With depanneurs boarding up shop across the province, Quebec convenience store managers are now working Herculean shifts just to put bread on the table.
Raymond Guillep, the Montreal Regional Business Director of the Association des Marchands, Depanneurs et Epiciers du Quebec (AMDEQ) reported the number of depanneurs in the province has halved in the past 20 years. According to Guillep, the decline is due to late opening hours of supermarkets, illegal tobacco sales, and the price of beer.
The first wave of closures occurred after the provincial government passed a law in 1992 permitting supermarkets to remain open late during the week and on weekends. Depanneurs felt the pressure of increased competition.
According to Guillep, black market tobacco sales began to surface in the same year, and have strengthened in recent years. Depanneurs have struggled to compete with the low prices of contraband tobacco due to high federal taxes on cigarettes. Convenience stores across Canada have also had problems with tobacco sales.
Many people have banded together to urge the federal government to lower its tobacco taxes.
Beer sales have been another source of discomfort for depanneur owners. For smaller depanneurs, beer sales can comprise up to eight per cent of their income. But these sales have also declined recently due to competition from supermarkets such as Metro and IGA. Supermarkets are pricing their beer at $21 to $22 per case-more than seven dollars less than what most depanneurs are able to charge.
Due to these developments, managers of local depanneurs have experienced lower sales, and the ones still standing are only able to earn a fraction of their previous earnings. Qi Huang, the owner of Depanneur Frais on Rouen Street in the east end, noted that his customers are spending about half as much as they used to.
"We just accept what we're facing-we can't change anything, so we have to accept that this is how the competition is in this market," Huang said. "Tobacco companies will tell you that your value is not as big as the supermarkets, and you don't have any choice but to cut your profits."
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