Canadian Transformers News and Discussion Forum

[wervenom]

Originally Posted by GotBot

This is indeed sad news. Even if imperfect, TRU has been a childhood staple for generations of fans. Beyond that, it is just sad when any business ends up falling, never positive for any economy. I especially feel bad for employees losing their jobs. As a Canadian, I worry. A few years ago, Wal-Mart strangled Target into leaving with some smart and legit but slimy tactics. With them gone, we have a few small, useless chains, like Winners/Marshalls and Superatore that stock, periodically, outdated overstock from Wal-Mart and TRU and stuff like minicon deployers or 1 step changers. So, to find tf's or several other toy lines here, you really only have TRU and Wal-Mart, unless you go online and like paying for shipping lo, which is of course a valud option. If TRU goes, I fear Wal-Mart's monopoly. And, they are already charging 29.99 for those damned movie deluxes...Berserker is NOT close to being a 30 dollar plus tax quality toy. Give Wal-Mart a monopoly, they can charge what they want and there is no motivation to stock new waves with any speed or certainty. They will have no competition to keep them in check. Some say this is a chance for smaller chains, and it is, but I doubt any of them will take the risk with any great quantity, sadly. Winners used to be okay, but they virtually have nothing now until Christmas, and even then it isn't worth talking about. Here they had one case of Rid, one of those huge anniversary Primals that never sold and one Blitzwing and Octane. That was it. Anyone have better luck in their neck of the woods?

I agree with most of what you say except the Walmart vs Target aspect. Walmart did not force Target to fail, they did that all on their own and used a great deal of "slimy" tactics themselves when they opened. I'm not going to defend Walmart in any way but they welcomed Target here if only to watch them fail. Target was FAR too aggressive in how many stores they opened and made no attempt to duplicate the US based stores. For anyone who shops frequently at Target through cross-border shopping can easily identify the differences on how they presented themselves here vs the US. Now having said that, it is a shame what is happening to TRU for us as consumers but again with the business tactics that they themselves employed it's no small wonder that TRU has survived this long. Hopefully the Canadian division can find a way to turn this around as I do believe there is a huge difference with how they operate here vs US.

Edit: Based on the original point it looks as if I will start going the on-line route for my TF needs