I think Canadian Retail will be OK

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s anyone else getting a bit tired of Amazon? Getting the right product to me at the right price in a timely fashion is not too high a bar to set, right? I’ve even conditioned my kids to look only for products on Prime. But just maybe Amazon is at risk of becoming the proverbial “jack of all trades, master of none".

In mid-November, I wanted to buy a very specific kind of saxophone mouthpiece for my nephew. Naturally I started on Amazon but the search led me into the marketplace offerings with a bewildering variety of prices and shipping offers for similar products. Not necessarily the exact product I wanted, but similar. Except in this case, similar is not good enough. So, I went over to the web site for our local Long & McQuade music store. I found the product immediately, and even including tax & shipping paid the same as I would have on Amazon. Placed the order Sunday and it was in my mailbox Tuesday. Kudos to Long & McQuade for giving me what I wanted, when I wanted it, with no fuss and bother.

Also in late November, I was shopping for a new Christmas tree. Don’t judge me, we’ve had an artificial tree for years 🙂 – but it was time to replace it. Once again, started on Amazon and once again, just too much clutter. So I went to the Canadian Tire web site and found a number of good possibilities, many sale-priced in anticipation of Black Friday. Over dinner, around 9PM, my wife and I discussed the tree, pulled out my phone, and decided on the one we wanted – it was available for pickup in the local store around the corner. Add to cart, checkout, and hey – typing in your credit card number is so old school. The responsive site scanned my card, and placed the order. At 7:30 the next morning I received the e-mail letting me know my tree was ready for pick up. After dropping the kids at school I drove to the store – preferred parking for online order pick up – and was in & out in 10 minutes. One transaction, three channels, executed overnight. Kudos to Canadian Tire for exceeding my omni-channel expectations.

If everyone can execute the way Long & McQuade and Canadian Tire did for me, then retail in Canada is going to be just fine.