Skip to main content

The ghost of Future Shop Past


Image result for future shop logo
Future Shop Logo

Today for Lost Retail History. I'll be talking about a old chain of electronics stores called Future Shop. Best Buy owned future shop from 2001 till its 2015 demise after Best buy decided to permanently close 65 stores and keep 60 or so stores open as Best Buys due to overlapping stores.

Beginnings

Future shop was founded in 1982 by Hassan Khosrowshahi in Vancouver. The store sold computers, software, games, videocassettes, audio equipment, music, and other electronics. Future shop reached $2.8 million In sales by December 1983.  

The 90s

By 1990, Future Shop became the largest retailer of computers and consumer electronics in Canada and was operating 38 stores across the country and parts of the United States.  
In 1998, Future Shop purchased the Canadian division of Computer City from CompUSA. 
 By the end of 1998, the U.S. locations of Future Shop were performing badly, with $53 million in losses over the last few years, and Future Shop projected another $30 million in losses would occur by the end of the next year. Due to this, in March 1999, the company announced that it would close U.S. operations.
In February 2001, Future Shop announced that the company would close and liquidate the five remaining Computer City stores because of poor sales. At the same time, Future Shop also attempted to acquire Chapters, a chain of book stores in Canada, but failed to come up with a reasonable offer. 
future shop store
Typical Future shop store. Image:Wikipedia

Best Buy years 

In March 2001, Best Buy acquired Future Shop for $580 million. Best Buy continued to operate Future Shop as a separate division following the purchase, acknowledging the strength of the brand. However, in 2002, the company began to open Best Buy locations in Canada as a secondary chain. Some Best Buy locations were very close or sometimes in the same plaza as a Future Shop. Some of the new Best Buy locations would reduce sales at Future Shop stores located nearby, but typically the new Best Buy would make enough money that would more than make up for the drop in the sales. 

Decline

future shop store closed
A Future Shop store closed in 2015. Image: Wikimedia Commons
The success of Future Shop started to an end on January 31, 2013, when Best Buy announced that it would begin to close various locations, including eight Future Shop locations effective immediately, as part of a "long-term transnational strategy to optimize the company's retail footprint across the country." In 2014 and early 2015, more Future Shop locations were closed, including those in Boucherville, Greenfield Park, Montreal, Ottawa,Regina, Kingston, New Minas, and New Glasgow. 
Future Shop’s final demise came on March 28, 2015, when Best Buy Canada announced that Future Shop had ceased business, effective immediately. 66 locations were permanently closed, and the remaining 65 locations were soft launched as Best Buy locations on April 4, 2015. Best Buy said that  these closures and re-brandings were intended to reduce redundancy, as the affected stores were located within close proximity of a Best Buy. 

It’s sad that Best Buy had to get rid of Future Shop. But at the same time why did they wait so long to get rid of Future shop. They had Future Shops right next to Best Buys in some cases. 
I hope that you enjoyed this lost history post about Future Shop. 
Until next Post 
-DZ 
Labels:

Comments

  1. Retail RetellJune 11, 2019 at 9:34 PM

    Nice post! I'd never heard of Future Shop before; seems like they had an interesting past. If I remember correctly, the early 2000s was also the time period when Best Buy acquired Sam Goody and some other similar brands in the US, so they must have been on a buying spree at that time! It's cool they let the brand stay intact, but at the same time a bit nonsensical once you hear that they went ahead and introduced Best Buy stores to the market anyway. And with the way they placed some of those stores so close to existing Future Shops, it's almost as if they wanted the Future Shops to fail! So strange...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DomJune 12, 2019 at 5:07 PM

      I know right. Best Buy shouldn't have opened their own locations in the first place

      Delete

Post a Comment

RULES: Comments are subject to approval before showing up. Please stay on topic and be civil.

Popular posts from this blog

Store Facts: No Frills Dixie Outlet Mall

I’m starting a new series called store facts where I talk about the history of a particular location of a chain, the layout of the store and some key points about the location. I’ll be talking about the No Frills located at Dixie outlet Mall in Mississauga. This location has an interesting past as it was previously a Knob Hill Farm Food Terminal. If you are not familiar with that chain, you can view my post here . Background This location originally opened as a two-level Knob Hill Food Terminal, which was down sized a few years after it opened. Knob Hill closed down all their stores in 2001 and Loblaws brought a couple of the stores and some, like this one were converted to a No Frills franchise in 2001. I’m not too sure which decor this store had originally, but I’m guessing Smile, which it had until 2016 when it was renovated Very yellow. The store was then refreshed with the Monochrome revision of “Very yellow” in 2018. Layout Here’s a rough map of the store that I'v...
3 comments
Read more

165 The Source stores to re-brand as Best Buy Express

Best Buy Express Logo  Image Credit: Best Buy Back in January of this year, Bell announced a partnership with Best Buy to convert 165 The Source locations to the Best Buy Express banner by the end of this year with locations that do not get converted closing. For those who don't know, The Source started out as the Canadian branch of RadioShack before being acquired by Circuit City in 2005 and being rebranded to The Source by Circuit City. Then in 2009, Bell acquired the chain and re-named it The Source. Some The Source locations in the blog’s coverage area are running a pre-renovation sale, so I assume that’s in preparation for the conversion to Best Buy Express. It will be interesting to see how these stores will look like in person. The first location in Surrey BC opened today according to a  press release.  According to the one image at that link, it looks largely the same as a typical remodeled The Source location, just with Best Buy branding just as I predicted....
2 comments
Read more

Walmart store Number Meanings

Ever wondered what each of the store numbers that are on the top of Walmart receipts mean? These store numbers identify each Walmart store internally and seem to have a common pattern based on when each store was planned/opened. Here’s a list of the store numbers Walmart currently uses in Canada and what they mean. Note that they may be anomalies to this rule and stores may not follow these “rules”.  Last updated June 20 th , 2020. Store number Meaning 3xxx 1990s built store. Also used on former Woolcos. 10xx Usually used for 2000s stores. 11xx Early 2010s stores. 12xx Mid 2010s stores. If you have anything to add to this list, please let me know in the comments. Side note: I'll be switching to my summer posting schedule of 2 posts a month from July 1st till September 1st. Until the next one: DZ
3 comments
Read more