The publicly traded company Best Buy, has decided, all of a sudden, to close my favorite Futureshop. It was the one in the Pepsi Forum west of Montreal’s downtown. I usually go there every week there to see what’s new when it comes to technology – but today, when I went there (I was busy for the past 2 weeks so I didn’t go), I was surprised to see a big message written in French on a banner in front of what used to be the Future Shop: “Ce magazin Future Shop est maintenant fermé” – which translates to: “This Future Shop is now closed.”

I thought they were doing renovation or something, but when I re-read the message I understood that they really mean it’s closed – like closed forever. It’s sad.

I felt as if I lost something – something that was part of my life for many years now. I bought my first TV from there – I nearly bought every technological or electrical thing that I have from there – and now it’s not there anymore. I used to go there and stroll as if it were my own property – sometimes spending an hour or two if I didn’t have anything (yes, I do love technology) – examining every new thing that they have, talking to employees (most of them were by far the friendliest and most knowledgeable/skilled employees I’ve ever met), asking them about the latest stuff and what they thought of it.

Now I can’t…

When I came home, I did a quick research on why that shop was closed, and it’s, as predicted, Best Buy wanted to cut costs, and probably sever non-profitable locations, which, unfortunately, included the one in the forum (they closed 15 stores in one shot!)

The problem is that Best Buy did not tell anyone in advance that they’re about to close these shops (including mine), they just did it! Sure, they did offer employees severance packages, but seeing the way how they closed these locations, I reckon the severance package was not that large.

For those who don’t know, Best Buy bought the then profitable Future Shop back in 2001 for nearly half a billion dollars – it took Best Buy as many as 12 years to turn Future Shop into an overhead.

Thanks for the great work Best Buy! You really made my day – and perhaps the day of about a thousand employees out there. For you it’s all about making money and cutting costs, for us it’s about a Future Shop that we loved and that did not live to tell its story to our children.

Maybe I’m being overly sentimental here – but I just loved that place!

On a side note, BBY is up 43% so far this year, it is trading currently at $17.02. So, it seems that investors are all thinking that Best Buy is making the right decisions – after all, it’s all about that share price, right?

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