John Mitchell Posted January 15, 2015 Share Posted January 15, 2015 Sony is reportedly going through some rough times, and they will close all of their stores in Canada within two months. Interesting, since Sony apparently bought a major share of struggling Olympus a couple of years ago. I wonder how Sony's financial woes will affect their camera business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Posted January 15, 2015 Share Posted January 15, 2015 Any of this due to fallout from the hacking fiasco and their movies being released for free online from hackers? That really stinks for all. Too bad,Sony has been the innovator that's for sure. L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted January 16, 2015 Author Share Posted January 16, 2015 Any of this due to fallout from the hacking fiasco and their movies being released for free online from hackers? That really stinks for all. Too bad,Sony has been the innovator that's for sure. L No doubt they do. However, my guess is that the other big camera manufacturers aren't doing too well either. Olympus obviously has major financial problems. Sony actually started closing stores some time ago in Canada. Offhand, I can think of at least three Sony stores in the Vancouver area that shut their doors during the past couple of years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Canada seems to be a tough market,at least based on what I've heard this week. I read that Target is closing 133 stores in Canada. In the USA they do quite well. L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulstw Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Also heard yesterday that they were looking to sell off their mobile phone sector. I'm not surprised that the big tech firms are struggling. They tend to branch out too far and weaken the tree roots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell Watkins Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I think we're also reaching saturation point on the tech front all round and sales are plateauing. Just how much more do we need our kit to do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted January 16, 2015 Author Share Posted January 16, 2015 Canada seems to be a tough market,at least based on what I've heard this week. I read that Target is closing 133 stores in Canada. In the USA they do quite well. L Yes, Target fizzled in Canada. Too much competition in a relatively small market -- compared to the USA -- I suppose. Either that, or they were just off-target, so to speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 There was a newspaper article the other day that explained it. Apparently the largest populations are close to the U.S. Border. Many Canadians shop in the U.S. But Sony and other businesses who opened stores put up higher prices than were in the US. And the stores were poorly stocked, with a lot of empty shelves. Canadians are savvy shoppers and this did not go down well. They are probably still border hopping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted January 17, 2015 Author Share Posted January 17, 2015 There was a newspaper article the other day that explained it. Apparently the largest populations are close to the U.S. Border. Many Canadians shop in the U.S. But Sony and other businesses who opened stores put up higher prices than were in the US. And the stores were poorly stocked, with a lot of empty shelves. Canadians are savvy shoppers and this did not go down well. They are probably still border hopping. The Canadian "petro-dollar" is really low vs. the USD at the moment due to plummeting oil prices, so I imagine that cross-border shopping hordes have diminished considerably. The main Sony Store in downtown Vancouver is/was well-stocked and prices for cameras and lenses were more or less equivalent to those in the USA. They were also willing to bend over backwards when it came to price-matching. No obvious shortage of customers either, but perhaps they were mostly browsers like me. Who knows what the real problem is. Big corporations work in mysterious ways. Could it be greed? Nah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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