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Local Future Shop to become a Best Buy outlet Saturday

April 1, 2015   ·   0 Comments

Early Saturday morning, Twitter exploded with rumours that Future Shop was closing its doors Canada-Wide, effective immediately, with only some locations to be rebranded as Best Buy stores. The rumours were sparked by a message that appeared on the Future Shop Website that read ‘Dear Valued Customer, Future Shop and Best Buy are consolidating under the Best Buy brand.’

Shortly after that, the message was removed and replaced with one claiming the site was closed for a scheduled upgrade, before returning back to normal operations within half an hour of the second message.

The rumours were first confirmed around 7:45 a.m., when employees began to take to Twitter, announcing that they had been collectively fired at staff meetings held simultaneously across the country.

“It was a complete slap in the face,” said one local employee, who confirmed the rumour anonymously. “They called us all in and told us we were all fired. It was unreal.”

Neither Best Buy nor Future Shop made any official confirmation of the rumours until a press release was sent out via Business Wire at 10:07 a.m. explaining that the move was to help strengthen the company’s position as Canada’s leading provider of consumer electronics, products, services and solutions through a consolidation of the brands.

The announcement came after the permanent closure of 66 Future Shop locations, as well as a temporary, week-long closure of an additional 65 locations that would be rebranded into Best Buy stores. According to signage in the Orangeville Future Shop’s window later Saturday morning, the local store is set to be one of the rebranded locations.

“Currently, 80 per cent of our customers are within a 15 minute drive to a store and this won’t change,” said Ron Wilson, President and COO of Best Buy Canada. “We will continue to have a strong store presence in all major markets in Canada.”

The consolidation resulted in the permanent termination of approximately 500 full-time and 1,000 part-time jobs within the company, including any employees who had worked in a commission-based role. The decision is rumoured to be because Best Buy does not employ any commission positions, which could result in those employees seeing a rather large decrease in pay to have them moved to an hourly wage.

“Any decisions that impact our people are never taken lightly; our first priority is to support them through this change,” Mr. Wilson said.

“I want to express my appreciation to the employees who are leaving, for their contributions to Best Buy Canada.”

It is unknown at this time exactly how many local employees will be offered positions at the new Best Buy, but the company has begun posting jobs online. The Orangeville ‘Best Buy’ is set to open this Saturday, April 4.

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