Future Shop Closing In Canada, But Many Replacement Best Buy Stores Will Open Soon

With many locations for Future Shop closing in Canada, many people will wonder what will rise in their place. As it turns out, Best Buy is the owner of the Future Shop brand name, and they plan on relaunching some of the closed Future Shop locations as new Best Buy stores.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, store employees found out about Future Shop’s closing at about the same time as everyone else. They literally showed up to work only to find out they were now unemployed.

Before Future Shop closed, Brandon Buchanan said he worked in the mobile audio section several years ago and he was shocked to hear about the sudden shutdown.

“That happened kind of suddenly, because a lot of the people I still know work here apparently, they showed up this morning and it was just locked out,” he said. “I had planned on maybe coming back and checking it out for a job again now that I’m back in the city, but I guess that’s not happening.”

Best Buy’s purchase of Future Shop for $580 million Canadian dollars occurred back in 2001, and one of the justifications for Future Shop’s closing was that often times these two store brand names were well within driving distance of each other, or sometimes they even shared the same parking lot. Because of this fact, some people were not surprised to hear that Future Shop closed down.

“It doesn’t surprise me actually because I know the same company owns both stores so at some point I expected them to merge into one,” said Future Shop customer Guy McLoughlin, according to the Winnipeg Free Press. “I would always go to both stores anyways to comparison shop because occasionally one would be cheaper than the other. I guess I lose that option now but otherwise I’m just thankful we’ve got something like that still in Canada because if they went I don’t know what would be left.”

All in all, Future Shop’s closing will affect a total of 1,500 employees, resulting in the loss of 500 full time and 1,000 part time jobs. Best Buy Canada says the former Future Shop employees will receive severance, employee assistance, and outplacement support.

The only good news with Future Shop’s closing is that only 66 Future Shop locations will disappear for good, while the remaining 65 locations will be converted into new Best Buy Canada locations. This means there will be a total of 192 Best Buy stores in Canada, including 56 Best Buy Mobile stores.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Best Buy spokesman Matt Furman explained that Future Shop’s closing allows the company to focus investment into a single brand name instead of essentially competing with itself. Best Buy Canada plans on spending $160 million USD over the next two years in order to regrow its Canadian business.

[Image via Wikipedia]