff target Canada provided was Walmart quality with a higher price point. Sure, target has a better reputation than Walmart, but from a practical sense few people are going to shop at target when the quality was the same at the cheaper stores around us, with no new items.
Not just Canadians, no one wants to pay exorbitant amounts for mediocre products.
The problem is they expanded too fast......
Like Nazi Germany....
+Mirasu k?
HUH? what does that have to do with target? Europe's domination and retail are not even close to the same thing #WutDaFuq
godwins law first variation
Damn dude good call LOL there is a name for it XD i will never forget this!!!
No Target sucked and closed because the prices they charged for their products were insanely high. They did not figure out that people in Canada liked target in the states not for the company but the prices..
Target is kind of expensive in the states
He said that in the video
That is a popular misconception that a lot of people had. I worked at a Target store in Toronto, a very expensive place to shop. One day a customer said to me that they had just come back from the States, and the prices here were not much different from there. Our cost of living is higher than the States, so our economy cannot accommodate the prices they charge in the U.S. anyway. I also saw a price comparison between Target and Walmart. They took, I believe, 30 common items people would purchase and compared prices. The result was virtually identical. Prices were not to blame. They came into Canada opening too many stores too quickly. If you notice, Nordstrom and Saks are going a lot slower. They learned from Targets mistake.
The Target in the mall near me wasn't well stocked, and was pretty much the exact same thing as a Walmart, and wasn't any cheaper price wise. They opened way too fast in Canada
Yep
I felt the same the first few weeks looked like they were just not receiving enough stock and it never got any better for the next 2 years !
Yep. Ours failed cause it was empty.
So surprised to hear Phony Ppl at the end. Great group with good music. This was a really good episode
I really liked the interview part, i think this is the best abandoned youve ever made
+Tai Lan Thank you so much!
+Bright Sun Films I agree with her such a great video.
I live in America and although there's 20 different types of grocery stores near me (Whole Foods, Walmart, Tom Thumb, Kroger, sams club, Costco, sprouts, etc.) I love going to target the most. It's so much fun to go in there I could stay In there for hours
That one like was you, wasn't it? You should be ashamed of yourself. Wanna date? I'm 20, single, NE U.S. Give it a think and have a good day.
June same I love Target it’s my go to place!
Bob Dylan, Goddammit, the Tumblr pornbots are migrating
We have Tom Thumbs in Charlottesville VA
rest in peace Kroger
I watch a lot of channels like yours, but you actually get interviews from the people who work there.I watch a lot of channels like yours, but you actually get interviews from the people who work there. I'm going to pay to watch your movie tomorrow, I can't wait. And even if it's free, I don't know, I'll pay and still enjoy it. You are LITERARY a genius my guy
AT LEAST WE HAVE SUPERSTORE
Yes. I shop Superstire over Walmart
Too many business experts in the comments section
Lmao true
economy is dying soon we all will be poor only the 0.01% will have money
😂
Well the "business experts" at Target didn't get it right either.
I guess no one is a "Business Expert".
Ending credits and music was a win.
+Rediscover Film I know right, the song works so well with it
+Bright Sun Films yep and what's the ending song called. I like it
+EmeraldCactus it is in Description of video. 👍
+EmeraldCactus // XavierTheNormalGuy Why iii Love The Moon.
Lmfao that target gas station is literally from my town so I just got shook 😂
Target are master modern architects. I love the way their buildings look. They should be hired to design malls or modernize buildings.
It's to bad the Targets closed. I live in America so it shocks me to see them closed. The Target that i sometimes shop at is still open. It's just a long as drive so me and the family don't go often.
Wow why did they close and do you now the location of this one i wan't to explore it :)
Bros Of Decay The closed ones are allover Canada. They lost money in Canada and closed up shop. But in America they still sell stuff. They are not closed in America. Only the Canada stores closed. But i don't know where those closed stores are. I know where the closest Target is to this house. Because like i said America still has Targets. It's just the one my family shops at is a good bit of a drive away. So we can't go often.
cartergamegeek target Canada was basically a different company, that's why they added the Canada at the end. Almost every American company that comes to Canada opens up as a new company by adding the Canada at the end. After they didn't do well here, target Canada closed up shop and left, but in no way affected what happening in the states
Adesh Bhullar My point was Target does well in America. So it just shocks me that the market in Canada was not right for Target. It's a good store. So to see it fail is shocking. But Canada has a different market. So things often go bad. But to someone like me that lives in America it's a shock it failed. I would have never guessed that Target would fail in Canada. They do well here so the logic of going to Canada was solid. But then they did poorly and closed. Because i did not follow news from Canada i did not know Targets in Canada closed. So this video was interesting to me. This just goes to show how different places and people can often get different reactions to your company and goods. Often times in a bad way you were not expecting.
