business

Brick-and-mortar outlets “have become less relevant,” he said, and as a result “the handwriting’s on the wall” when it comes to selling electronics in a big-box format.

Another factor is that electronics are being “downsized” as technology advances, making it less necessary to maintain huge stores, and cheaper for retailers to sell goods online and ship them to customers, Williams said.

While a big box is good for things like television, there really isn’t an advantage when it comes to other items. The Source is every bit as compitive on a lot of items. Even today I went to Best Buy and then actually found what I was looking for at The Source for a lower price. That happens quite a bit. It’s especially a big deal with The Source having locations all over the city. I often find it really easy to wander in and find what I am looking for on a break or while I am out and about.

The other issue is especially with Apple products is that I can buy direct from Apple and if it is over $50, I get free shipping and I don’t have to pay tax. I am looking at replacing my iPod with a new iPod Nano and it’s cheaper to buy direct from Apple than it is from anywhere in the city. The same thing when I buy from MEC. Expect others like Microsoft and even brands like Dr. Dre to do the same thing. Even if they don’t, shopping from Amazon is so easy and with Amazon’s low margins, it’s almost the same thing for an established brand.

In the end the big box stores use the format to compete on price and if they can’t compete on price, they bring very little else to the table (unless they can create an in-store experience like Cabelas) As online retail continues to grow, look for smaller stores with better customer service, and easy access to make a comeback. It isn’t just electronics. Stores like Rona are asking the same questions about how easy is it to compete with Home Depot and Lowes on a large scale when they may have the supply chain efficiencies and infrastructure to do it.

The other part of the retail discussion is Sears laying off 700 people in Canada. I wasn’t surprised. Several times I have been the only customer I could see in a Sears store and when I walk through it I have to dodge rack after rack of discounted goods. While The Bay has rallied around the voice and leadership of Bonnie Brooks, Sears seems to just be drifting with empty stores, an aging demographic, and no real leadership. I can’t see them being around in five years time.

A 33rd Street BID?

Dec 11th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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A great idea for Mayfair and Caswell Hill. Story is by Charles Hamilton of The StarPhoenix.

When Nicola Tabb looks out the front door of her vintage clothing shop on 33rd Street, she sees a community ripe with potential.

This strip is home to one of Saskatoon’s most acclaimed bakeries, a handful of antique shops, a tattoo parlour, a hair salon and hardware stores.

While prostitution and drug use are still relatively common sights in the area, these few blocks on Saskatoon’s west side have all the makings, she said, of a place on its way to becoming this city’s up-and-coming neighbourhood.

“I get people coming in all the time saying, ‘Thank you for opening on 33rd. I love to support my local business.’ I’m not sure if I would have got that anywhere else in the city,” she said.

Tabb lives in Caswell Hill just a few blocks away from where she opened her store, Better Off Duds, eight months ago. Since then, she said, the community has embraced her and now she is just one of a number of local entrepreneurs keen on the idea of starting a business improvement district (BID) for 33rd Street.

Similar BIDs are already operating in the Broadway, downtown, Sutherland and Riversdale neighbourhoods. The idea of a BID, according to supporters, is to get community and business people actively engaged in development decisions affecting the neighbourhoods.

“You look at what 20th Street was 10 years ago even, and since the inception and development of the BID look at what happened to the neighbourhood. It’s a trendy, kitschy place now,” said Shannon Vinish, a former business owner who was instrumental in the area’s first attempt at forming a BID back in 2004.

BIDs operate in more than 1,400 business areas across North America. The organizations are funded primarily by a levy on business owner’s property taxes and work on lobbying different levels of government for things such as increased policing, street level improvements and zoning bylaws.

“It’s just a natural progression of an area turning in on itself and saying, ‘What happened, how did this happen and how do we fix it,’ ” said Randy Pshebylo, the executive director of the Riversdale BID, which has been active since 1990.

Pshebylo said BIDs can be an effective way of giving business members a voice in shaping the landscape of their community. His BID, for example, lobbied successfully for a limit on the number of pawn shops on 20th Street.

I am actually excited about this. The Hudson Bay Park/Mayfair/Kelsey Woodlawn Community Association is revitalized, the Local Area Plan starts Thursday, and now a BID for 33rd Street? These are all really good things happening in the area.

