Future Shop launches a new retail concept

I was recently invited to check out a preview of Future Shop’s latest endeavour in retail at their newly remodelled store in North Vancouver.

This store is located pretty close to my office so I’ve been there many times during lunch to pick up all sorts of gear.

So what’s new? You’ll notice they are using the futureshop.ca branding for the store which speaks to their online shopping focus. This store is also only about 5,000 square feet versus the typical store that is 27,000. They’ve basically filled it with their top 1000 products and made it easier for people to use as a delivery hub for online shopping – there is even a pickup window around back for larger items like tvs and mattresses (yes, mattresses). These size stores are also meant for locales that may not be large enough to support a full size store but still carry the latest things people want.

The store has a cleaner, less warehouse-y look to it. There are now tablets and computers scattered around the store that welcome you to browse their online catalog. What I really like is that they also let you go anywhere on the internet on these kiosks and even have hot buttons for their competition to make price comparisons easier. Often when I go into a big box store, I know what I want and what it will cost but I sometimes need to confirm that I’ve got the best price or need to price match with another store. They’ve made it pretty easy to do this.

They keep your online orders behind the counter right at the door so you can get in and out very quickly.

Something else that is new for them is a much more diverse product offering. Beyond the typical technology products you’d expect to find there, they also now sell cookware, camping gear, toys and even the aforementioned mattresses to name just a few of the new products. Something in the range of 60,000 products are now available.

All the sales staff now have tablets with built in scanners and card swipers meaning you can get a price looked up, get more information about a product or pay for an item from anywhere in the store.

This store officially opens on Friday, November 2nd. To kick off the opening, they’ll be having door crasher sales (like Boxing Day in November) and gift card giveaways all weekend. As well, on Saturday November 3rd, local soccer stars, Christine Sinclair, Brittany Timko and Emily Zurrer of Canada’s Olympic Women’s Soccer Team who won bronze at London 2012, will be meeting fans and adorning their medals from 1 to 4pm.