Don't get me started on Walmarts in Korea. When I first moved to Anyang and learned there was a Walmart at Pyeongcheon Station I was excited. Until I went. It was nothing like a Walmart in Canada, let alone the states.
Now that is going back. They just were leaving as I was coming in. I never got to visit one as they were only in a couple of big cities. That and a French chain too. I heard the French chain made good bread or something and then sold it to a Korean outfit, they changed the name and immediately started making crappy bread? Carefour or something like that?
Canadians of a certain age will remember these great stores.
Look, I was a kid once, too but are we trying to tell ourselves that Kmart and Zellers were GREAT stores? Why? Kids these days will never know the boundless pleasure of going to.............. Kmart?
I'm sure ten year olds today could happily kill a few hours in a big Walmart. For me as a kid I'd hang around Eaton's and Simpson's. Both gone now. But, Consumer's Distributing was unique. You could go through the catalog and figure out what you wanted and then head down to the store, fill in the card and wait for them to go bring it out from the back. They were well poised to adapt to online sales with their model of service. No sales staff. Don't know how they ended up folding. Now, kids today will never know the boundless pleasure of going to a good record store. Or a good book store in a lot of places. Two things that, for me, the digital online world has not been able to replace satisfactorily.
If you bought any clothes even shoes from Zellers it was obvious and was considered trash. I dunno why but in the late 1980's it was true. I did buy batteries and socks from there.It was like the MADEINCHINA attempt to be quality. Everything there seemed a bit too low quality or a bit too cheap, or both.
Zellers and K-Mart were well known as cheap and lower quality places to shop. No one wanted their parents to take them clothes shopping at a Zellers or K-Mart once they were an adolescent. They didn't generally carry popular brands but had their own lines that usually had some has been celebrity or athlete as a partner.
I remember Zellers, and K-Mart, had the cheaper orange tab Levis. My mother bought me a pair for junior high, wore it the fist day, and never wore them again. All those snide comments about being poor was too much for an insecure teen to take on the first day.
Oh, yeah. The dreaded orange tabs. That was a big deal.
Fortunately, I was in a poorer area for a season after my parents were divorced. No one cared about orange tabs until gr 9 and high school. Funny, I went to the US on some bus trip to this large Christian rock campground festival in Pennsylvania and saw plenty of Americans wearing orange tab. I guess it was no stigma to them. But, I think Levis are always cheaper quality and a cheaper jean to them anyways. The Canadian red tabs and Korean ones seemed to have a thicker denim and higher quality but you paid a higher price. The American ones seemed more flimsy. US ones were mostly made in Mexico and the others were made in Bangadesh or some other Asian country. (Though they were domestically produced up until the 90's.)
Americans seem to enjoy much cheaper prices than most of the developed world. Also, it seems a lot of the lower ends goods can give flea markets in Nairobi, or Manila, a run for their money for low, low, prices. I remember when I first got to Korea, I'd hate shopping with Americans because they'd say how much cheaper something was in the US. I'm like it seems pretty similar to Canadian prices.
