I hope no one minds this being in the PCMO forum. After all, it's not about rebates, sales, and promotions; in fact, it's about the opposite - no rebates, gouging, and promotions that are maladjusted enough to be almost fraudulent.
I finally got to check out the recently opened Target store. I haven't seen any other threads talking about their oil. I had high hopes at the outset since they promised to have American prices. Then they backed up on that and promised to be competitive. I began to lose faith.
Well, they're not going to be putting any fear into Canadian Tire, let alone Walmart up here. To be blunt, the Target store had less variety and fewer bottles of oil than I have in my own stash, and I have far from a large stash. All that was available was Mobil Super 1000 (conventional), Mobil Super 2000 (HM), and vanilla M1. The grades were essentially 5w-20 and 5w-30. One would be hard pressed to do an oil change without mixing grades or mixing product lines. All oil was in 1 L bottles, and we know what that does for pricing. There are no other brands. There are no filters. The pricing was at least 15% higher than WM on conventional, less so on synthetic. In all, there were two shelves of oil less than four feet wide. And the bottles were no more than three deep, so you can picture how slim the pickings are.
Walmart Canada has completely jumped the shark with oil sales. Yesterday's ad stated VWB for $12.88 for 4.73 L jugs. That's decent, but not their best price ever. There was one jug of 5w-20 left in the entire store today. Their taking lessons from Canadian Tire's fantastic policy of empty shelf sales. What is this, Boxing Day? Did the store order four jugs of each grade?
On a brighter note, there was an unadvertised special of Mobil 1 4 L (not the usual 4.4 L size) jugs at $24.88. That's fairly decent by Walmart or Canadian Tire standards, and the average Canadian would think it's a great price, when the normal jug is in the $50 range.
Keep in mind, though, that the Imperial Oil distributor sells Mobil Delvac 1 in the exact same size for the same price every day of the week, without a special. I suppose it's pretty easy to have a nearly 50% off sale when your normal price includes a markup well in excess of 100%.
Is there any wonder why PU disappeared from Walmart a few weeks after its introduction, and Canadian Tire won't stock it at all? Is anyone surprised that WM tends to not carry M1 EP, or that they're trying to clear Castrol Edge with Titanium off the shelves (and yes, it's Castrol Edge with Titanium, since with a clearance price of $13.99 per litre, we still have SM/GF-4 on the shelves).
And that's why we can't have nice things in Canada.
I finally got to check out the recently opened Target store. I haven't seen any other threads talking about their oil. I had high hopes at the outset since they promised to have American prices. Then they backed up on that and promised to be competitive. I began to lose faith.
Well, they're not going to be putting any fear into Canadian Tire, let alone Walmart up here. To be blunt, the Target store had less variety and fewer bottles of oil than I have in my own stash, and I have far from a large stash. All that was available was Mobil Super 1000 (conventional), Mobil Super 2000 (HM), and vanilla M1. The grades were essentially 5w-20 and 5w-30. One would be hard pressed to do an oil change without mixing grades or mixing product lines. All oil was in 1 L bottles, and we know what that does for pricing. There are no other brands. There are no filters. The pricing was at least 15% higher than WM on conventional, less so on synthetic. In all, there were two shelves of oil less than four feet wide. And the bottles were no more than three deep, so you can picture how slim the pickings are.
Walmart Canada has completely jumped the shark with oil sales. Yesterday's ad stated VWB for $12.88 for 4.73 L jugs. That's decent, but not their best price ever. There was one jug of 5w-20 left in the entire store today. Their taking lessons from Canadian Tire's fantastic policy of empty shelf sales. What is this, Boxing Day? Did the store order four jugs of each grade?
On a brighter note, there was an unadvertised special of Mobil 1 4 L (not the usual 4.4 L size) jugs at $24.88. That's fairly decent by Walmart or Canadian Tire standards, and the average Canadian would think it's a great price, when the normal jug is in the $50 range.
Keep in mind, though, that the Imperial Oil distributor sells Mobil Delvac 1 in the exact same size for the same price every day of the week, without a special. I suppose it's pretty easy to have a nearly 50% off sale when your normal price includes a markup well in excess of 100%.
Is there any wonder why PU disappeared from Walmart a few weeks after its introduction, and Canadian Tire won't stock it at all? Is anyone surprised that WM tends to not carry M1 EP, or that they're trying to clear Castrol Edge with Titanium off the shelves (and yes, it's Castrol Edge with Titanium, since with a clearance price of $13.99 per litre, we still have SM/GF-4 on the shelves).
And that's why we can't have nice things in Canada.
