You will buy what we have and you will like it.

[agoodwinsmith]

Y'know?  Whenever I have lived in a small town in Canada, I have been able to get anything I want.  Weird baking ingredients, shoe polish in a colour other than black, legal-sized photocopier paper - in colours other than none.

Whenever I have lived in Vancouver, it doesn't matter what I want, all that is available is the most commonly purchased whatever it is.

Cannot find a navy blue shoe polish no matter what store I go to nor how big it might be.  Cannot find legal-sized photocopier/printer paper for sale in a store anywhere.  Most stores that sell printers don't sell any kind of paper.  The big Staples, the general public's supplier of stationery products, has the most pitiful supply of the standard (letter) size of paper, and a really abysmal selection of two colours in the theme of barfed and barfed-up in legal-sized.  They didn't even have any white.  Costco, which sells printers and computers, does not sell paper.  Bestbuy, which sells printers and computers and photocopies, does not sell paper.  Futureshop, which sells printers and computers, does not sell paper.  Officedepot.ca doesn't even have store fronts any more.  Grand & Toy, the delight of my thirties and forties, has gone so upscale that they don't actually carry anything that is not leather bound and gold embossed.

I hate trying to buy things in Vancouver.  If I was in Vermilion, I would have gotten what I wanted weeks ago.

Bah.

Comments

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

We are beginning to see the downside of living in an Oligopoly. The few ginormous conglomerates who now supply us have constrained us to living within their product lines. They use the excuse "It doesn't sell" to deny us choice when of course it can't sell when you don't bloody stock it!

Not only had Grand and Toy gone utterly upscale, they've all but disappeared from the Retail map. I think there are at most 3 stores in the entire Lower Mainland, and none of them are near me : (

I can't find my favoutite Pental pens in my choices of pink and green ink anymore. I can't find my choices of records or DVDs without special ordering from the Warehouse Back East or whichever black hole they draw from. I can't find clothes or shoes that fit any but the average sized mythical person who doesn't exist. I can't even find the brands of foods on the Supermarket shelves that used to be there last month.

I thought the West won the Cold War. Why are we all of a sudden living in a Soviet economy?

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

You are missing nothing at the new Grand & Toy.

Our preferred items that have disappeared off the shelves this past year alone - Lorne's shampoo, Lorne's heavy-duty hand lotion, my shaving cream, my body soap.

Items to have disappeared previously and still mourned: Nalley's Chili (a moment of silence, please), my feminine supplies, the feminine supplies I chose as a second-best replacement, the dark photogray that I used to get all my spectacle lenses tinted with for over 30 years (I have been told by people still holding their umbilical cords that "that never existed" - like you know, you damp greenie), previous first-choice shaving creme, my shampoo, my replacement shampoo, and so on.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

It's insane that shops which sell printers don't sell paper for them.

If it makes you feel a teeny bit better, Best Buy have just gone down the toilet over here :)

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

I confess I have been expecting to see the pale white belly of our Bestbuy any day - they have nothing that you want, and their customer service for anything (such as, say, notebook computers) but the myriad cellphones whose plans they get a kickback from[1] doesn't even make it to abysmal.

Nur. I don't want them to go out of business - I want them to stock stuff I want to buy! Wah! :)

[1] - if there is no kickback, *why* are these people so aggressive about bringing the most expensive and restrictive plans to one's immediate attention, eh?eh?eh?