Here in Canada, your average citizen cannot buy a gun. Guns are restricted to police and gun club members, who need to be registered. Guns are either stolen from gun collectors, or are smuggled in from the US in exchange for drugs. Gangs use guns to terrorize the public or other competing gangs.

Chung Hing is our local Chinese grocer. They have 6 cashiers. On a typical Sunday afternoon they would have three open. While it would not be crowded, it would be busy. In the past there has been trouble with black thieves armed with guns in the same plaza. Surprising this is not, but brazen it was. Chung Hing is not a high value target. They do have close circuit surveillance cameras that surround the store as well as show inside the store.

No one was hurt, so there will be no mention about this in the news. Still, many, including my family, are traumatized. Such brazen acts to hurt others breed ill will against the local black community, and with good reason. We continue to be wary and we have good reason. These gangs need to be stopped and thrown into jail.

After an epic fail in selling food, will Canadian Tire now sell lingerie? Say it isn't so...

As a long time Canadian I consider it a tradition to shop at Canadian Tire. Unlike Walfart, Crappy Tire is, after all, Canadian. When I need a tool or something for the house I think of Canadian Tire first. This year, I am finding that the products I need are no longer advertised in the CT weekly flyer, and all the stuff I don’t need has taken its place. This has the result of me not visiting the local Crappy Tire as much as I used to, and therefore I am not spending the family’s cash in their stores. Going to the epitome of insanity, CT’s weekly food specials now gets attached to the weekly flyer. As my daughter often says, this is an EPIC FAIL.

Let’s talk strategy. We buy food like every other family, but I don’t buy food at Canadian Tire. Tools, housewares, sporting goods, motor oil, yes. Food, no. I find even the idea of selling food at Crappy Tire absurd. Who goes shopping for bread and thinks of Crappy Tire? Who would go shopping for eggs and on the same trip pick up a life jacket?

Let’s talk execution, or lack thereof. The weekly flyer seems to be a feeble attempt at the traditional retailer loss leader, luring in the innocent so they can purchase more expensive goods once in the store. These supposed “loss leaders”, unfortunately, are not even priced competitively enough to get customers to change their shopping habits. For example Monday to Wednesday June 7-9 2010, a 1L carton of chocolate milk will be on sale for $0.99, max 6 per customer. Hello, but this is a regular sale price done by all the large grocery stores pretty much monthly, sometimes running for a couple of weeks at a time. At least do your homework, which by the way, gets delivered to each and every household weekly? There are more examples. Glaring is CT’s failed attempt at selling 500g cheddar cheese for $5.49 when the competition is selling the same for $4.44? How can such a pricing strategy will draw customers into Crappy Tire stores? It simply cannot.

Presentation at the store is another issue. There are only a couple of shelves forlornly placed at the front of the store, abandoned and ignored like the black sheep of the family. I walked right by the displays and had to turn back to see what had gone so horribly wrong with Crappy Tire’s merchandising, only to find…food?

In summary I still ask myself “What were they thinking”? Rather than run its full course, Crappy Tire need to kill this food marketing campaign before they thoroughly tarnish their reputation as competent Canadian retailers. Canadians will forgive and forget, I’m sure. We are a tolerant and restrained bunch, and not much gets our shorts in a knot. I see that as more emphasis is put on food, the other areas of Crappy Tire are suffering. It is these traditional areas where I spend my money. This is simply wrong and must be immediately corrected.

I wish to disclose that I do not look good in a skirt. It’s not that I could never wear a skirt, or that I do not have access to a skirt. Still, because you can do something does not mean you should.

We are, thankfully, not very close to a Walmart Super Centre, but on the rare occasion, we do visit. The Supercentre is 9 km away. Yesterday, Wednesday midday, was such a day. . In summary, the Super Centre is larger with very slightly more variety, their food section is quite good, but their checkout process tortuous. Store location: Walmart Supercentre, Eglington/Warden, Toronto, Canada.

I am not usually an advocate of big for big’s sake, nor am I a huge advocate of Walmart. None the less, the Walmart Supercentre is like a regular Walmart with double or triple the inventory. More stuff, but only marginally more variety. While my local Walmart often runs out of products that I want to buy, and seems loath to reorder, this is less likely to happen at the Supercentre. Still, I was looking for badminton grip tape, which was out of stock at my local store, the Supercentre was also out of stock.

We walk and walk, and marvel at the acres of “Made in China” stuff. Wow. Ok, this is getting boring. Our local Walmart has the same exact stuff, with the same, exact prices.

The grocery area is the highlight of the store. If Walmart had a grocery store locally I’d definitely shop there. Prices were comparable or slightly lower than local grocers. This is a good thing. The variety of goods surpasses all my local grocers. This is a great thing. The grocery area is so large that we quickly ran out of time browsing aisle after aisle, so we bee lined it to our target.

The checkout was the downfall of this shopping experience. How about having 2 express lines (express lines are cashiers for customers with less than 10 items, we had 8), only to find they were 30 customers deep. One express line had 2 cashiers, and the other had 4 cashiers. There were also 4 other cashiers. It was like they quadrupled the size of the store, invited everyone to come shop and kept the same number of cashiers as my local Walmart. It took us 30 minutes to check out, longer than our shopping time.

Is it worthwhile to double the time for your shopping trip in order to save a very little money? My verdict is that a trip to the Walmart Supercentre is not worth the hassle of the lineup. The store was clean, well stocked, grocery area well laid out, but not enough to offset the time wasted lining up for a cashier. They do most everything right but take my money quickly enough.

It was faster waiting in the regular, non-express line. This is counter intuitive. We won’t be going back any time soon.

Shopping Experience Rating: C.

Disadvantages include signs only in Chinese, an intimidating variety of new fruits and vegetables, and often a sad lack of cleaning. No matter, you’re shopping there, not eating off the floor. Traffic in and out of your Chinese grocer can be harrowing at best and dangerous at worst. Many Chinese in my area can’t negotiate the parking lot safely, so stay alert and expect odd movements, such as driving on the left side of the road. Oops, I forgot we’re not in HK.

Very often I see non-Asian shoppers at our local stores, so if you have not tried your local Chinese green grocery, I encourage you to pop in. you might actually like it, eat better, and save money as well. If you don’t know where to go in your local area, make friends with your Asian neighbours and ask them where they shop. The locals know, and if the locals are dissatisfied, they’ll vote with their feet and take their business elsewhere.