The real reason Gary Bettman hates Donald Fehr

Dec 7th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

1 comment

When Bettman looks at Fehr, he sees himself

Ask anyone who has had to haggle out a deal with Bettman behind closed doors and they’ll paint a picture of a brilliant, calculating and ruthless negotiator, who seizes every advantage, who when presented with an opportunity goes straight for the kill. He understands his opposition’s weak points, he knows his side’s strengths, and with a cool head and cold eyes he calculates the path to victory. That’s one reason why his employers, the owners, love him, and pay him the big bucks.

Consider the last NHL labour negotiations in 2004 and 2005. Employing classic divide and conquer tactics, understanding that hockey players in their hearts still feel darned lucky to be playing a game for a living, seeing the cracks in the infrastructure around Bob Goodenow, Bettman soon enough had the union membership enthusiastically sticking knives in the back of their own leader.

And the tipping point of that process?

When the players offered up a 24 per cent salary roll back to avoid a salary cap, and Bettman and the owners gratefully accepted their generosity as a starting point, and then ground them into the dust.

The players hired Donald Fehr as their union head because he is Bettman’s equal. He is there to guard them against falling prey to their own sentimentality about the game, to protect their interests in a negotiation in which everyone understood that they would be giving back, would be surrendering rights and surrendering money guaranteed in the previous collective agreement.

Clearly a student of history, Fehr began by restructuring the union hierarchy so that there was no longer a ready-made group of potential Brutuses who might be turned against him. Bettman and the owners have attempted the same strategy this time around, contacting players directly, whispering about revolts in the rank and file, suggesting that Fehr isn’t telling the whole truth, that it’s his presence alone that is preventing a deal. But so far, it doesn’t seem to be working nearly as well as it did against Goodenow.

We have now also had “good cop” owners enter the picture, we have had Sidney Crosby ride in on his white horse, we have had numerous propaganda volleys from both sides. But what’s been going on away from all of that staged drama is a hard, grind-it-out negotiation, with Fehr playing the same kind of frustrate-the-opposition defence that the New Jersey Devils employed in the bad old days.

It is going to be tough getting to the finish, though surely that’s still in the cards. Fehr is going to negotiate against a deadline – a real hard deadline to salvage the season , wherever that actually lies – and try to hold back any impulsive moves by his membership. Along the way, he’s going to grab whatever he can.

Like when the owners offered to up their “make whole” offer to $300-million this week, thinking that number would turn heads and shift the emotional tide and lead to the players rushing past the other details in their hurry to get back on the ice.

That’s great, Fehr said. Thanks for the money.

Now let’s negotiate the other stuff.

Gee, where have we seen that before?

Fleeing downtown Calgary

Dec 3rd, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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This is an interesting trend. Is the rent too high in downtown Calgary?

Imperial Oil is on the move. Now Canadian Pacific Railway. The big question is who is next to make the jump from downtown Calgary as prices escalate and tenants look for better rents away from the core.

“You add them together and you get 1.2 million square feet and that’s a big chunk,” said Ross Moore , head of research with CB Richard Ellis Canada, in referring to the two companies. “There is a limit to how high you can push rents.”

Imperial announced in September it would move its downtown office to a 20-acre site away from the downtown with five low-rise buildings and 800,000 square feet. Then last week CP Rail said it would move its employees as part of a cost-cutting plan.

“Everybody is focused on costs and real estate is obviously part of your costs,” said Mr. Moore, who wonders whether the trend will curtail some of the planned development expected to go ahead shortly. “They all have to be having second thoughts.”

Third quarter statistics from CB Richard Ellis show rents overall in Calgary’s downtown core climbed 4.4% from just three months before to $26.79 per square foot per year, making it one of the most expensive places in North America. The vacancy rate for what is considered a AA building is a scant 0.5% which has pushed rates up.

Of course the answer is no as it is market driven. CPR is cutting costs and Imperial Oil has it’s own strategic reasons to move to a very large campus but it is extremely interesting to see how expensive rent is in downtown Calgary.

Nothing like an old fashioned bio-diesel mystery

Dec 3rd, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

1 comment

This is one extremely odd story involving CN Rail

A CBC News investigation has uncovered a cross-border mystery involving unexplained shipments of biodiesel tanker cars that were sent back and forth numerous times between Canada and the U.S. by CN Rail but were never unloaded.

According to leaked internal CN documents, the rail company stood to make $2.6 million for the effort.

