Tausi Insider

A Starbucks location in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Nov. 7. Gene J. Puskar/The Associated Press Starbucks SBUX-Q workers at more than 100 U.S. stores are on strike Thursday in their largest labour action since a campaign to unionize the company’s stores began late last year. The walkouts coincide with Starbucks’ annual Red Cup Day, when the company gives free reusable cups to customers who order a holiday drink. Workers say it’s often one of the busiest days of the year. Starbucks declined to say how many red cups it plans to distribute. Workers say they’re seeking better pay, more consistent schedules and higher staffing levels in busy stores. Stores in 25 states planned to take part in the labour action, according to Starbucks Workers United, the group organizing the effort. Strikers are handing out their own red cups with union logos. Starbucks, which opposes the unionization effort, said it is aware of the walkouts and respects its employees’ right to lawfully protest. The Seattle compan...

Mastermind Toys CEO Sarah Jordan says consumers are returning to a more normal pre-pandemic holiday shopping pattern this year. HO/The Canadian Press It’s the most resilient holiday spending category: Toys. But even toy stores are expected to feel the fallout from inflation during the biggest shopping season of the year. “Holiday spending is going to be muted,” retail analyst Bruce Winder said. “But toys are the last thing you cut back on if you have kids. You want something under the tree for them – you just might do it in a more economical way.” While Canadians are expected to rein in their shopping lists this gift-giving season amid rising prices, high interest rates and a grim economic outlook, they still appear willing to open their wallets for toys, experts say. “Toys have been kind of that shining star in Canada,” said Tamara Szames, Canadian retail industry adviser with The NPD Group. “It’s continuing to outperform the rest of the retail industry.” While toy sales may be resi...

People hold flags from Spain's CGT labour union as they protest outside a Zara clothing store, in Madrid, Spain, on Nov. 24. VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA/Reuters Dozens of Zara shop assistants protested in Madrid on Thursday outside the global fashion giant’s largest store to demand higher pay, and some workers in its home town in northwest Spain went on strike on the eve of its Black Friday sales campaign. Zara owner Inditex agreed last week to pay a one-off bonus of €1,000 ($1,041) to all full-time shop workers in Spain in February, according to unions that are seeking better wages for their members in the face of galloping inflation. Inditex has also offered to gradually raise monthly wages by around €200 by 2024, a proposal accepted by two of Spain’s largest union groups, UGT and Comisiones Obreras, but rejected by the protesters who are demanding at least double that. “Inditex is increasing its prices and improving its profits, while employees’ wages are lagging behind,” said Anibal...

Canadian shoppers are out deal-hunting during a muted Black Friday as decades-high inflation weighs on consumers and prompts some to rein in spending. Retailers have stretched deals over several weeks and offered similar discounts online, taking some of the frenzy out of the holiday shopping event. Several big box stores in the Toronto area, such as Best Buy and Walmart, lacked the usual early morning lineups that once epitomized Black Friday. Malls in the area appeared busy around lunchtime, but not swarming with the crowds and queues seen in previous years. Few stores appeared to have lines of waiting customers. “We’re seeing a dilution of Black Friday as a physical shopping event where you go to the store early in the morning,” retail analyst Bruce Winder said Friday. “It’s finally sort of hit that tipping point where it’s much less about the day and it’s more about the shopping period.” Inflation-weary shoppers were expected to turn out in record numbers for deals on Black Friday...

A customer uses a credit card at a terminal as he shops in a Lidl supermarket in Gattieres near Nice, France, on Dec. 2. ERIC GAILLARD/Reuters Most Canadians would respond negatively to a store that charged them an extra fee for paying with a credit card, a new poll suggests. The online survey of 2,774 Canadians, conducted by the Angus Reid Institute from Nov. 28 to 30, found that just one in 10 respondents said they would accept a surcharge for paying by credit card. The rest would either switch to a different form of payment, such as cash, or stop shopping at that business all together. Credit cards have become the most common form of payment in recent years, and their use has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. But most merchants privately complain about processing credit-card payments because they come with the highest processing fees. Stores recently won the ability to pass on those processing fees to customers because of a legal settlement, but so far, few businesses have...

Starbucks SBUX-Q workers around the U.S. are planning a three-day strike starting Friday as part of their effort to unionize the coffee chain’s stores. More than 1,000 baristas at 100 stores are planning to walk out, according to Starbucks Workers United, the labor group organizing the effort. The strike will be the longest in the year-old unionization campaign. The union says it expects the strike will shutter some stores entirely; at others, managers or other workers may keep the stores open. A message seeking comment was left with Starbucks Friday morning. This is the second major strike in a month by Starbucks’ U.S. workers. On Nov. 17, workers at 110 Starbucks stores held a one-day walkout. That effort coincided with Starbucks’ annual Red Cup Day, when the company gives reusable cups to customers who order a holiday drink. More than 264 of Starbucks’ 9,000 company-run U.S. stores have voted to unionize since late last year. Starbucks opposes the unionization effort, saying the c...