No one I know is really sad to see target leave Canada because they opened too fast and all the stuff they had was garbage. When the stores first opened no one was impressed and just wanted Zellers back
As an American, if you had to give me a choice between Target and Walmart, I'd choose Target any day. Even though they sell most of the same stuff, I just feel like certain things at Target have better quality than they do at Walmart. Plus at my local Target, the workers are a lot nicer than the ones at my local Walmart.
+riley sunderland Target has some cool unique stuff. I remember as a kid my mom would always take us to the states before the school year started to get all the cool school supplies Target had. Zellars was kinda like Target too and had some cool unique stuff. Walmart is more basic stuff. Basically no Kmart, no Target, no Zellars, Sears basically gone, I think Future Shoppe and Best Buy are leaving Canada too, I think all the Saan stores closed, Eatons is gone, is the Bay even around anymore? Basically the whole country is going to shit as far as shopping goes. Sounds like almost every chain is gone. I wonder what is the reason for all of this. Surely Walmart can't be the reason it's mostly just a bunch of cheap crap that didn't even really compete with the other stores really.
+WaterspoutsOfTheDeep Yeah, Canada's market just seems weird. Like I think Canada relies mostly on Canadian brands than American brands from what I hear. But then again, the only thing I really know about Canada is Tim Horton's, bagged milk, and everything I learned from How I Met Your Mother (which I'm pretty sure was all stereotypes) But idk about Canadian Walmarts, but if you go to almost any Walmart in the states like in the middle of the night, it's quite sketchy. My cousin went there at like 2 am one time and she said someone tried to sell her weed, and there was nothing but people just walking around smoking blunts. Probably wouldn't surprise me if Canadian Walmarts were the same around that time of night.
riley sunderland
lmao that sounds like an exaggeration. Unless here in sin city las vegas the walmarts are magically the only walmarts not sketchy late at night haha.
12:01 It seems Jake's audio quality became abandoned
*sitcom laugh track*
I actually just watched this and had to back up and make sure I actually heard the quality drop for real and it wasn't just like something wrong with my ears haha
@@CaptainSouthbird did the same thing lmao.
(also I just realized you've done editing for vinesauce, that's awesome and you're cool 👍)
@@CaptainSouthbird also you seem cool, i'mma subscribe rq
I randomly clicked on this video expecting a few teens exploring an abandoned building, I was pleasantly surprised with the very well written and well shot educational video. Nice Work!
+Brian Masters Me too! Rarely do I watch an entire video that's more than 10 minutes, especially one that I see in my "suggested" and want to check out, but this one was very informative and interesting. I love Target and it's sad that it didn't work out in Canada.
I'm baffled that Target didn't plan out the basic stuff like having a competitive advantage.
There was virtually NO planning in pushing this thing on Canadians. It deserved to fail. It was an ugly store with a sterile atmosphere, and no stock.
I want Zellers back.... I miss that diner inside o_O
The diner was the best part of Zellers
Jessica MacDonald Ikr.
I'd always order that huge grilled cheese. Oh, the memories
Conor McCann I CAN'T. I JUST CAN'T.
Oh yeah I loved zellers it was a good store
"In a realistic senereo target would not become profitable until 2021"
2021:good luck with that
I love Target! It is so much better than Walmart and I just have no words for the closings in Canada.
Target's "brand" is somehow being considered morally superior to Wal-Mart and a general feeling of having higher status, despite being almost exactly the same store. I guess this intangible value didn't translate to Canadians as well.
Also: why SO many stores? As i understand: Canada's population is considerably lower than the U.S. Were there even enough people to support such a volume of stores? , even if: they were fairly successful in capturing a significant fraction of the consumer base?
Calling them the "same" store is a bit of a reach idk about walmarts in Canada but in the US the type of people it attacts the cleanliness and how the stores are run is awful. Having worked in both target definitely operates a lot differently and they treat their employees a lot better.
2short99 I wouldn't say they treated them better.. Maybe my management was just terrible
Fun fact: Canada's population is just slightly less than California's alone.
My understanding was that Target's management believed the only way they could get into Canada and establish themselves was by doing it big and fast. Zeller's problems solved their space problem but ... the Zellers' locations weren't quite where they would have liked to have been had they been in the States (Zeller's was a bit more discount-oriented and didn't locate as close to the more middle-class base that Target likes). Also they had to adapt the stores' interior a bit for their displays to work. Perhaps not enough.
