Target is Shutting Down all its Stores in Canada
We that did not last very long. The Target retail chain opened up in Canada in the spring of 2013. It even reached 133 stores, but has now decided to close all of its stores. That means that 17,600 employees are out of the job, so this is a very sad day. Lots of arguments can be made about Target’s decision to come to Canada, not really offering fair prices, etc.
To be fair though, I did shop at Target. I generally know the maximum price I am willing to pay for an item. So whenever Target has sales, I have no problem buying from them because they are offering the price that I am willing to pay anyway. Unfortunately, that was not enough for me to go out of my way to shop at Target. I would only go into the store if I happen to be nearby.
But for today, I will focus on what this news is significant to Pointshogger. Target and RBC teamed up to offer the RBC Target REDcard MasterCard.
The highlights of the credit card are as follows:
- No annual fee
- Earn 5% cash back on purchases made at the Target store with certain restrictions
- Earn 0.5% cash back on all other purchases
- The cash back only goes to Target Gift Card rewards
This credit card would have been very significant if people shopped at Target as often as they do at Wal-Mart. Imagine if Wal-Mart kept its current prices and offered a 5% cash back credit card. I would definitely be the first in line to sign up.
Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse and it seems that we will see another credit card, which actually had a lot of potential, most likely be discontinued. This will no doubt benefit Wal-Mart and they will most likely not have any incentive to improve its Walmart Rewards MasterCard like we originally hoped.
I will however recommend this strategy. If you already have this credit card, you might want to put it to use now. As the stores begin to close down, there will be some awesome deals, so that is when the credit card will come in handy. It’s too bad that this is the only time when the credit card becomes very valuable.
It’s always sad to see the competition go down in Canada, especially considering we do not have much to begin with anyway.