People look through the window of a store in Montreal, on Dec. 26, 2021. Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press Stores in Canada are gearing up for Boxing Day sales, with some rolling out deals early in the hopes of enticing budget-conscious shoppers. The Canadian promotional retail event has been overshadowed in recent years by its American counterpart, Black Friday. But experts say Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales fell short of expectations last month, leaving some stores with inventory to clear before the end of the season. “Black Friday is the most important day of the year for retailers and it was a bit of a bust,” said Lisa Hutcheson, managing partner at retail consulting firm J.C. Williams Group. “We’re going to end up seeing some deep discounts around Boxing Day because it’s been a bit of a slower sales season. It hasn’t been those crushing crowds of December that we’ve seen in the past.” Even with big discounts, consumers might be hesitant to open their wallets, she said. “Infl...

An employee helps a customer at the Fire and Flower store in Ottawa on April 1, 2019, as the first legal cannabis stores open in the province of Ontario. CHRIS WATTIE/Reuters Chad Finkelstein is a business lawyer and registered trademark agent at Dale & Lessmann LLP in Toronto, with a focus on franchising, licensing, distribution, retail and cannabis. Currently, approximately 1,500 cannabis stores are open or approved in Ontario, 450 in British Columbia and 760 in Alberta (these being the three most populous provinces that have privatized cannabis retail operations). In most cities, one might find two or more cannabis stores on the same block, at the same intersection or within the same plaza. People often express confusion about, or even resentment toward, this concentration of cannabis stores, and wonder how any of them could make money, or why anybody would want to open one, or how this could have come about. It’s a question with no easy answers. To pin it on any one factor wo...

Galen Weston Jr., executive chairman of Loblaw, at a news conference in Toronto on July 15, 2013. Michelle Siu/The Canadian Press Sylvain Charlebois is professor of food distribution and policy and the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. It all started with one reporter taking a simple, trivial photo of an overpriced pack of five boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The price was $37 – $26.87 a kilogram – a world-class sticker shocker. That’s at least double what one would expect to pay for chicken breasts. Within hours, the picture became the lightning rod for frustrated consumers on social media. Loblaw Cos. Ltd. L-T and Galen G. Weston – Loblaw executive chairman, president and well-known public persona of the company’s brand – became public enemy No. 1. Attacks were instant, and mostly vicious. On the surface, the collective uproar against Loblaw lacked any rational thinking. The chicken breasts in the picture were skinless, boneless, and free from hor...

Metro bakery manager Gaynel Walkes prepares bags of bakery goods being sold at a discounted rate with the service Too Good To Go Toronto, a mobile application being used at the College Park location in Toronto, on Dec. 22, 2022. Tijana Martin/Tausi Insider Kelly-Anne Hollingshead is getting creative with cabbage. Seven bags of shredded cabbage mix, to be exact, which she bought on the Flashfood mobile app at two-thirds off the regular price and picked up at her local Real Canadian Superstore. One night, she will make salad. The next, she’s thinking yakisoba, and after that, soup. The 66-year-old Edmonton retiree regularly uses the app, which allows grocery chains to post and sell food close to its sell-by date at deep discounts. She says the products are generally in very good condition. “There is no reason it should go to the landfill to feed the seagulls,” Ms. Hollingshead says. She and her husband have noticed the difference the app makes in their grocery budget. “I’d really like ...

This spring, Hudson's Bay Company is set to open Zellers stores inside 25 The Bay locations across Canada. Chris Bolin/Tausi Insider For many Canadians, the name Zellers conjures up memories of more than just a department store. The flood of nostalgia may include getting high fives from Zeddy the mascot or a family trip to the store’s 1950s-style diner for some Eggs Zenedict. Now, more than a decade after a Target Corp. deal that saw the end of the beloved Zellers era, the discount retailer is making a comeback. Last summer, Hudson’s Bay Co. announced that it is planning to open Zellers locations within its Bay department stores. On Jan. 18, the company revealed the planned locations for its first 25 “in-store experiences” across Canada. Here’s a refresher on all things Zellers. What’s the deal with the comeback? Not much is known about the deal. Starting in 2023, the retail company said it is planning to open Zellers locations within its The Bay department stores, adding that Ze...

People pay for their items at a grocery store in Toronto, on Nov. 22, 2022. CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters Jim Dandy reads the grocery store flyers every week. It’s a habit the 79-year-old retiree picked up in childhood and continued while raising three children during law school. “I learned the importance of saving five cents, and that has stuck with me,” Dandy said in an interview from his home in Niagara Falls, Ont. Grocery prices were up 11 per cent in December compared with a year ago, Statistics Canada said this week. Overall, grocery prices were up 9.8 per cent in 2022 compared with a year earlier – the fastest pace since 1981. As shoppers grapple with spiralling food costs, some are turning for the first time to tips and tricks long used by older Canadians. Dandy, a septuagenarian who lived through the skyrocketing inflation of the early 1980s, has advice to offer consumers who may be worried about food prices for the first time. His top tip is to read grocery store flyers regularly t...