'The plan to quadruple its Canadian presence to 40 stores has hit a snag. Planned openings in Calgary and Edmonton will not proceed. Apparently, JM told a news conference two years ago that Canada's store count will eventually reach 40.' So here it is folks our so-called fearless leaders are now becoming some-what fearful. As promised, where will the 1200 new stores come from?
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No effing way. I witnessed the sheer incompetence when they opened the Ottawa store, which we were told was a test and the start of a potential foray into Quebec. Of course, the geniuses at regional didn't f---ing realize that CFIA rules require all labelling (that's cut, weighed in store product) to be bilingual. $500 fine for each piece of cut cheese in the coffin, alone. They couldn't even send us flyers that sounded like they came from a Canadian company (spelling, using "provincial law" instead of state) and we initially received entire shipments of posters for a campaign we weren't legally allowed to promote in Canada! Wasteful!
Target came to Canada and crashed and burned through a series of highly avoidable, idiotic missteps. Whole Foods has repeated many of those similar dumb, avoidable errors up here. I can't see them expanding up here in any significant way soon, beyond their Toronto and Vancouver metros.
http://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-financial/whole-foods-faces-canadian-challenges-opportunities
Of those 1200 new stores-i bet 25% will be 365 cheapskate stores
When will the stockholders,oops i meant stakeholders pound it into mackeys head that we have always been a niche,over-priced market??