I am back from a wonderful week in Canada, and wanted to share with you all a bit of information I got from a shopkeeper in Montreal’s Old Town. The shop – Eternal Noel – doesn’t seem to have a web site, but I was able to find this great picture on Flickr (and yes, this store is as charming on the inside as it is from the outside). When I went to pay for my purchases, the shop’s owner commented on my Target RedCard, and he shared with me that unfortunately, Canada does not have any Target stores yet. Walmart, yes, but Tar-jay, no. He said that it is hard for American-based retailers to enter the Canadian market because everything – all the signage, pricing, advertising, etc. – needs to be in both French and English. He said that he’s heard that Tar-jay is making strides to try and enter the Canadian market, but that it will take time to coordinate all the bilingual efforts.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
No Tar-jay for Canada… yet.
I am back from a wonderful week in Canada, and wanted to share with you all a bit of information I got from a shopkeeper in Montreal’s Old Town. The shop – Eternal Noel – doesn’t seem to have a web site, but I was able to find this great picture on Flickr (and yes, this store is as charming on the inside as it is from the outside). When I went to pay for my purchases, the shop’s owner commented on my Target RedCard, and he shared with me that unfortunately, Canada does not have any Target stores yet. Walmart, yes, but Tar-jay, no. He said that it is hard for American-based retailers to enter the Canadian market because everything – all the signage, pricing, advertising, etc. – needs to be in both French and English. He said that he’s heard that Tar-jay is making strides to try and enter the Canadian market, but that it will take time to coordinate all the bilingual efforts.
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Its got to be more than a language g thing. I think I remember seeing stores in Florida that had signs in English and Spanish. Walmart started their opperations in Canada by purchasing Woolco. The international stores also operate as seperate divisions of the US stores, which could be why Target doesn't have stores there yet. It could have to do with distribution or something legal; something where it would only be profitable if they could afford jump in and build many stores at once. Like if they opened just a few store they would be spending more money to operate them than those stores bring in.
P.S. You probably already know this but there are also Target stores in Australia. They have no affiliation with the stores in the US. The Australia Target is owned by a company called Wesfamers which also owns stores in Australia called Coles and Kmart. The Kmart stores were at one time affiliated with the US Kmart but the Target stores never were. Ive been to an Australian Target, they are weird. They are sort of set up like a Sears minus the hardware, large appliances, and large electronics departments.
I love Wikipedia.
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