OT: Sens Lounge -The four seasons edition

[Masked]

Walmart, Costco, Amazon have created the conditions that we live with today. They never sold us things in the beginning at the true cost because they had so much money that they could come into a market, undercut everyone, establish the market, and then gradually increase their prices when their competition lost market share. You see it everywhere especially with American corporations that have basically taken over our market. They pay taxes but all of those profits leave our economy. Toyota builds a product, Walmart doesn't, they provide a service. I take a city like Pembroke for an example. Back in the 80's and 90's It was a small town with a bustling main street full of stores and a local economy. They had a mall with a grocery store on one end and a Zellers on the other. When Walmart moved in Gradually over the next 10 years it killed so many businesses. As well with the chain restaurants, Home Depot etc. they destroy local economies because people don't understand the true cost of not buying local. 30's years ago people weren't complaining about prices being too high but everyone still wanted to save. When Walmart moved in during the mid 90's It was the first major domino to fall which led to the overtaking of our retail market. When Zellers was overtaken by Target that all but killed our department store industry. They left and a hole was left that has never been replaced. It almost feels like a this was planned and wasn't because of oversight by Target.

Once again you include Costco, which is absolutely not the same as Walmart or Amazon, who are absolutely ruthless. Costco didn't kill small town businesses, it went after the big retail chains like Loblaws, who is likely the most evil retailer in Canada.

 

[Stylizer1]

Once again you include Costco, which is absolutely not the same as Walmart or Amazon, who are absolutely ruthless. Costco didn't kill small town businesses, it went after the big retail chains like Loblaws, who is likely the most evil retailer in Canada.

Costco goes after everyone.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

Once again you include Costco, which is absolutely not the same as Walmart or Amazon, who are absolutely ruthless. Costco didn't kill small town businesses, it went after the big retail chains like Loblaws, who is likely the most evil retailer in Canada.

But, by using economies of scale to sell at prices that a small business can't possibly match, isn't the outcome still the same?
IE, what difference does it make that they "went after big retail" chains?

 

[Stylizer1]

But, by using economies of scale to sell at prices that a small business can't possibly match, isn't the outcome still the same?
IE, what difference does it make that they "went after big retail" chains?

Costco goes after Metro, Loblaws, Sobey's, farmer's markets, your back yard garden, wild garlic.........

 

[Masked]

Costco goes after everyone.

Name a small town that has a Costco.

 

[Stylizer1]

Name a small town that has a Costco.

None but I bet 1000's of people a week travel from the outskirts to funnel their money into them. What Walmart does to small towns Costco does to big ones. It has the same effect on local businesses.

Do you work for Costco?

 

[Masked]

But, by using economies of scale to sell at prices that a small business can't possibly match, isn't the outcome still the same?
IE, what difference does it make that they "went after big retail" chains?

Walmart would build stores in the outskirts of small cities to take customers away from main street businesses, who previously had no competition for the goods they were selling. They'd also encourage other retailers to setup shop in their developments further taking business away from main streets.

Costco setup shop in big cities, where the small businesses already had retail chains to compete with. I remember the big grocery chains fighting Costco (then Price Club) coming to Canada because it would upset their oligarchy.

 

[Masked]

None but I bet 1000's of people a week travel from the outskirts to funnel their money into them. What Walmart does to small towns Costco does to big ones. It has the same effect on local businesses.

Do you work for Costco?

Absolute nonsense. What big city small businesses is Costco killing? Everything Costco sells was already being sold by some other large retail chain when they entered the market.

I have never worked for Costco. I have known people who worked there and found it to be a great place to work, unlike Walmart.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

Name a small town that has a Costco.

Just looking at Costco locations in Ontario, I see that Orillia has one. Depends on whether that fits your definition of a "small town", I guess.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

But it wasnt just a temporary thing. Companies and the government were switching to laptops so you can work from home if need be before the pandemic. Some departments even started letting people work from home regularly before the pandemic.

So a lot of people thought it only made sense that the pandemic sped up the process of making it feasible to work from home.


Because let's face it. Anyone who works at a computer can generally work from home. Video calls. Spread sheets. Word. Excel. SharePoint. Teams. All this stuff can be done infront of your computer at home. It only makes sense.


