Why did Target fail in Canada?

Target to close 133 Canadian stores after only two years in business. There has been much hand wringing and analysis around why Target failed. Was it that they opened with empty shelves and turned people off? Was it that prices here were higher than American Target stores? Was is that Canadians are more willing to shop at multiple locations than Americans and, thus, the Target shopping model is less attractive to us?
 

Um… nope.

Target failed in Canada because it was Zellers with cleaner floors. And Zellers was failing because it was crappy Walmart.

I almost never went to Zellers. When I did I found it to be a small, lousy version of Walmart. Not as much stuff, not as well organized, and not as cheap. Then Target takes over. OK, good. Now I will be in for something. So I want to Target and I discovered that it was a small, lousy version of Walmart. Better than Zellers – at least it was well organized and clean – but still basically crappy Walmart. Target even boasts the same colour scheme as Zellers – red. I can barely distinguish one from another and that’s no surprise because they were literally the same physical stores. 

I used to have a cottage in rural Saskatchewan. Zellers reminds me of the stores one finds in smaller, rural centres. The department store in Carlyle, SK is The Bargain Shop (or, Bargain Bargain Bargain as I used to call it). Too small to support an actual department store, Carlyle has The Bargain Shop. Sort of Winners and Home Sense rolled into a quonset hut of miscellany. A bit like I imagine stores in communist Russia – there will be some stuff for sale but you don’t really know what stuff until you attend in person. Hats. Mostly hats will be for sale. Definitely not the thing you actually want to buy.

Target failed because it was Zellers with cleaner floors and tidier shelves and we had already collectively given up on Zellers.