Daily Deals in Edmonton

By Mack D. Male · February 1, 2011 at 7:15pm

I’m amazed at how many “daily deal” or “group coupon” sites there are in Edmonton now, let alone the rest of the world. I’m sure you’ve heard of Groupon, and maybe one or two others such as GoodNews, but did you know there are at least ten such sites in Edmonton? Here’s a list of the ones I have found:

There are also a bunch of sites preparing to launch in our city:

Daniel has created a Twitter list for some of the services here.

I don’t see how that many sites are going to succeed. My guess is that most won’t. Some are so similar in form and function that I wonder if they’re actually the same company. Others have obviously picked up on this trend, as there are dozens of “daily deal aggregators” out there so that you don’t have to sign up for each service individually. Here are some Edmonton-related ones I have found:

I’m sure there are many others that I have missed.

The most popular item on daily deal sites seems to be spa packages, so you may or may not find value in these services. I have used Groupon a couple of times, and I think they are here to stay. LivingSocial seems to be the second biggest of the sites, at least in the US. SwarmJam should be able to leverage its existing relationships with advertisers, so maybe they’ll find success. GoodNews has a bit of a twist in that it supports local charities. As for the rest – who knows.

Edmonton is home to the future of Future Shop

By Mack D. Male · September 19, 2008 at 11:44pm

Edmonton is getting another Future Shop location, just in time for Christmas. The new store will be quite different than our existing five, however, and not just because it is LEED certified. Located in South Edmonton Common just minutes away from Best Buy (which owns Future Shop), the new store will fill its gigantic 53,000 square foot space with musical instruments, exercise equipment, and other goods not normally found at Future Shop. From the Edmonton Journal:

“This is the future of Future Shop,” said Chris Sallans, general manager of a store so revolutionary, he calls it a “laboratory.” If the concepts work, it will serve as a template for the Burnaby, B.C.-based chain’s stores around the country.

Essentially they want to sell things that are “logical extensions” of products that they already carry. Makes sense to me. Future Shop already sells microwaves, refrigerators, and other home appliances, so why not treadmills and other exercise equipment? Doesn’t seem like much of a stretch. I guess the innovation is in having the much larger capacity.

The music angle is quite interesting though:

Electronic music instruments and equipment may also seem to be an unlikely choice, but Sallans said it’s a wide-open market.
“Musical instruments are an $800-million industry and no other major retailer touches it.”
The store will have a wall of more than 100 guitars. There will be three soundproof rooms for music lessons and drum demos ,and a stage for open-mike nights.

That could be pretty cool, I think. Who knows, maybe Future Shop will even become a bit of a third place (or maybe not, considering you’ll basically need to drive to get there…good old South Edmonton Common).

According to the article, Sallan describes Future Shop as the place for early adopters whereas Best Buy is the place for self-service shoppers. I’m not sure where he got that idea, but I seem to recall the lines at Best Buy being much longer than at Future Shop for high profile product launches (like the Xbox 360).

The new store is looking for 230 employees, and will be holding a job fair this weekend at the Delta Hotel Edmonton South. It should open in early December.

Food Glorious Food! In Calgary!

By Mack D. Male · March 18, 2008 at 10:11pm

I stole the first part of the title from my sister – she uses it for pictures of food she makes and I like the way it sounds. I love food! So much so that Sharon and I went down to Calgary this past weekend for Dine Out week. It was also a good excuse for a short break away from everything.

Sharon is a great writer, and she summarized our trip very well on her blog – Part 1 and Part 2. Instead of repeating what she’s already written, I’ll just share a few highlights:

We ate at the following restaurants: blink and Galaxie Diner. Both were awesome! The photo above is the Montreal Smoked Meat Omelette from Galaxie. It’s a great little diner, with Coke memorabilia everywhere!
We stayed at the Westin Calgary, which is a really nice hotel. It even has a Starbucks in the lobby. We were upgraded to the business tower, which included free Internet!
We checked out the new glass floor at the Calgary Tower – it was mostly underwhelming (apparently that’s not a real word?).
We also checked out the Calgary Farmer’s Market, which was pretty cool! Lots of stuff to see, including Phil & Sebastian, where we tried coffee made using the Clover.
I got to use my iPod touch with open wireless to find directions using the Maps application!
It snowed like crazy on Saturday night in Calgary. I was hoping we’d escape the snow, but I guess we weren’t so lucky. I did get a few good pictures though.
We walked through Chinook Centre, but I only bought two shirts from Old Navy (not a big shopper, what can I say).
We stopped in Red Deer on the way back to see Tom & Bry. We had dinner at BP’s, and our waitress was pretty terrible. Either really new, or really dumb.
We didn’t go to Starbucks once, though we did drink lots of coffee. Crazy isn’t it?!
My photos of the trip are here.

It was fun! Dine Out Calgary will happen again next year, from March 9th to March 16th. Edmonton has one too.