Mullet, one has to take into consideration that the Canadians who are close to the border come to the states to shop. This in turn hurts the Canadian Communities. We are told that it helps the US economy but that is a lie because the Canadians buy out what we Americans will and want to purchase, but can't because of being sold out. They scam the Canadian taxes too by cutting off tags etc and telling the Border crossing that they do not have anything new. It is the Canadians who are coming to the States and buying things in the US and not claiming what they bought at the border that is hurting the Canadians.
Why doesn't target go to New Zealand and replace the TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE FURNITURE STORE THAT LOOKS LIKE TARGET!!
The only retailer in NZ is The Warehouse. It doesn't sell food and I would be much happier if target came. The warehouse would be dead if target came.
I did a quick search on The Warehouse and they do sell food.
^ Candy bars and stuff. Also I was wrong. There are 3 Retailers in New Zealand. K-mart and farmers along with The Warehouse.
Caio brown's 2nd Channel Australian & New Zealand's department stores don't sell groceries. You have to go to a supermarket (which is kinda annoying). Target Australia doesn't sell groceries either.
Jim Battersbee Canada is pretty nice don't bash us
Lmaooo, the picture you used of the shopping mall at the beginning of the video is literally THE MALL I WORK AT. Thats actually hilarious, i was watching this video trying to forget about going to work tomorrow😂😂😂 0:24
ALSO. They took the space that used to be the Zellers/ recently empty Target and turned it into a food market with vendors, and now I work at a bakery in the market😅😅
I don't know how big Famous Players was elsewhere in Canada but you should do an episode on the former Cinema chain
CanadianWarMachine Famous players still exists as a subsidiary of ciniplex many community's still have famous players. They are not yet a real topic because they aren't yet abandoned although if things keep going not well for theatres you might be looking at something worth talking about in a few years.
rip zellers. it was lit fam.
Chiara Rachael You will always be remembered for your awesome in store diners.
Chiara Rachael lol I was thinking of commenting the same thing but I was afraid that people would think I'm cringey
Pete fucking Wentz lmao sucks to be me I'm cringey as shit
I never went there m8.
This series is awesome. Keep up the good work, Jake.
+SuperSmash3DS Seriously thank you so much.
+Bright Sun Films same from me! I really enjoy this series!
+Bright Sun Films Don't mention it. I've always found abandoned places very fascinating, so it's great to see a series of videos dedicated to it.
Just between episodes 1 and 15 you have improved so so so much! I just found your channel and I’m going back and watching all your old videos
RIP Zellers and Future Shop, you were two of my favourite stores. Target? Well at least you tried... take this participation medal.
both our Target and our Future shop are empty and gathering dust lol
Future shop was pricey but good. I bought a lot of my old stereo stuff there. Its gone, now we have Best Buy. I cant complain. They have almost everything and the prices are not bad.
Sure Canada is a tough market to break into, with its small population and all. But I put the blame on the Canadian Target CEO. Opening 100 stores in a year is overly ambitious and a sure sign of his ego mania. He takes the company down the drain, thousands loose their jobs, but the Ceo gets a golden handshake! This isn't Targets first store opening. How could they get it so wrong?!? I see these empty stores everyday. Even Canadian stores don't want to move in.
They should have hired u as CFO
It seems like it was a fashion trend at the time.
American Apparel did the same a few years before Target decide to buy Zellers. Also Davids Tea did the same. So if they could do it means it will always work. Yes 2 overpriced trendy brand small sized stores compared to a department store
American Apparel opened 1000+ stores between U.S and Canada in one continuous roll out
Target is just slightly more expensive than Walmart. But the stores are nicer, cleaner and the staff way more friendly. No mo taget fo yu Canada!
Jeremy Puflett, I live in Upstate NY, right by Canada. We get a LOT of snow but even I knew that this person meant the inside of Targer is cleaner than Walmart.
Walmarts where I am is clean. (Ontario)
Target seems nicer than Wal-Mart, it feels more welcoming and colorful (even if its mostly red :)
Also at the target i usually go to they have a plastic target dog on a bench, i think it's a cute touch.
RythmBoy Target in the US is a very different case though. Not sure if this reflects all of Canada, but our closest Target was absolute garbage. Management was awful and so was the selection. And employees clearly had no clue what they were doing. It was just Zellers with a fresh coat of paint.
Adding on to that, they had an awful website. The site did not show you what they sold. Why would I go to a store when I have no idea if they have what I need when I can check Walmart's website and be sure that not only do they sell the item that I want but also have it in stock?