“CN received shipping directions from the customer, which, under law, it has an obligation to meet,” CN Rail spokesman Mark Hallman said last week. “CN discharged its obligations with respect to those movements in strict compliance with its obligations as a common carrier, and was compensated accordingly.”

When asked whether CN wasn’t helping to do something strange, Hallman responded: “CN met its obligations as a common carrier and we have no further comment.”

And then this…

CN internal documents obtained by CBC News show that the company had agreed to flip the shipments back and forth across the border using its rail lines and tunnels 24 times without unloading any cargo. This garnered CN $2.5 million.

Each shipment generated bills of lading, customs import and export forms that suggest total biodiesel shipments of 1,984 cars — which, taken together, would be valued in the hundreds of millions.

So any theories about what is going on?

So why are our kids poorer than we are?

Oct 15th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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Ugh. A study released last year by Deloitte Canada reported that “Canadian output per worker is only 86% of American output.”

What does this mean for the Canadian economy?

Our children will not be as affluent as we are. Not only are we behind, but the gap grows every year. We use the U.S. as a benchmark, but we’re behind other countries as well. And as we continue to slide, the long-term implications for Canadians are very significant. Most income growth in the last decade and more has gone to the top 1% or top .1% of Canadians. Part of the reason for that is because our productivity lags. Productivity is not about people working harder. Productivity is about people producing more per hour worked, which is a different thing. Our problem is not Canadian workers. Canadian workers work as hard, they work as many hours, they are as capable as U.S. or other workers. But we need business to invest in their companies in order to allow those workers to produce more. And we need our workers to accept the fact that that’s actually the key to getting better pay. If you want to fix income disparity, improve productivity. If we don’t do anything about productivity, we’ll go from earning three-quarters of what a U.S. family does for the same work today, to earning half or some other smaller number. The standard of living our children experience will not be what we enjoy.

Saskatoon’s Future: Being blackmailed by billionaires

Sep 26th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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As Saskatoon grows bigger, more and more people have talked about bringing a pro sports franchise to the city. Hockey has been dreamt about since Bill Hunter tried to bring the St. Louis Blues to Saskatoon in 1984. We saw one group try to bring the Phoenix Coyotes here for at least a couple of games a season and there has been been some talk of a CFL franchise coming to Saskatoon (even if it meant that it would kill the Riders). A pro sports franchise would be fabulous in the short term. We would sell out Credit Union Centre and cough up money for some much needed renovations and capital improvements. There may even a new stadium built downtown, where Credit Union Centre should have been built in the first place. That is how it will start out but let me tell you how it will end.

Over the weekend, the Edmonton Oilers’ owner and senior management went to Seattle to tour the Key Arena in an effort to get the City of Edmonton to pay for an even larger part of a $500 million dollar stadium deal. After getting the city to pay for the entire stadium up front and then giving billionaire owner Darryl Katz a sweetheart loan for his portion (to be paid back over 35 years), he wants an additional $6 million subsidy to run the arena. Instead of paying back his portion back $5.5 million a year, Katz is now demanding that he gets a free half-billion dollar stadium and $500,000 a year to run it. Where do I sign up?

Katz isn’t the only owner to behave badly. For every responsible sports owner with deep ties to his community, there are numerous ones that extort their community to buy them things or as the threat goes, they will move their franchise. The threat works as there is an empty hockey stadium in Kansas City and Seattle is building a new stadium to lure back the NBA (probably the Sacramento Kings). Hockey is an excellent second tenant to make even more money. Seeing everyone else do it, enables even local billionaires to behave badly. Katz which has deep roots to the Edmonton area and is a very profitable market with a very loyal fan base is basically blackmailing the Edmonton city council to give him the deal that he wants or he will move a team that has spent its entire existence in Edmonton to Seattle.

Now that Seattle has reached out to him (and he has reached back), expect a Kansas City visit as well. Why not play multiple markets off each other until Edmonton City Council responds to the bullying. While it doesn’t excuse Katz’s behaviour, many other owners behave the same way. The NFL has an empty Los Angeles market where the threat of teams moving to Los Angeles has gotten it better stadium deals in almost every market where the NFL has a new stadium. It will be used for leverage in the upcoming years in Jacksonville, Miami, Oakland, and San Diego. While FedEx Field in Washington is only 15 years old and still cutting edge, owner Daniel Snyder has already declared it as “half-life” and wants a new downtown, stadium. Instead of wanting Washington to pay for it, he is willing, if they give him a big chunk of land to develop for free. So why does a 15 year old stadium that is the largest in the NFL need to be replaced after only 15 years? He wants to keep up with the Giants/Jets/Cowboys and maybe even the new Rider stadium. EIther the Washington taxpayers pay for the stadium or give him premium land for his own profit. Either way, taxpayers pay. Just watch, if he doesn’t get what he wants, he will move the team. Threats of moving teams got a new stadium built in Miami even when there isn’t a great market left to move to and this was after Jeff Loria had already proven that he is the worst owner in sports (he destroyed the Montreal Expos).