I wish they all could be Apple Stores

By Mack D. Male · December 28, 2007 at 10:18pm

One of the first places I went in New York after checking into the hotel was the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. I had been looking forward to it for a very long time, and as I wrote that night, I was not disappointed. Sharon and I spent some time wandering around before I bought my iPod touch. The whole experience was really good, save for the cashier not knowing what to do with my Canadian debit card.

I’m not the only one who has been impressed with Apple’s retail experience this year.

Apple now derives 20 percent of its revenue from its physical stores. And the number is growing. In the fourth quarter in 2007, which ended Sept. 30, Apple reported that the retail stores accounted for $1.25 billion of Apple’s $6.2 billion in revenues, a 42 percent increase over the fourth quarter in 2006.

Not only has the company made many of its stores feel like gathering places, but the bright lights and equally bright acoustics create a buzz that makes customers feel more like they are at an event than a retail store.

In a way, I think Apple is "Starbucking" the technology retail experience. More than coffee, Starbucks offers a place to be. By allowing customers to sit and play with iPods and MacBooks, Apple is doing the same thing – selling community. The key phrase from above is "feel like gathering places".

Trust me, once you’ve been to an Apple store you’ll start wishing every retail experience could be so good.

It’s just too bad there aren’t more of them.

Read: NYTimes.com

Boxing Day Shopping

By Mack D. Male · December 26, 2006 at 7:17pm

I don’t think I’ve ever really gone shopping on Boxing Day as I am usually not in the city. Everyone told me that it is madness, that there are just too many people. I decided to go anyway, but I waited until late this afternoon. I went to Best Buy and picked up three games and a CD (first time I have bought one in ages…). The line was crazy long, and there wasn’t a lot of room to move throughout the rest of the store. It really was madness.

It seems to me that Boxing Day sales were much more heavily advertised this year than last. Will that translate into higher sales? Apparently last year broke records here in Canada:

Boxing Day 2005 was the single largest economic transaction day ever in the history of Canadian commerce (according to Visa). Individual big box stores can even gross over $1,000,000(CAN) on one single boxing day.

A lot of people don’t like Boxing Day because it is too commercial. I could care less. If I can get a good deal, might as well go! I feel bad for the people that have to clean up the stores though – Best Buy was a disaster this afternoon.

Xmas Shopping on Saturday the 23rd

By Mack D. Male · December 23, 2006 at 9:39pm

I watched the evening news at 6 tonight, and their lead story was on the holiday shopping rush. They had cameras around the city throughout the day filming the madness. I too went shopping today, but not until about 7 PM this evening (no I didn’t just start, I was picking up some of the last items on my list). And actually, I think that might be the best time to go!

Traffic was light, the lines were very short, and everyone was surprisingly friendly during my time shopping this evening. I guess if you weren’t sure what you were looking for, waiting until the 23rd isn’t the best idea. If you know exactly what you’re after however, as I was, then perhaps it is the best time to go!

Apparently today (the last Saturday before Christmas, or December 23rd, this year it happens to be both) is the busiest shopping day of the year!

China Goes Shopping

By Mack D. Male · May 24, 2005 at 9:38pm

Quick – where is the world’s largest shopping mall? Nope, it is not Mall of America. Nor is it our very own West Edmonton Mall. The largest mall in the world is Beijing’s massive Golden Resources Mall, which measures a mind-boggling six million square feet. It opened last October, and is still growing:

How big is six million square feet? That mall, which is expected to cost $1.3 billion when completed, spans the length of six football fields and easily exceeds the floor space of the Pentagon, which at 3.7 million square feet is the world’s largest office building. It is a single, colossal five-story building – with rows and rows of shops stacked on top of more rows and rows of shops – so large that it is hard to navigate among the 1,000 stores and the thousands of shoppers.

As impressive as the mall is, there are larger malls on the way for China. The South China Mall is expected to be three times the size of Mall of America when completed.

Already, four shopping malls in China are larger than the Mall of America. Two are bigger than the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, which just surrendered its status as the world’s largest shopping mall to an enormous complex in Beijing. And by 2010, China is expected to be home to at least 7 of the world’s 10 largest shopping malls.

Not to be outdone, the Ghermezian’s are planning to expand Mall of America, and have two ten-million-square-foot malls in the works in China, called Mall of China and Triple Five Wenzhou Mall. I wonder if there are plans to expand WEM too?

While it might seem like a needless game of “I’m bigger than you!”, taking note of these malls in China is important. For one thing, it certainly casts doubt on the western-held view that the Chinese don’t have much disposable income. Perhaps not as a whole, but there are obviously enough wealthy Chinese to support such massive shopping malls. And the outlook must be positive enough to be planning the construction of even more malls in the country.

It’s also interesting to see that China is sort of following in America’s footsteps. Owning an automobile has become possible and extremely desirable in China, and now shopping in gigantic malls has hopped the Pacific too. Makes one wonder what else the Chinese do like the Americans.

Read: New York Times