ABOVE: Bargain hunters face pre-dawn cold for Target liquidation sales in Toronto
TORONTO — It took liquidation sales to create the kind of store experience Target Canada was attempting to cultivate all along — shelves flush with products and aisles packed with customers.
Still, shoppers said the doomed department store again came up short of expectations, something it’s persistently done since launching dozens of locations across Canada in early 2013, initially to widespread fanfare.
Scroll down for info graphic on discounts available at Target’s Canadian stores on February 5
“I’m probably going to return this stuff to the shelves,” Kontarakis said, complaining that even at 10 per cent off, the diapers would cost around $30, which is well above the $22 she paid for the same product weeks earlier at Shoppers Drug Mart.
In the video game entertainment section of a 100,000-square foot Target store in northeast Toronto, Carm Tatulli was similarly miffed. “I came for the sales, where are they?” the 44-year-old said.
MORE: Here’s why Target failed in Canada
Tatulli pointed out the action adventure game Watch Dogs for the PlayStation 4 console, priced at $44.99 but marked down by 10 per cent. “You can get that at Walmart or EB Games for $29.99. And I know my games up and down,” Tatulli, clad in a sweat suit and Batman toque, said.
Ditto for the Nintendo 2DS system, which Tatulli bought for his son at Walmart last month, Target’s chief competitor in Canada, for $25 cheaper than Target’s display price on Thursday.
Facing dim odds of reversing perceptions about its prices without deepening its already huge financial losses, Target Canada filed for creditor protection on Jan. 15 and announced plans to close its chain of 133 stores. It began liquidating merchandise Thursday morning and could well be fully closed down before June.
Sad to see go
Still, many customers wandering the Toronto location – one of a handful in the city – said they were sad to see Target’s exit.
“Lots of times Target had deals that were better” than Walmart, or other main rivals like Loblaw’s Great Canadian Superstore or Canadian Tire, said Mo Jaffer, 30, said.
Target arrived in Canada amid an extraordinary level of buzz, as Canadians anticipated the U.S. retailer would replicate the same mix of products and store experience many came to love about U.S. locations – including offering the same prices.
MORE: Target’s retreat from Canada will be ‘rapid’
The bar was set too high, Jaffer said. “Nobody brings the same deals from the States, that’s why I still stop at Walmart when I go to Buffalo. It’s still cheaper. I feel like Canadians didn’t give them a chance,” Jaffer, an event coordinator in Toronto, said.
“I had an attachment to Target from my trips to America, I’m upset that they’re going,” he said.
“It’s sad to see them go,” Teresa Hollohazy, 38, said. “But they just didn’t have the selection, and the pricing” was higher. Hollohazy frequented Target stores about twice a month, which makes her a fairly steady shopper at the chain.
She said U.S. locations she’s been to “blow away” Canadian stores. “Me and my husband understand why they’re closing.”
Target’s liquidation sales will continue through the coming weeks, while experts suggest the discounts will deepen as store closures draw closer.
The proceeds from the liquidations and asset sales will go toward paying back a multibillion-dollar debt load owed to creditors, which span hundreds of suppliers, landlords and various levels of governments owed taxes.
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