One of our largest clients – McNally Robinson Booksellers – announced they are going into bankruptcy protection.  The company has been struck with some hard times with rising costs from opening a new store at Polo Park Mall (Winnipeg) and another new location in Ontario.  According to McNally the Ontario location (just outside of Toronto) experienced serious problems with the developer of  the mall.  According to Paul McNally, they did a poor job of getting other retailers in the mall and offered poor signage which caused a lot of issues for the book store.  The news is a little misleading at this point if you ask me as it seems as though McNally is closing its doors for good.  That is not the case, they have gone into Bankruptcy protection and are still operating 2 of their stores, one in Winnipeg (Grant Park) and one in Saskatoon.  In addition they have full intention to maintain their e-commerce website as they feel it is an efficient method to sell books and certainly the wave of the future.  Many companies go into Bankruptcy protection and then come out with a plan and continue to be very successful.  Recently we were interviewed by CBC’s  Wab Kinew regarding McNally.  The clip is at the 10 minute mark of the segment, Click here to see the news broadcast.  Read more... (229 words, 1 image, estimated 55 secs reading time)

Happy Holidays from all of us here at Canada’s Web Shop!

Our office will be closed starting at noon tomorrow, December 24. We’ll be back first thing Monday morning (December 28).

Merry Christmas!

Let’s face it, your staff are the most important element of your business.  Often they are your first point of contact with your customers.  You must treat them like gold and I think it is critical to create an atmosphere that is friendly and somewhat fun to work at.  Lets be real work is work but you can work hard and have some laughs with your fellow co-workers and enjoy the day.  In addition to your team getting along which is much easier when you have a smaller organization, is the atmosphere you create in the work place.  I had to laugh I went into an office  the other day and on the fridge it said “Pay for your drinks or we will stop buying them”.  Unfortunately that right there tells a lot about a company’s culture.  How much does it really cost especially if you have a smaller staff to supply soft drinks in your work place and even if you charge for them which some larger organizations feel they need to, the few people that don’t pay (although unfair to others that do) really does not cost you a lot.  Read more... (394 words, 1 image, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)