Monday, 12 October 2015

You could be next Sears outlet for Woodstock

Sears seeks existing store to act as pickup destination for orders
Retail location recently closed its doors locally 

By Mark Schadenberg
In yester-year, a fall tradition would be Thanksgiving and waiting for the new gigantic Sears catalogue to see what was in store (and in the catalogue) for new Christmas toys.
Sears, Shop-Rite, Consumers Distributing, Eaton's, Canadian Tire and many other stores would publish their entire inventory into a glossy 500-page book. You could shop from home by ordering on your phone. You could carefully use scissors and then run to your Mom with your Santa suggestions, but be careful to never run with scissors.


Outlets such as Shop-Rite and Consumers Distributing existed at one time in Woodstock, but are now extinct.
Needless to say, the internet has modified shopping habits greatly, and people now buy directly from the internet. As a quick aside, I would never buy clothes from the web as I'm convinced they would arrive as the wrong size. Or the Leafs jersey I requested would arrive as a Habs sweater.


Only in the past few weeks, the Sears store in Woodstock closed, so the national brand's head office is seeking an existing local business to become a new pickup depot (Catalogue Agency) for items bought, packaged and shipped from Sears.
I quite liked the Sears store, which was at 716 Dundas, in a building which ironically was once home for Shop-Rite, along with a video outlet and Valdi. Our family bought a dishwasher and a TV at that Sears locale, and I also recall buying a gas trimmer for lawn edging there.


With Sears searching now for a new Woodstock home, I would be guessing they no longer expect to ever have a showroom in The Friendly City, but that's just me guessing.
As the flyer points out, if you have a current retail store with some extra square footage, you could be the new Sears retailer / mini warehouse. I would have absolutely no idea what the earnings potential could be as the go-between, but the ad notes that your business could be the pick-up destination with as little as 250 square feet to offer for the proposition.
The closest Sears outlets are now in Tillsonburg, Tavistock, Thorndale, Paris and Dorchester – all just a short drive away, or you could steer your way to Fairway mall in Kitchener or Westmount in London or Lynden Park mall in Walter Gretzky's hometown.
One difficulty or conflict in becoming a Sears local store (with a showroom), in my opinion, is that you would be competing with head office, which obviously has its own internet machine (open 7 days a week; 168 hours per week) and even billed (advertised) today (Thanksgiving) as Cyber Monday. However, this new Woodstock Sears destination would not have a showroom.

If you're interested in this idea and are planning to open a retail store of some fashion (not necessarily clothes) in Woodstock, this could be a vehicle (but not a car dealership), to drive foot (shoe store?) traffic to your showroom.
Enjoy your turkey and Oktoberfest Parade (CTV Kitchener at noon) and: Go Jays Go !!

LINKS:


Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal LePage Triland Realty Brokerage
757 Dundas St, Woodstock
www.royallepagetriland.com
(519) 537-1553, cell or text
Email: mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter: markroyallepage
Facebook: Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland

Discussion . . . Direction . . . Determination . . . Destination

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