Quote:
Originally Posted by random11
I blame them as the majority factor of their own failure. Zellers had just gone under. It went under for a reason. And target decided to become Zellers 2.0 instead of trying to bring anything close to what the USA variant offered.
For whatever reason Zellers refused to implement a web store not even the bare minimum of an online stock check (Ie “find in a store near you”). And for some idiotic reason Target thought it could get away with the same BS.
It is my strong belief that their lack of an online store front AND their mismanagement of in store inventory (things not getting restocked) were the key factors for their failure.
I do not buy the spin that it was because of Canadian’s expectation of cheap prices. Sure there could have been people that expected it. But I don’t buy that it was a significant factor.
I think it was run by morons straight into the ground.
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Just to add to this a bit it wasn't Zellers fault so much as it was HBCs fault as the parent company for not doing things like a website or some type of online presence. Let's not forget Walmart Canada had almost zero online presence until Target arrived as well. They were happy doing zilch too.
Their inventory would've worked if they just used the already in place system Target USA used, but some idiot wanted to do their own brand new system that wasn't ready for deployment.
As for the spin about consumers and the expectations of USA pricing. That wasn't so much something Target spun as an excuse but something the media kept hammering them on and set the expectation for consumers. Several prominent business analysts in the industry stated that those rumors and stories killed opening crowds and it kept people away, while not the killing blow it was up there as a reason why. Target also never gave it time to recover, which I think it would've. But then the inventory system is a whole other nut to crack. So much went wrong so fast. If they rode it out it would've been rough but they could've made it.
I'm sure we can all agree though for all the bad that happened Target leaving was a bad thing for Canadian consumers. And yes it was run by morons.