Heading back to Seattle, the Key Arena was completely renovated in 1995 and brought to NBA standards. NBA commissioner David Stern called it state of the art but less than a decade later, he was in town demanding that Seattle build the Supersonics a new team, invest another $220 million into the stadium or they would move. When the city said no, the team moved to Oklahoma and became the Thunder. In 2002, the Charlotte Hornets moved to New Orleans because of their antiquated stadium that was built in 1988. The fans supported the team through 364 consecutive sell-outs but even that wasn’t enough to keep the team in town. The stadium didn’t make it’s 20th birthday before being demolished (it was 13 years old when Charlotte had their first referendum on building a new stadium).

This is what happens. Billionaire owners of profitable teams want more and the expectation is that taxpayers give it to them. It happens all over the place and as Saskatoon grows, it will happen here, whether it is a NHL team, a CFL team or even a AHL team; it’s great for a while and then all of us have to pay up for the right to buy tickets to watch a team. It’s a sick system and I feel bad for the City of Edmonton, Edmonton Oilers fans, and fans of sport in the city because it’s not right.

Will the same thing happen in Saskatoon? If pro sports come to Saskatoon in a real way, of course it will. We will tell ourselves that it won’t happen, we have local owners, and we are a growing market in a booming economy; just like Edmonton told itself when Katz bought the team. It’s only a matter of time.

Don Tapscott on the theory of Wikinomics

Aug 24th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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Zellers employees upset at the wrong Target

Aug 19th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

1 comment

I don’t really understand this

Angela Rankin knows exactly how much Target paid Zellers for the leases to 220 stores across Canada.

It wasn’t a billion. It was $1.8-billion — $1.825-billion to be more precise.

Rankin was let go on July 28 from the Zellers at Dufferin and Dupont in Toronto after 13 years working the cash, the sales floor and as a pharmacy technician, with nothing more than the legally mandated severance pay her employers were required to give.

“It’s selfishness. It’s sad,” says Rankin, 50, a mother of one who helps support cousins in Jamaica.

“I don’t know what they’re thinking. I don’t know where their mind is. It’s greediness.”

Rankin will speak at a demonstration led by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union on Wednesday, Aug. 22, at 11 a.m., in front of Target’s Canadian headquarters in Mississauga.

“Target needs to do the right thing – keep the workers and respect their wages and benefits,” says Kevin Shimmin, national representative of the UFCW Canada,

Target posted earnings Wednesday of $704 million (U.S.), or $1.06 per share, in the period ended July 30. Overall revenue rose 3.5 per cent to $16.45 million in the quarter. Revenue at stores opened at least a year rose 3.1 per cent.

The chain will open its first stores in Canada in 2013.

First of all, Target paid HBC $1.85 billion dollars for leases, not the business. HBC is the one that kept the $1.85 billion. It could have given bonuses to all of it’s former employees but it didn’t. It was used to bolster it’s bottom line and no one seems upset at them. Secondly, Target has no legal or moral imperative to keep the salary structure, benefits or jobs of the people for the property it bought.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” says Kendra Coulter, a professor at the Centre for Labour Studies at Brock University. “This is a decision that has been made at the corporate level by Target and Zellers and HBC.”

She blames Stephen Harper’s Conservative government for failing to protect workers.

“If a very profitable foreign company is going to come into our country to rebrand stores, our citizens deserve respect and some criteria have to be met. They’re not building infrastructure from scratch, they’re not creating an enterprise that didn’t exist, they are rebranding stores,” said Coulter.

