Thread: Spirit store Canada "SHIPPING"

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Howdy!

Im up in O'Canada. BC to be more precise. Finally spirit store has made its way to Canada. However, NO where near me. My wife and I would take an annual trip down to Spokane Washington where they have 3 spirit stores. Only about a 2 hour drive away from home. This year is out, as we have NOT got our passports yet. We also decided that coming home with our loot from the U.S. becomes stupid expensive. NOT only the exchange rate but the duty at the border and your $200 dollar prop becomes a $300 + prop.

Im mainly interested in the Michael Myers prop. Anyone know if a spirit in Canada would accept a credit card via phone and ship an order out to BC.?I realize they won't do this via the main website as they only accept US orders at this time. Policy, they may NOT. However, if I can find a COOL owner operator out of one of the Ontario stores you never know??

Just wondering if someone out in Ontario could ASK the next time they were in a Spirit store.

Lastly......what are prices like out there? Are they exact SAME in Canadian dollars as stuff advertised on the website? Or do they JACK rates up to make up for the U.S. dollar???

thanks

Originally Posted by sugar ray

Howdy!

Im up in O'Canada. BC to be more precise. Finally spirit store has made its way to Canada. However, NO where near me. My wife and I would take an annual trip down to Spokane Washington where they have 3 spirit stores. Only about a 2 hour drive away from home. This year is out, as we have NOT got our passports yet. We also decided that coming home with our loot from the U.S. becomes stupid expensive. NOT only the exchange rate but the duty at the border and your $200 dollar prop becomes a $300 + prop.

Im mainly interested in the Michael Myers prop. Anyone know if a spirit in Canada would accept a credit card via phone and ship an order out to BC.?I realize they won't do this via the main website as they only accept US orders at this time. Policy, they may NOT. However, if I can find a COOL owner operator out of one of the Ontario stores you never know??

Just wondering if someone out in Ontario could ASK the next time they were in a Spirit store.

Lastly......what are prices like out there? Are they exact SAME in Canadian dollars as stuff advertised on the website? Or do they JACK rates up to make up for the U.S. dollar???

thanks

The Michael Meyers I think was $299 CDN, so a little more expensive (but not that much) than in the US.

But I don't think your going to have any luck getting a store in Ontario to ship you one. Reason I'm saying that is because most of them are selling out to fast.

The Burlington Store only got *SIX* Michael Meyers props, and they all sold out earlier this week. The Store owner says the same thing happened last year with the Jason Prop. Spirit never seems to ship their store owners enough (at least in Ontario) of the big marquee type props and they usually get sold out well before Halloween.

Last time I checked there were still a couple Michael Meyers left at some of the other Ontario stores. But with the store owners being confidant that they're easily going to be sold out well before Halloween, why would they go to the extra effort to ship one? They just don't have enough stock, and Spirit doesn't seem to be willing to ship them more when they run out.

I'm not sure if Spirit Corporate is just really that incompetent in customer/retail fulfillment or if this is some type of savvy marketing technique. I.e. make a 'shortage' of props so people rush in to buy them.

Hey, Check out the Spirit Store locator on the website. There is a store in Burnaby, BC.

thank you guys for all the information!
Didn't realize there was a spirit in BC. STILL about 8 hours from me but I do have contacts living near by.

rickdilorenzo: that is strange that they would NOT stock these to the ceiling! When I went to all 3 Washington stores last year, about 1 week prior to Halloween they all had plenty of Jason in stock. In fact he was STILL there come November 1st (Spirit half price day)

Im willing to bet that the U.S. stores will get first priority over the NEWLY launched Canadian stores

where did you find the address? I just did a search on their store locater and there seems to be a bug and its tied to the search for products on their site.

Originally Posted by sugar ray

Im willing to bet that the U.S. stores will get first priority over the NEWLY launched Canadian stores

Or maybe until they determine the kind of demand for this type of halloween decoration in Canada they will be cautious not to have overstock. I am correct am I not that Halloween is a much bigger deal here in the States than up north? If Spirit knew they could sell them out before Halloween I'm sure they'd rather have the $$s. I'm also sure they don't want to get stuck with unsold inventory. There's also the possibility that when they ordered them from Gemmy they only ordered a certain quantity and not knowing what stores would open up they have limited stock to divide among locations. Long time, best selling places would naturally get first dibs at quantities. Just like in the car dealership business.

I might be wrong but I was always under the impression that the individual locations were kind of like franchises. Where the proprietor would be responsible for his own inventory possibly. Spirit would do the advertising and lend their name and probably supply the store props. If this model is true it would depend on how deep of pockets the proprietor had and therefore what quantity of inventory he could purchase and what kind of financial risk it would be.

I think this all comes down to business in a bad economy and nothing else.

Originally Posted by Ghost of Spookie

Or maybe until they determine the kind of demand for this type of halloween decoration in Canada they will be cautious not to have overstock. I am correct am I not that Halloween is a much bigger deal here in the States than up north? If Spirit knew they could sell them out before Halloween I'm sure they'd rather have the $. I'm also sure they don't want to get stuck with unsold inventory. There's also the possibility that when they ordered them from Gemmy they only ordered a certain quantity and not knowing what stores would open up they have limited stock to divide among locations. Long time, best selling places would naturally get first dibs at quantities. Just like in the car dealership business.

I might be wrong but I was always under the impression that the individual locations were kind of like franchises. Where the proprietor would be responsible for his own inventory possibly. Spirit would do the advertising and lend their name and probably supply the store props. If this model is true it would depend on how deep of pockets the proprietor had and therefore what quantity of inventory he could purchase and what kind of financial risk it would be.

I think this all comes down to business in a bad economy and nothing else.

I spoke to some of the store managers here in Ontario. The Franchises/proprietors have no say on what they get in their inventory. They simply get what Spirit sends them, they can't pick and choose or select inventory levels of certain props. That was a common complaint from a couple of the store owners. That there are certain inventory items they want, or want more of, but it's basicaly what-you-get-is-what-you-get. They usually don't know what they're going to receive until they start unloading the trucks. I don't know if the situation is different for the american based Spirit stores.

Also I don't think Halloween is a bigger deal in the USA than it is in Canada. It's a fairly big deal here, always has been. Holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc... They are fairly similar between Canada and USA in size and participation. Granted you americans have Thanksgiving in November for some weird reason ;-)