1) they just need to change their locations. The coffee shop that doesn't succeed downtown anymore, all of a sudden can succeed in Kanata or Nepean or Gloucester or Orleans or Barrhaven... So much more demand for food and beverage in the suburbs where there's plenty of retired boomers, and plenty of work from home people running errands on their lunch break who would love to pick up a nice cup of coffee while doing so.


Just using Orleans which I know best, in the last 20 years as many have been retiring, or working from home, Orleans is busy all hours of the day. Innes is full of traffic. 10th line is full of traffic. Orleans Boulevard is full of traffic. Jeanne Darc is full of traffic. The amount of food options in Orleans has skyrocketed. There's everything on Innes. There used to be nothing in Orleans but st Joseph Boulevard for restaurants and shops.

So it's not that shops are struggling. It's that shops in a specific area of the city are struggling. All they have to do is not renew their lease and then sign a new lease in a booming neighbourhood. That's what plenty of restaurants and service industry has had to do all over the glove throughout history. Adapt. Don't need to overhaul and pick a hole new industry. Just adapt with the times.

2) I've been suggesting converting buildings to residential with the bottom two floors being like malls (like they used to be) and then you've got your 15 min city downtown.

You talk about waste though, and selling them for a dollar or whatever would be waste.


I did hear it would cost a lot to convert these buildings though...for plumbing and electric. Going from one area with a bathrooms per floor to every unit having their own bathrooms and showers and sinks...it would be costly, but if they can make profit on their rent, would make it back.

I think we generally agree on 2. Sell all the buildings or renovate them and get revenue from renting them...and let the workers who can work from home do so.

Yep...this is the time where those thinking/innovative groups are needed. One easy solution is to convert office buildings to apartments, with stores on the bottom floor like you said.

But the real gold is thinking outside the box a bit more. Some of those office buildings are already designed well to make for great retraining centers or community colleges. Perhaps some buildings can be made into smaller manufacturing hubs - ones that are largely automated, but still job makers. Could even see some hydroponic farming in some of those buildings.

I'm sure some smart folks could come up with a dozen more creative ideas for that office space downtown.

 

[Masked]

Just looking at Costco locations in Ontario, I see that Orillia has one. Depends on whether that fits your definition of a "small town", I guess.

That's a real outlier for a Costco location. The only explanation I can think of for it would be to capitalize on summer cottagers.

 

[Micklebot]

Depends what you count as bars or pubs, but I'd say there's lots of options in Orleans, for example. But then again, it depends if you count places like Boston pizza as a bar. They have a restaurant side and a bar side. I've went countless times with friends to order a pitcher and watch the game. To me, it counts as a bar. So if you count those, there's like 30 bars in Orleans because plenty of restaurants have a bar in them.

You want to shoot darts? Moose McGuire's has darts. Anyways, there's so many breweries, restaurants, or bars. You could go to a different one every weekend day of the year and still not make it out of Orleans.

I don't know about nixen. I would need to brush up my American history knowledge.

A bit of stuff on Innes, a bit on St Joseph, but the local community bar just doesn't exist in the same way for suburbia. Think of an episode of Cheers, that type of third place.

 

[Micklebot]

Yep...this is the time where those thinking/innovative groups are needed. One easy solution is to convert office buildings to apartments, with stores on the bottom floor like you said.

So, this actually isn't as easy as it sounds, office buildings often don't have floorplans that are conducive to apartments, and older buildings may require extensive remediation to deal with lead paint, or asbestos. You have to redo the plumbing to have each unit have restrooms instead of centralized access too.

Its an option, but easy, not so much.

 

[Stylizer1]

Absolute nonsense. What big city small businesses is Costco killing? Everything Costco sells was already being sold by some other large retail chain when they entered the market.

I have never worked for Costco. I have known people who worked there and found it to be a great place to work, unlike Walmart.

You are too caught up with Costco and not seeing their contribution to the problem. Costco like with the other names I mentioned siphon money out of our local economy while giving back nothing. I travel to Europe often and there is a huge difference when it comes retail and the emphasis on local. They don't have Walmarts and Home depots on the same scale as we do. They have their "box stores" too but not to the detriment of their local economies.