Again, Target paid $1.85 billion dollars for that infrastructure and they are not continuing Zellers, they are doing away with them. One thing that is lost here is that Zellers is a poorly run discount retailer that offers horrible customer service, has rather high prices, and poor quality stock. I was in a couple during their clearance sales as they liquidated their stores and their prices were still higher than what Walmart. In their electronics department, they were still selling Nintendo Game Cubes that were released a decade ago and discontinued back in 2007 still at full prices. They had a 3.1 megapixel camera for sale that was over 13 years old on the shelves at over $200. Years ago I was in Zellers looking for a jacket. They had the one that I wanted but it was behind all of these pallets of stock. I asked if there was anyway I could get the $140 jacket so I could buy it. I was told “no” it would be a couple of days before they got this stock put out. First of all who puts stock out so you can’t get to merchandise you want to sell. Secondly who says no to a customer who wants to spend money? Well, Zellers did. I cringed when I walked through there. Their shelves were a mess, stock was never put out in a timely fashion, and they never seemed to have anyone on the floor. Can you blame Target for not wanting to bring that culture to the new stores? If I was Target I would want staff who were trained the way I wanted them trained and did things the right way.

I feel bad for the employees but sometimes it happens that you work for a chain that isn’t run well and gets bought out. If I was them, I would be more upset at Bonnie Brooks and the HBC board for selling rather than fixing your chain. It’s them that screwed you over, not Target.

T. Boone Pickens: Let’s transform energy — with natural gas

Aug 13th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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The US consumes 25% of the world’s oil — but as energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens points out onstage, the country has no energy policy to prepare for the inevitable. Is alternative energy our bridge to an oil-free future? After losing $150 million investing in wind energy, Pickens suggests it isn’t, not yet. What might get us there? Natural gas.

DL Skateboards

Aug 11th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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DL Skateboards is a custom handmade Brooklyn, NY skate shop operating out of a box truck outside of co-founding couple Lauren Andino and Derek Mabra‘s Greenpoint apartment building. The couple have been skateboarding most of their lives and started their small business producing 60′s-style cruisers on a whim. Check out this video from Cool Hunting of the couple out on their street, shaping one of the last decks before taking their business out to California and click through the screenshots above for a look at their operation.

How cool is it that the business is run out of a truck. My question is would a business like this even be allowed to operate in Saskatoon?

Here is another artisan skateboard shop operating out of it’s community.

I love it.

Challenges Facing the World’s Cargo Fleet

Aug 11th, 2012

by Jordon.

Comments are off for this post

How bad is it for the shipping industry?

The high oil price of recent years has been an additional pain. Container shipping companies saw their profits of around $7 billion in 2010 turn to losses of about $5 billion last year. One response to the high cost of fuel and the abundance of ships has been to adopt "slow steaming" which means cutting speeds from around 20 knots to around 17 knots to save fuel. Extra vessels are added to the "string"so that the same level of service can be provided. The glut of ships means that they can be chartered cheaply: some daily rates have slumped more than 90%.

As the crisis worsened some lines have even opted for "super slow" steaming, which means 15 knots or less. Alas, this has turned out to bring its own problems as time goes by. Consistently sailing so slowly is damaging the giant engines designed to be operated at a higher rate. "It’s a bit like driving your car uphill in top gear," says one shipping executive. "It might keep going but it adds to wear on the bearings." But relief is on the horizon: oil companies such as Shell are rushing to bring to market better lubricating oils that reduce wear and work equally well in all climates.

Got what it takes to be a bicycle courier?

Aug 11th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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I didn’t think so. You can read more about Godspeed Courier on their website.

Guy Kawasaki presents ‘The Art of Innovation’

Aug 10th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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Labour Relations the Worst in 60 Years?

Aug 6th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

2 comments

I am not a big fan of Buzz Hargrove but he’s probably right. Hargrove blames Harper but it’s much more complicated than that.

University of Toronto historian Laurel MacDowell says Canada has shifted from an industrial to a service-based economy.

She says the dominant multi-national service-oriented companies, like Wal-Mart, are known for their anti-union views.

Hargrove says labour activists need to get creative if they want to turn the tide in their favour.

He says the plan to merge the CAW and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada is a big step in the right direction.

I am going to say that with the U.S. economy in a slow recovery with high unemployment and states desperate for investment that it is a big hammer over any negotiations because if labour doesn’t make the concessions you want, it’s easy to move to Indiana, Michigan, or Ohio and find a motivated, educated and trained workforce that is largely unemployed. Why pay high wages in Saskatchewan or Ontario when you can get the same product made for less money somewhere else.

It’s not fair to those that get squeezed in it but welcome to the foreseeable future.