The Globe and Mail carried a story late this afternoon on "Sick of slow service, customers walk"

....Canadian consumers are abandoning their shopping carts, delaying purchases and leaving stores, public transit stops and restaurants in significant numbers...

The timing was right for me, as I abandoned a Best Buy purchase of cables and CDs due to a long line-up at the cashiers, and walked over to Future Shop. There the store manager noticed a building line-up, opened a new cash, and got my $230 quickly.

The thing is:

a) Best Buy now owns Future Shop
b) It was implementation of Best Buy policies that fixed the long line-up problems that used to plague Future Shop.

However slow service is not the number one problem for our retailers: it is the sick Canadian pricing. The latest CD from The Verve, out today:

$7.99 Amazon.com (US)
$18.99 (2 to 3 weeks delivery) Amazon.ca
$11.99 Best Buy.ca
$13.99 Future Shop.ca

Instead of this, I bought the Brazilian Girls latest "New York City": wonderful, and the track Good Time is the best power pop in a while. I must be one of very last still buying CDs, but my plans for buying an iPhone were screwed by the Canadian pricing.