It came as a shock to me to hear that Loblaws is buying T&T because T&T seems like such a major player in the ethnic grocery store market (you know they have more than 2 stores!). But it seems like the $225 million it’s just a drop in the water for them.

Loblaw plans to spend $70 million in the second half on computer systems, and $1 billion this year on store renovations, including upgrades to 200 stores, mainly in western Canada and Quebec. That represents about 20 per cent of its roughly 1,000 stores across the country.

That’s a lot of canvas bags to sell!

In a way this makes philosophical sense. The actual Loblaws store (as opposted to the brand that also owns No Frills, etc) is overpriced, and T&T is overpriced compared to other Asian supermarkets. But then in the overall supermarket market, T&T is not that much different than No Frills.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: chinese, shopping