You'd Better Not Forget.

It's just a few days until the deadline for Canadian tax returns for 2014, unless of course you file more than yearly.  So make sure you get it done.  You don't want to piss off Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath, especially since they're dead.

Winter Returns.

Well, not really.  But it is snowing quite heavily here today.  There might be less than a week left in April, but snow at this time of year isn't much of a surprise.  Good thing for me I still had my winter jacket handy, since I decided to go out via bus for a bit today.

Gas In Saskatoon, April 17, 2015.

It's always nice to see the price of gas drop, at least if you're a consumer.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 93.9 cents a litre at most locations.  This time last year it was hovering around the 130 cents mark.

Pathetic.

The month is half gone, and this is only the fourth post I've written.  This is definitely not acceptable. 

Not Many Customers.

Doing a search on eBay tonight I noticed that one product was listed as coming from Korea, South.  In a way the South part is probably redundant.  After all I doubt the typical North Korean is allowed to buy or sell on eBay, or that PayPal would accept North Korean won as payment.  The handful of people that might conceivably be allowed access to eBay no doubt use some other method of acquiring goods.

Gas In Saskatoon, April 2, 2015.

A nice Easter treat for Saskatoon drivers, a price drop.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 97.9 cents a litre at most locations.  Hopefully we won't see a price increase for a while.

Target Lost.

Today was the end of Target's operations in Saskatoon.  The Mall at Lawson Heights store closed yesterday.  The Centre at Circle and 8th store will end operations tonight.  I went to the latter last night, assuming it would be less busy than today.  Frankly it looked almost like a riot had taken place.  Most of what was left was clothing, and much of that was scattered around the store.  From the looks of it some stuff was dropped by customers who decided at the last minute not to buy things.  This seems consistent with news reports about other Target outlets, with employees noting piggish behaviour by would be customers.(I'm probably insulting pigs by saying that.)

Target likely holds as much of the blame as the customers do.  I was in those same stores when Zellers, the previous holder of those spaces, closed their doors in 2013.  Even at the very end the Zellers stores looked neater that what I saw yesterday.  It seemed as if some of the employees were still willing to put some effort at making a good impression.  Perhaps the difference then was that Zellers had generated loyalty in both its customers and its employees, and Target's Canadian operations never managed to do that.

I've never been to an American Target store, but there were multiple news reports that Canadian buyers didn't find the experience the same, or the prices as low.  This strikes me as naïve on their part.  Surely some of these people must have visited Walmarts in the US, and noticed the Canadian ones weren't clones of the American stores, especially when it came to price.  Operating in Canada is always going to be a bit more expensive than the US, even when the Canadian dollar is closer to the US one, as it was when Target opened.

In the end though Target's disastrous Canadian foray was the result of their own mistakes.  Reports indicated an inability to understand the Canadian market, and an unwillingness to change their ways until it was too late, which seems odd.  You'd think someone at Target would have realised the value of hiring former or even current Walmart executives, given the latter's long and successful operations in Canada.  Along with price complaints the most commonly heard criticism of Target was their lack of selection, which was obvious even to the casual customer, and which they never managed to correct.  To me at least the Saskatoon stores lacked any sort of energy that would encourage customers to become regular patrons.  This was a result of that lack of selection and other things, like the absence of any sort of music or customer information from an in store PA system.  They may also have hurt themselves with their unwillingness to offer previous Zellers employees preference in hiring for the new stores, people familiar with the markets they were serving.

Given how poorly they did in Canada, a country with strong cultural similarities to the US, and a common language, English, spoken in most of the country, I hate to think they might have done if they'd picked a non-English market as their first expansion attempt.  Target's foreign expansion plans are likely to remain on the back burner for a long time to come given what has happened here.

No Future.

Another long running name leaves the Canadian retail landscape with the demise of Future Shop.  American owner Best Buy abruptly closed the chain this morning, with no warning to customers or staff.  Saskatoon's Future Shop outlet, at Preston Crossing, will be one of 65 that is converted into a Best Buy store, joining the existing Best Buy at the Centre at Circle and 8th. 

It's unfortunately probably been overdue.  The consumer electronics retail business has been contracting for years, with many buyers switching to online sources like Amazon, or even the online divisions of Future Shop and Best Buy.  It's a different market than when Future Shop opened its first store in 1982, or when Best Buy purchased them in 2001.  And operating both brands has always been a bit odd, as one unit of the company has been competing with the other.  Whether running two stores in a market like Saskatoon, but now under the same name, is viable remains to be seen. 

If you're a now let go Future Shop employee I hope you find a replacement job as soon as possible.

