Canadians: Future Shop being bought out by Best Buy!?!

Sorry, but it has to be said... All your Future Shop are belong to Best Buy!

I dunno, the Best Buys in my city aren't too bad, service or price-wise. You will be assimilated. I think it really depends on the individual Resistance is futile store as to whether or not you get good service.
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Err, what happened? I think I need to go to bed...

Eh...well Best Buy has only ok CD prices...but I'm thinking or hoping that the reason Canuck CD's are cheaper is because of the relative strength of the dollar. And Futureshop doesn't export...heheh...but than again I doubt Best Buy Canada is going to be allowed to sell me anything for cheaper if my local Best Buy can rip me off.

So yah this is terrible...boo!

Ummm from what I've seen of Futureshop website...it is FAR better than what Best Buy has to offer in both products and pricing.

Best Buy for example has an abysmal selection of headphones, audio, computer, etc that really isn't worth buying. In terms of audio, they have a wide selection of mini-systems...yay.

I go for the occasional CD or cheap software or accessory, but wouldn't be caught buying anything of real value. My Local Fry's definitely beats Best Buy by a wide margin for most things besides the occasional CD price. But the CD price definitely isn't anything to brag about either as those Canadian prices were far better.

Future Shop is a clone of Best Buy.
Change their logo's and corporate colours they are pretty much interchangeable as big box electronic stores.

Frankly, I never felt highly of Future Shop's service. Its not any better or worst than Best Buy IMHO. College kids as sales reps (no offense intended).

The Best Buy outlets that I've been too, typicallly have had more selection to choose from and larger quantities. These can turn out to be pluses for us Canadians if transferred across the border. Americans like variety and choice. Future Shops are small by their standards.

As for headphones, Future Shop carried a rather small selection in my opinion, and at least the Best Buy's I'd been to, carried quite a good number of models in the Sony, Panasonic and Sennheiser lines. Fougeddaboutit for Grado's and Beyers, which typically sell through hi-fi specialty shops. Yeah, they don't carry Krell or Mark Levinson either. That's not their game. Don't knock Best Buy for that (there is no middle-market or high-end gear at Future Shop either). Sound by Singer or Lyric Hi-Fi would never be interested in Future Shop.

I don't think this is a big deal at all. There was nothing about Future Shop that competively distinguished it from Best Buy, other than some name recognition in Canada. Best Buy was coming here anyway, and this speeds up their time to market considerably. All they did was buy a name many people here already know. The store concept however, is more or less the same. Get used to yellow and blue, rather than red and white.
If Best Buy had not bought Future Shop, they would have used Wal-Mart like tactics to compete -- and they had the deep pockets to do it to.

Hey, I'm not a huge Best Buy fan, but I just don't see this being that big of a change.

Well I'm just biased after seeing a very complete collection of SACD for $13 US dollars each on the futureshop webpage.

The thing I also notice is that the futureshop webpage is pretty nice even though I've never been in a retail chain. The Best Buy website however is very weak and the retail chain is better in comparison.

I really don't have interest in what type of mediocre equipment they have...for me its all about the availbility and pricing of media and accessories. And I know Best Buy doesn't have much in terms of SACD...thats for sure.

Hmm, i haven't heard about this, is there a link to a news article?

Yeah, futureshop is pretty much the same as Best Buy, except for CD prices which is among the cheapest in Canada. But i think Best Buy has a much better selection...

For electronics, future shop carries the same mass market junk as best buy, and is slightly more expensive. But they always have stuff that is free after mail in rebates... I go there all the time, stuff i've picked up from them this year include-
-half life box set (free)
-unreal tournament (free)
-optical mouse (cheap as hell)
- 128megs ram (cheap)
- JBL bookshelfs
- Sony DVD player
- lots of CDs


Future shop does carry Koss and sennheiser, the best model they carry is the Senn 495. Best buy seems to have a much better selection of headphones though...

I've heard a lot about Futureshop preparing for the best buy "invasion", by lowering prices, making their website, renovating stores, closing down computer city (why were all computer cities in the same plaza's as a futureshop???), etc. I guess competition is a good thing, driving down prices for us. But now i guess that won't happen, best buy is pretty much set in capturing the electronics market...

ok, i just heard a news report on the radio about this... $500 million seems a bit low though for such a large chain?

I'm not too sad to see them go. Generally they had the most exhorbant prices on computer gear and electronics around, and their selection of headphones was abysmal.

A friend of mine just got hired at Future Shop and when me and another friend were in visiting him while he was still getting trained he already seemed to know everything about all the computer stuff. I find all of the salesmen at our future shop to be pretty helpful.

Anyways this won't be a big deal cause I just found out this other electronics store Linden Audiotronic carries some high end equipment and one of the salesman is actually a knowledgeable audiophile. The only high end brands they carry are Paradigm speakers and Denon components but they carry lots of them. The salesman played a cd through each one of the speakers and accurately explained the differences between them all. He also didn't seem to be pushing us towards the expensive model. He claimed the Paradigm Titan (I think) is a waste of money cause all you pay for is bass. The prices also seemed really good.

Tim D ... Don't judge Future Shop by its web site. If they had SACD's on their web site, it must have been a fluke. I've not seen not one SACD in any of their stores as yet.

Best Buy has typically had larger choice (in the bricks and mortar) versions of their stores.

Yes the headphone selection sucks at Future Shop but their prices here have always been the best around for cd's, computer hardware or software, portable cdp's, car stereos, it's all cheaper at Future Shop and I've always been able to get help from a salesperson.

Well, I'd have to share aos's concern over the Future Shop buyout. I don't mean to get political here, but I'm not sold on the idea of free trade unless it it works both ways (eg. softwood lumber).

AOS, yep, i always go to futureshop, even when i can get cheeper computer parts/way better electronics elsewhere. It seems like all of our retailers are getting aquired by those _______ americans, Toronto's largest mall Eaton's Centre is probably gonna turn into Sears Center (note spelling change) etc...

Yep, i guess nortel/jds interface cashed in on the US markets a while back, but now they're all screwed... Now bad that happens in the states automatically drags us down too Damn george bush is soooo easily influenced by industry lobiests, he can use us for our arctic oil, radar stations for star wars, and a place to dump his carbon dioxide, and then turns around and trys to destroy our lumber industry/anyone that uses wood in the US just to protect a few uncompetitve american lumberjacks...


yeah, there are plenty of audiophile stores around here, but they are totally different from mass market big box stores. I don't like the snobery of those stores, even though their products are generally better than mass market stuff.

Lol, thomas. Umm, we're not going to start burning flags now are we?

ps. thanks for the evil smiley, jude. muhahahaha!