That's a real outlier for a Costco location. The only explanation I can think of for it would be to capitalize on summer cottagers.

And what happens to those local businesses that used to sell to those cottagers? They close and become Costco employees.

 

[Masked]

You are too caught up with Costco and not seeing their contribution to the problem. Costco like with the other names I mentioned siphon money out of our local economy while giving back nothing. I travel to Europe often and there is a huge difference when it comes retail and the emphasis on local. They don't have Walmarts and Home depots on the same scale as we do. They have their "box stores" too but not to the detriment of their local economies.


And what happens to those local businesses that used to sell to those cottagers? They close and become Costco employees.

When you travel to Europe, how much time are you spending in the suburbs of those cities? Because that's where the big box store are. Just like if you come to Ottawa and visit downtown, you're not going to find many big box stores there.

The hypermarket concept originated in France with Carrefour and is found throughout Europe. The biggest store in Ottawa would be Ikea, which is a European company.

As for the Orillia Costco, the businesses most impacted would be Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro. Walmart already took care of the small businesses in cottage country. I've spent plenty of time in cottage country and the number of thriving small businesses is better now than it has been since Walmart entered the market.

 

[Micklebot]

Once again you include Costco, which is absolutely not the same as Walmart or Amazon, who are absolutely ruthless. Costco didn't kill small town businesses, it went after the big retail chains like Loblaws, who is likely the most evil retailer in Canada.

The other biiiiig difference lies in how Costco treats employees compared to Walmart and Amazon

You have to look no further than how each has dealt with unionization efforts to see one of these three doesn't belong.

 

[Stylizer1]

When you travel to Europe, how much time are you spending in the suburbs of those cities? Because that's where the big box store are. Just like if you come to Ottawa and visit downtown, you're not going to find many big box stores there.

The hypermarket concept originated in France with Carrefour and is found throughout Europe. The biggest store in Ottawa would be Ikea, which is a European company.

As for the Orillia Costco, the businesses most impacted would be Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro. Walmart already took care of the small businesses in cottage country. I've spent plenty of time in cottage country and the number of thriving small businesses is better now than it has been since Walmart entered the market.

The argument isn't the suburbs though. These neighborhood are designed with Box stores in mind to service the populations. It's when these box stores insert themselves into echo systems where they become the invasive spices that kills the echo system.

Box stores don't usually thrive in downtown markets because they tend to be places of business. If we consider anything past the greenbelt as suburbs and anything within it the city then there are many box stores in the city. Is trainyards considered a suburb? Paris has Carrefours, Ikea's, Castorama's, Darty's, FNAC etc but what they don't do is disrupt the echo system. You still find hundreds of stores that sell those same things. What I am talking about is a North American problem and it is refreshing to see the differences when traveling abroad was my point.

I use Pembroke as an example because My family had a cottage north of there and over the last 40+ years you can pin point to a tee when it started to change and Walmart was the main culprit.

 

[Cosmix]

Depends what you count as bars or pubs, but I'd say there's lots of options in Orleans, for example. But then again, it depends if you count places like Boston pizza as a bar. They have a restaurant side and a bar side. I've went countless times with friends to order a pitcher and watch the game. To me, it counts as a bar. So if you count those, there's like 30 bars in Orleans because plenty of restaurants have a bar in them.

You want to shoot darts? Moose McGuire's has darts. Anyways, there's so many breweries, restaurants, or bars. You could go to a different one every weekend day of the year and still not make it out of Orleans.

I don't know about nixen. I would need to brush up my American history knowledge.

Where can I play shuffleboard in the east end at a pub?

Where can I play Foosball in the east end at a pub?

A bit of stuff on Innes, a bit on St Joseph, but the local community bar just doesn't exist in the same way for suburbia. Think of an episode of Cheers, that type of third place.

Blackburn Arms pub is similar to Cheers.

 

[Micklebot]

Blackburn Arms pub is similar to Cheers.

Similar in that they have a Cliff and Norm who everyone knows, or similar in that the bartender is a retired Red Sox pitcher and notorious womanizer?