Not Recommended.

If at all possible avoid slipping on an icy step and smashing your knee, the right knee you always seem to hurt in such situations, into it.  Such activities tend to really screw up your walking.

I'm Lazy.

There's this post I could write, but at the moment I can't make myself get off my ass and write it.  After all, who wants to put out much effort on a Sunday?

Trip.

My parents and I drove out to Allan today, just for something different to do.  It was kind of dead, which is probably not surprising for noon on a Saturday.  We had lunch in the local Chinese restaurant.  Allan doesn't have the same kind of vibrancy as places like Martensville and Warman do, although they're obviously trying to go in that direction.  But it's a boomtown compared to the nearby village of Elstow, which we also drove through.  Elstow looks pretty sad and worn out, and it wouldn't surprise me if a decade or so from now it's effectively gone.

Gas In Saskatoon, March 20, 2015.

Rather a jump to report this week.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 102.9 cents a litre at most locations, an 8 cent jump.   I'll be totally unsurprised if we see another price increase next week.

Backtracking.

We were doing so well.  The snow was rapidly disappearing.  But overnight Saskatoon ended up seeing more snow.  Spring may be about to spring, but that doesn't mean snow won't come back for a visit.

Him Too.

As a followup to this post I should note that my dad saw a rabbit this morning.  He saw one running across the road on 25th Street near the police station.  Downtown isn't a good place to be running for a rabbit.

Gas In Saskatoon, Friday March 13, 2015.

A small tick down to report this week.  Gas in Saskatoon is now 94.9 cents a litre at most locations.  As always it will be interesting to see if it goes up at all as the next holiday, in this case Easter, approaches.

Quite The Spread.

I decided I wanted a Kit Kat tonight.  The Dollarama at Centre Mall, which is where I would normally buy one, is currently closed as they move from one end of the mall to the other.  Their price before tax for one is 77 cents.  So I went into Shoppers Drug Mart.  Their price?  $1.69 before taxes.  Since I had to drive past it to go home anyway I went into Sobeys to buy one.  Their price?  $1.19 before taxes.  I hate to think what 7/11 charges for one these days.

It makes me wonder what the wholesale cost of a Kit Kat, or other chocolate bars, is.  You'd think Dollarama wouldn't have a purchasing advantage over the other companies that allows for such a low price compared to the others, but you never know.  Is Dollarama counting on selling that many more of them to make up for a much smaller profit per bar?  Or is Shoppers making a lot of money per bar with that markup? 

Ironically the new Dollarama location is across the mall from Shoppers in Centre West.  I wonder if that will hurt Shoppers candy sales any more than the old location, in Center East, did.

Can I Create A Hashtag?

I guess I can try.  As a followup to the previous post, #getwellmarcus.

It Already Looks Long.

The Major League Baseball season is a long one.  And if you're a Blue Jays fan it already seems like it's going to be a very long one, even though it's still weeks away.  Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman has torn a ligament in his knee, and will be out for the season.  The Jays really can't afford to lose a starter, especially one like Stroman,, who looks like he could be very good.  Of course the length of the baseball season, 162 regular season games, means a lot of stuff can happen.  Maybe the Jays will get lucky.

Are The Rabbits Listening?

This morning I commented to my dad that I was overdue for seeing a rabbit.  It seems I see one every few months.

Off to Lakeshore Crescent I went this morning.  What did I see as I began to walk around the area?  A jackrabbit.

Maybe they're listening in on us somehow.

A Growing Food Trend.

A Villa Madina outlet has been added the food court at the Centre at Circle and 8th.  Like a lot of recent businesses it uses electronic signage instead of old fashioned printed signs.  One of the pieces of information on its video loop is that the meat at Villa Madina is certified halal.

Saskatoon's Muslim population has increased considerably in recent years.  Along with that increase has been increased visibility of halal food products.  You can find them both in stores catering to local Muslims, and in places like Real Canadian Superstore.  So a restaurant that advertises the halal status of its food is no surprise.  On the other hand I'm sure it's a pleasant surprise for those looking for more halal eating options.

I don't expect we'll see halal meat in a lot of the older fast food places.  It probably wouldn't be worth the bother given that other menu items won't be halal, like anything that includes pork products.  And of course Muslims will vary in their willingness to accept non-halal food products.  For some it will be a very important issue, for others it will be quite far down the list of what they worry about.

Incidentally I went up to the mall to visit Co Op to pick up some frozen hamburgers.  The hamburgers in question have no indication of halal certification on the box.  Not that I was looking for such certification when I bought them, not being a Muslim.