Future Shop is Canada's largest consumer electronics retailer. Future Shop currently operates a total of 139 stores across all of
Canada's
provinces as of December 2008.
Future Shop was purchased for
C$480 million by
Best Buy on
November 4,
2001. The company was renamed
Best Buy Canada Ltd.—a wholly owned subsidiary of its American parent. They have continued to operate Future Shop as a separate division, with most locations under their original name. Future Shop continues to grow and open new stores across Canada. In December 2008, Future Shop opened its new flagship store in
Edmonton at
South Edmonton Common, which is currently the largest in Canada.
History
Beginnings
Future Shop in Ottawa
Future Shop was founded in 1982 by Iranian entrepreneur
Hassan Khosrowshahi, who left
Iran to settle in
Vancouver,
British Columbia,
Canada to start a retail business.
Khosrowshahi graduated from the
University of Tehran with a degree in law and economics and was a part of the family that owned the Minoo Industrial Group, a large Iran manufacturer of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and food products. Khosrowshahi planned to open a chain of consumer and home electronics stores and take over the Canadian retail market. His associate, Mohammad Ziabakhsh, took the role of president and CEO of the newly formed company and Khosrowshahi himself served as chairman and founder. In 1983, Future Shop opened the first three stores, all of which were in British Columbia. The company sold computers, software, games, videocassettes, audio equipment, music, among other items. By December 1983, the first month all of the Future Shop stores were opened and making business, the company reached $2.8 million dollars in sales.
By 1993, Future Shop became the largest retailer of computers and consumer electronics in Canada and was operating 38 stores across the country and parts of the United States.
In August 1993, Future Shop went public on the
Toronto Stock Exchange, making $30 million dollars to be used for expansion and to pay off debt.
By the end of 1995, Future Shop's sales had reached more than $1 billion dollar with more than $38 million EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization)
In 1997, Future Shop announced a change in management, with Ziabakhsh leaving the company. Khosrowshahi took on the roles of president and CEO in addition to serving as chairman. Many people from company headquarters were fired shortly afterward.
At the end of March, Future Shop's Canadian division had produced record setting sales and earnings for the company, however, the company's earnings were down 20 percent from the previous year, due to many losses caused by its failing U.S. operations. Despite plans for more locations in the U.S. over the next several years, the company instantly stopped any new plans for further expansion in the United States until the existing U.S. stores improved their performance in sales.
Focusing on Canadian markets
1990s-2003 Future Shop logo
In 1998, Future Shop purchased the Canadian division of
Computer City from
CompUSA, which was only three months after the Computer City chain had been merged into CompUSA and either converted to CompUSA or closed and liquidated. During the next year, two of the Computer City retail stores had been liquidated due to poor sales. In addition, the competing
Adventure Electronics in
Ontario and
Quebec closed, leaving Future Shop as the only big-box electronics retailer in Canada.
By the end of 1998, the U.S. locations of Future Shop were performing badly, with $53 million dollars in losses over the last few years, and Future Shop projected another $30 million in losses would occur by the end of the next year. After major losses in sales, in March 1999, the company announced that it would close U.S. operations, holding liquidation sales and closing down for good in the summer. The closures left Future Shop with 81 stores across Canada. Many of the former stores ended up converting to one of its major U.S. competitors,
Best Buy.
In 2000, Future Shop had owned 83 Future Shop stores and five Computer City stores. In June 2000, Future Shop announced plans to open flagship stores in downtown Vancouver, Toronto, and
Montreal.
In February 2001, Future Shop announced that the company would close and liquidate the five remaining Computer City stores due to poor sales. At the same time, Future Shop also attempted to acquire
Chapters, a chain of book stores in Canada, but failed to come up with a reasonable offer for Chapters.
Best Buy buyout
In March 2001, American-based Best Buy acquired Future Shop for $480 million Canadian. Despite possible conversions to the Best Buy nameplate, Future Shop was to be run as a separate division under the name of
Best Buy Canada. The acquisition caused Khosrowshahi to step down as president. The other executives from Future Shop retained their positions within the company.
Best Buy Canada have continued to operate Future Shop as a separate division, with most locations under their original name. Future Shop stores are still being added, most recently in
South Edmonton Common in Edmonton, Alberta. The company has also begun renovating some of its stores to focus more on product specialty areas, to separate video games into their own department, and to create a central "hub" featuring employees specializing in connecting different devices together. The first such renovated Future Shop store opened in August 2008 at
Park Royal Shopping Centre in
West Vancouver, BC.
The new style of Future Shop store in
MonctonClasses of Employees
Future Shop employees are separated into several classes. The commission-compensated sales force consists of "Product Experts", while non-commissioned salespeople (such as those in the Entertainment department) are referred to as "Sales Associates." Further to that, customer service representatives dealing with returns, exchanges, and customer inquiries are referred to as "Customer Service Specialists", whereas the representatives dealing with terminal transactions at cashiers and purchase verification are known as "Customer Service Representatives". The operations and warehousing staff are called "Merchandisers", the home-theater and car audio installation team are the "Installers", and the computer troubleshooting team are the "Technicians". In 2007 all "Sales Associates" were changed back into "Product Experts", to keep the brand distinction between Best Buy and Future Shop. In 2008, all home theater installers, car installers, and computer technicians, were rebranded as "ConnectPro Experts" in order to have a more marketable name for computer/home theatre/car services.
2009 Corporate Restructuring
In February 2009 Future Shop removed several unproductive positions throughout the company, notably the DSDM (District Sales Development Manager), DOM (District Operations Manager) and many other positions throughout. The Districts throughout Canada expanded to about 20 and are now more closely watched by the new DM (District Manager) position. This restructuring is an effort to improve sales as well as corporate response to all the associates inquiries.
Major product categories