Either way, I'm in.

 

[Masked]

The argument isn't the suburbs though. These neighborhood are designed with Box stores in mind to service the populations. It's when these box stores insert themselves into echo systems where they become the invasive spices that kills the echo system.

Box stores don't usually thrive in downtown markets because they tend to be places of business. If we consider anything past the greenbelt as suburbs and anything within it the city then there are many box stores in the city. Is trainyards considered a suburb? Paris has Carrefours, Ikea's, Castorama's, Darty's, FNAC etc but what they don't do is disrupt the echo system. You still find hundreds of stores that sell those same things. What I am talking about is a North American problem and it is refreshing to see the differences when traveling abroad was my point.

I use Pembroke as an example because My family had a cottage north of there and over the last 40+ years you can pin point to a tee when it started to change and Walmart was the main culprit.

You're all over the place on this one.

You claim the argument isn't the suburbs but then you say that big box stores don't work in downtowns? You're comparing Paris to Pembroke. Pembroke's never had a Costco and I've never argued that Walmart hasn't hurt small towns. In fact, I've made that exact claim in this thread multiple times.

You're claiming the suburbs start outside the greenbelt which is nonsense. No one is thinking they're in an urban environment when they're at Trainyards. Most of Ottawa is suburban.

 

[Stylizer1]

You're all over the place on this one.

You claim the argument isn't the suburbs but then you say that big box stores don't work in downtowns? You're comparing Paris to Pembroke. Pembroke's never had a Costco and I've never argued that Walmart hasn't hurt small towns. In fact, I've made that exact claim in this thread multiple times.

You're claiming the suburbs start outside the greenbelt which is nonsense. No one is thinking they're in an urban environment when they're at Trainyards. Most of Ottawa is suburban.

My post is pretty clear. I never compared Paris to Pembroke. I don't consider anything within the greenbelt the suburbs like most people. Your post is confusing.

You are the one that brought suburbs into the argument and now want to argument what defines them.

 

[2CHAINZ]

I just applied for a job at Costco. I will keep you guys posted

 

[StoicSensFan]

I just applied for a job at Costco. I will keep you guys posted

Can I get free glizzies?

 

[thinkwild]

This everybody stay in your lane and follow all the government rules and pay your fines because you were a bad boy by going 10km Over the speed limit while the rich get richer completely f***ing over regular people who never catch a break is why so many people want the worlds to burn. They fix our bread prices and nothing happens and then these same assholes who protect the richest man in Canada from price fixing also hand us fines for speeding - it’s 100% these things that make people feel they are under eh government thumb while the rich literally break all the Ruels and have Trudeau and ford and Polievre are there bought and paid for to protect them from any speeding ticket and let them run wild on regular people

The attitude that your life can be so perfectly boring to never disrupt a speed camera and that if you get upset that the government has a speed camera in a speed TRAP totally feeds into the same argument as “we can film everything you are doing because if weren’t doing anything wrong you wouldn’t mind being filmed” which is a anti-human and anti-freedom

Put a speed camera up in the offices of politicians when we’re setting up the LRT and let’s fine those people. They get to completely sink 2 billion into a useless system and then shrug their shoulders and say “who knew” but if you go over 10 KM an hour on the parkway you get a fine - it’s why people hate this political system - regular dudes are accountable for every single thing they do wrong or right and the ploiticians and the rich fleece us (which is what a speed camera is it’s just an ATM for the government) and they protect their billionaire friends who fleece us and get away Scott free

I never liked that expression that- if you’ve done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide. As an excuse for intrusion? How about if I’ve done nothing wrong I should be able to expect no spying on me.



If at red light camera at 3am, no traffic, are you waiting? Is the AI smart enough to let that go? Although pretty soon if waiting at a rd light at 3am with no traffic will have me sending a letter to my councillor that the AI isn’t working.



But regarding bread prices, I think there are still class action suits ongoing and huge, record setting anti-trust payouts, that you may still be able to get it on for various bread products.

 

[Loach]

I just applied for a job at Costco. I will keep you guys posted

You get a discount on bitcoin?