Winnipeg Retail

[cllew]

Originally Posted by trueviking

^ good one.

Was at the bay at St Vital today. Has a decidedly downtown bay vibe these days.

Honestly if the bay goes down, all of my clothes shopping will have to be done in other cities, instead of just most of it.

So Polo Park is the better of the two remaining Bay locations then? I have not been to either mall since the whole Covid lockdowns started.

[cslusarc]

Originally Posted by cllew

So Polo Park is the better of the two remaining Bay locations then?

I was last in a Bay store on Friday, March 13th last year.
Polo Park is the biggest of the 2 stores. The Polo Park store carries a wider breadth of brands in most departments, but if I remember correctly its toy department was one quarter of St-Vital and its furniture selection was slightly smaller.

[esquire]

Maybe it was different in the 80s, but the St. Vital Bay always seemed to me like it belonged with the former Unicity and Kildonan Place locations as the afterthought Bays. It looked like those ones never really received much of an effort. I guess the downtown store was in that group for its last 15 years too.

Even before covid the St. Vital location was fairly weak. Since it's not like there is some department store competitor that will snap up that spot if HBC vacates, I could see the company closing down that location in favour of going back to just having one strong centrally located store.

[buzzg]

EQ3 move makes sense, it seems like their going to be opening more flagship-type stores, so why not have one in your hometown. They're seeking a local cafe operator to open inside. It's worth noting Nils Vik (owner of Parlour Coffee) was EQ3's creative director for a few years until recently leaving.

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by esquire

Maybe it was different in the 80s, but the St. Vital Bay always seemed to me like it belonged with the former Unicity and Kildonan Place locations as the afterthought Bays. It looked like those ones never really received much of an effort. I guess the downtown store was in that group for its last 15 years too.

Even before covid the St. Vital location was fairly weak. Since it's not like there is some department store competitor that will snap up that spot if HBC vacates, I could see the company closing down that location in favour of going back to just having one strong centrally located store.

Used to work for zellers about a decade ago. HBC as a whole was as cheap as you can imagine with upkeep. Rarely doing the bare minimum for store upkeep and stores themselves had such a limited budget for maintenance. Ownership group wanted to squeeze every last penny out while cutting costs to less than barebones. Definitely did not believe in investing in their stores to make them more attractive to generate more sales and keep up withthe times.

It still baffles me that they use the same POS system that was outdated when I worked there

[Wpg_Guy]

And they still don’t take tap, left my purchase there this week and walked out.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

And they still don’t take tap, left my purchase there this week and walked out.

Ohh my Gawd! You poor thing. I hope you’ve had some emotional support to help get you through that stressful ordeal.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by WildCake

Used to work for zellers about a decade ago. HBC as a whole was as cheap as you can imagine with upkeep. Rarely doing the bare minimum for store upkeep and stores themselves had such a limited budget for maintenance. Ownership group wanted to squeeze every last penny out while cutting costs to less than barebones. Definitely did not believe in investing in their stores to make them more attractive to generate more sales and keep up withthe times.

It still baffles me that they use the same POS system that was outdated when I worked there

Not surprising... the only Winnipeg Bay store that didn't look totally neglected over the last 20 years was the Polo Park location, where they were able to ride the coattails of the total overhaul that Sears gave it when they turned the space into a short-lived Eatons store sometime around 2002.

I think the last time HBC spruced up a Winnipeg location on its own was when they spruced up the downtown store around 1986 in anticipation of Portage Place opening.

[CoryB]

The Polo Park Hudsons Bay is one of the weirdest stores I have ever been in mixing design elements from Eaton's (1.0), Eatons (2.0), Sears (they moved there temporarily when Eatons closed) and Hudsons Bay.

[WinCitySparky]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

And they still don’t take tap, left my purchase there this week and walked out.

...whut

[cllew]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

And they still don’t take tap, left my purchase there this week and walked out.

I wonder if they are actually doing that to make more money on each sale as I believe that tap transactions have a higher merchant fee than a PIN transaction.

Or they just don't want to pay to upgrade all of there old POS terminals before they close up for good.

[cslusarc]

Tap is coming to HUDSON'S BAY later this year when it launches a new MasterCard. Existing card-members will need to re-apply.

[laumag]

Originally Posted by cslusarc

Tap is coming to HUDSON'S BAY later this year when it launches a new MasterCard. Existing card-members will need to re-apply.

I just applied for a new Mastercard from another store, since I was not impressed with the new Neo Financial HBC MC coming soon. The Rewards are not as good. I am moving on yet again. This happened to my Sears card, my Eaton's card, my Off 5th card and now my HBC card.

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by cslusarc

Tap is coming to HUDSON'S BAY later this year when it launches a new MasterCard. Existing card-members will need to re-apply.

Haha, I thought you were joking on this.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...ay-mastercard/

[Curmudgeon]

New FreshCo opens tomorrow on Henderson at Bronx. Flyer reads "Lower Grocery Prices now in Elmwood". That location is a fair ways from Elmwood, it's East Kildonan. No one caught that?

Good news and I like to see the vintage googie sign from 1954 still in use.

[bomberjet]

It's the north end don't you know. (according to south Winnipeg people.)

[trebor204]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

New FreshCo opens tomorrow on Henderson at Bronx. Flyer reads "Lower Grocery Prices now in Elmwood". That location is a fair ways from Elmwood, it's East Kildonan. No one caught that?

Good news and I like to see the vintage googie sign from 1954 still in use.

There are 3 more FreshCo opening soon:

The Niakwa location just announced they will open on March 11th @ 7 am

In addition, the Sargent Store will open within 4 weeks, and the Pembina store early April


As well SaveOnFoods will be opening locations at Pembina Crossing and Kildonan Place

[bomberjet]

It dumbfounds me how there aren't better supports for the homeless population. Doesn't get votes during election time. Everyone wants roads.

Browaty wants to lock people in jail who have addictions issues and make them do forced labour. That's the state of civic politics

Edit: Somehow this post ended up in wrong thread.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by trebor204

As well SaveOnFoods will be opening locations at Pembina Crossing and Kildonan Place

The Pembina Crossing location is taking absolutely forever to finish... feels like that one has been going on for well over a year now.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by esquire

The Pembina Crossing location is taking absolutely forever to finish... feels like that one has been going on for well over a year now.

Just a guess but with it being an operating Safeway until it started the conversion some of the prep work was likely behind others like Bronx which was vacant and could have started work sooner.