I like to support Canadian companies, even chains. However, my recent visit to this store reminded me why chains like Canadian Tire struggle. It's not what they are selling or their prices, but the customer experience.
I stopped in after my exercise class to buy some fitness equipment for home. This store is large but well sorted so you can find the section you need with relative ease. I wandered past the pet aisle and saw kitty litter was on sale. Score! Into the cart it went. I also grabbed a set of measuring spoons which Walmart AND Superstore have strangely been out of recently (nobody likes a cooking utensil shortage). I then headed to the back to get my fitness stuff. Or tried.
Now here is the thing. Its a decent sized store but it is so over merchandised that if you have a cart (which I did because I wanted to buy weights) you and another person (cart or no cart) cannot pass each other in at least a third of the aisle.There are bins and displays of stuff everywhere and on several occasions I had to go down another aisle, just hoping to get around people (or to allow them to get around me).
Eventually I made it where I was going. The only had one 15 pound weight left (??) and the rest were too heavy or way to light. I would have asked if they had more in the back but there wasn't an employee in site (this was a Saturday). I grabbed some other things and headed to the front to pay. Same aisle situation on the way back. At one point I had to revers two aisle because there wasn't room to turn around OR get by(merchandise). Eventually I got to the front and.....giant line up, 15 people deep, that I could count. One cashier on, on a Saturday. The self serve tills had a line of 8+ people deep. I opted for that (although I had to backtrack through the store to get over to where that line started as there wasn't room to get the cart through. I came close a couple of times to just leaving my cart and not making a purchase because it was so frustrating.
In the end what should have taken no more than 15 minutes took me about an hour to accomplish. Prices were good and the lady I saw when I left the store was friendly. But everything else was lacking. I was excited to get some new things for myself but in the end I was fed up and frustrated. Not cool CT, not cool.