I bought 100 blank dvds in walmart for 20$ Here they would of cost 50$ or more.
10$ to drive up there, 5$ a&w, 20$ for dvds and 10$ to drive back… total 45$, saved 5 bucks and got some a&w.
You forgot about the most important thing: time. Three frickin’ hours that you’ll never get back. It’s okay if you’re not a very busy person but I can think of better ways to use three hours.
It’s time away from Prince Rupert. Time well spent. lol I guess
You can always move to Terrace, Chief, if you’re not already there.
Coles are coming to town ONLY for the Xmas Period… The store is classified as a Seasonal store… Opens in November and closes in January… Maybe they are testing the market… I think this is sad when a company as big as there’s HAVE NO LONG TERM PLANS… Can we call this smart business???OR TAKING THE MONEY AND RUNNING!!!
Well, if you consider that the main competition to Coles is itself (online), then it makes a bit more sense.
People who live in Rupert and are looking for a particular book will order it online, (or ask the other small bookstore in town to order it for them). Most people will order from Coles online. A physical store attracts the casual, walk-by customer. These customers are most numerous during the Christmas season.
Makes perfect sense.
The way Coles and Smithbooks avoided the American bookselling wal-mart-like juggernauts is genius too.
Selling books must be hard as hell in this market. If I go to the bookstore and they don’t have the book I want/need I likely won’t ask them to order it. Why? I can order it online and get it faster. Yes, I try to support local businesses but sometimes you need something fast and can’t afford to wait for an order to build up.
Mike
Right, so if the local bookstore is Coles, and they don’t have it, then you order from Chapters. It’s the same company, so why would they compete with themselves?
That part of the market is almost a monopoly (in Canada, anyway).
The only segment left to the local bookstore is the casual, impulse buyer. Most of those are just walking by or whatever – so it makes sense that Coles would do better at Christmas. (just like shoe stores and other impulse-buying stores do better at Christmas) So that’s the part of the market Coles is trying to reach. In bigger centers, it’s with the big Chapters or Indigo stores. In small towns like ours, it has to be with the crappy seasonal Coles store.
Is there a Chapters in Prince George?
Actually, scratch that question. I just looked it up on the Chapters site. It doesn’t exist in Prince George.
I always thought the whole market analysis thing was weird with Chapters (and how they chose their locations). I guess people in Prince George are less likely to read than people in other places? For example, Nanaimo has less population, but it has a Chapters. Does that mean the Chapters people think the consumers in Nanaimo are more literate than those in Prince George?
Or how about Charlottetown, which is about half the size of Prince George. It has a Chapters, I think.
To further de-rail this thread:
That reminds me of that CBC radio contest a few years ago, where the challenge was to find:
a) the smallest town (by population) in Canada that had a Tim Horton’s
and
b) the largest town in Canada that didn’t have a Tim Horton’s.
Firing up Google now…
Nanaimo might have a smaller population but it is a hub for the rest of the Island in many respects. Its hugely busy there in the summer time (I’m sure other times too).
I always find Nanaimo way busier than PG. More traffic, more people. Its a crazy place in the summer. So probably Chapters see’s more bodies, more traffic == more sales.
I’ll bet it’s pretty easy to mine the Chapters/Indigo online sales data. Like you could tell how much is spent from each postal code, etc.
Prince George is a service centre for a huge area too. But you’re right, probably more tourists and “browsers” in Nanaimo than PG.
Nanaimo, just like the rest of Vancouver Island has a much “older” population than PG. The average age of people shopping and working at the Chapters in Nanaimo is probably late 40’s-early 50’s if not older. Even the people working at the Starbucks in the Nanaimo Chapters aren’t your usual college-age kids.
Older people buy more books, and usually read more books than younger people, and also tend to not purchase online as much as younger people. So on that alone, I’m just guessing that might have been a factor in putting a Chapters in Nanaimo and not PG.
PG has a population of 77,000 and Nanaimo’s Regional District in 2001 had a population of 127,016. I would say Nanaimo has the population to better support Chapters than PG.
Small businesses in PR have opened because they knew there was a need for what they are selling. Small businesses can’t compete with the prices the big guy offers, but they will give you superior customer service.
Don’t forget why they opened their business, and continue to support them even when the big guy comes to town. Most of the bug guys are American, including Safeway.
Prince George … weakest of the Princes I do believe.
Prince George - Dirtyest of the Princes
I felt safer in downtown Detroit then Prince George…that place smells like some serious ass
LOL, way too much information. 
So I was standing in front of the new Coles bookstore which will be opening in the mall down stairs . Later I am talking with this lady who was all excited about a new book store , but she tells me the guy at the Rain Forest Book Store ( so I guess he is The Rain Forset Man ) maybe his wife who is first nations gave him that name . So he says that coles is just coming in for three months , will do the Xmas thing for shoppers and they are finished . He says that is what the mall gave them . Coles must not be that stupid or people in town can not be that stupid to believe The Rain Forest man .
The Coles book store is a pilot store… meaning the company is trying out the market, and if it does well in Prince Rupert, the store will stay. If people don’t get out and buy some books, Rainforest Books will once again be the only bookstore in town.
New stock is arriving daily, and they will soon be up to the working standards of all the other Coles.
Well if they want the thing to succeed they may want to try letting people know its around. Never seen a store open up and not advertise (unless they used the radio which I haven’t listened to locally in about a dozen years). They’re hidden away on the bottom level and around the corner of a mall off the exit that few people use, so… who’s going to stumble across them?
I assume that eventually they plan a grand opening or something, so perhaps a splashy entry to the city is planned, but for now it’s kind of like a word of mouth campaign, carried out mostly on this bulletin board, weird little strategy that is.
As for book stores, don’t forget that Eddies also sells books as well as Rainforest.
Hope the store works out actually, the Coles deletes and sales displays are always my favourite stop whenever I wander by a Coles in Terrace or the larger centres…
(Next Day) Addendum to my above, I take back the part about the location, it’s actually in a pretty high traffic spot, I was told that it was where Canadian Airlines had been, my bad for not actually physically looking for it before spouting off at the mouth. 
As for the store, still not much stock in there unless you’re looking for the Da Vinci Code or JPod by Coupland, didn’t see much in the bargain bins that caught my eye and the shelves still looked a tad bare. I assume this is due to the fact that they just opened.
One thing though, the should hurry up the process of getting the interac and credit card machine in place, Going to lose out on a lot of spur of the moment sales on a Cash only basis as it is right now.
The chances of somebody leaving the mall going to the bank and coming back with their twenty bucks to buy a book are pretty slim in my estimation.
Hope they make it work, would be nice. But without a wide selection of stock they may not find their sales quotas easily attainable…Â Â Â
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