Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Consumers Distributing #realtalk: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1814

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

In this 1814th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike dives deep into the history of Consumers Distributing with insider reports from Lorraine Somerfeld. We cover the store's history, reveal secrets, discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly, and explain why Consumers went the way of the dodo in 1996. And yes Virginia, we talk about that personal massager. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, RetroFestive.ca and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

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Visit palmapasta.com for more. Nick Iienes, he's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Building Success, two podcasts you ought to listen to. Recyclemyelectronics.ca.comitting to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, joining me to dive deep into the catalog wonder that was Consumers Distributing, it's Lorraine Somerfeld.

Hello, Lorraine. How you doing? Good. Where do we find you today, Lorraine? I am in Burlington. You know, it's funny that we're recording this on the 45th anniversary of Rob Pruse's debut with the Spoons. They played the edge here in Toronto 45 years ago today. They also played at my local library across the... the street and I saw them when I was in high school.

Was that pre-Rob? Because Rob, like, he's not the original keyboardist. He comes in, but he's there for the heyday. But I wonder which keyboardist you saw at the library. You'll never remember. It was probably 19. It was probably 1977 or 78. Well, that's pre-Pruse, as we said.

And it's on Blue Sky. We're going to go to Blue Sky because that's how we meet. But I posted today 45. years ago, Rob Pruse made his Spoon's debut, and nothing else of significance happened on this day in history. And I posted that today, and somebody bless his heart, and I know him as Wardo, he goes by Andrew Ward. He replied to me on Blue Sky, you can see it right now, and he said, what about the murder

of John Lennon? And I was thinking to myself, Andrew, that's the joke. so Lorraine we'll explain why you're here and then you're going to regale us with stories but I mentioned blue sky so this connection here this episode it all began on blue sky

because I what do you say when you post on blue sky do you say you skeeted what do you say Lorraine I don't know I don't do it as much as when I used to be on that other dark site so I think I just call it a post I kind of want to just call it a tweet. Yeah, yeah, we got kind of, we got massaged into that really, really hard.

Look, save that. We're going to talk about personal massagers later in this conversation. Oh, we are. Yeah, absolutely. I got some notes and we're going to hear from you and discuss that. We might have to give that 90 minutes. But I skeeted or I posted, I tweeted, you know, I don't care about copyright. This isn't my problem.

So I posted, I tweeted on Blue Sky, quote, chatting with a group of FOTMs discussing consumers distributing the brand Yorks YORX was so bad it made Sanyo seem like Sony because I was thinking about these brands you would because we'll get to this we're going to do the history then find out who you are and then we're going to get into all of this

but these brands are like tattooed in my brain Yorks Sanyo there were so many I guess citizens Citizen was a big one, yeah. Yeah. Was Candle a brand? Oh, heck yeah. Yep.

How many can you name off the top that were like the off brands or whatever that would be sold at consumers that weren't the big brands like Sony? Candle was huge because it was really cheap and everyone had to have a clock radio. And people still have candle clock radios going because actually it's turned out kind of funnily enough that a lot of that crap is better than the stuff that they're making today and it's still going. Like an off brand from the late 70s, early 80s was better made than some of the brand stuff that you're buying in 2025. It's absolutely true. And we watched, I remember Black and Decker got bought out, but we didn't know that. And all of a sudden it got really lousy.

And Braun, Braun with three-year warranties, German made, stop being German made, nobody told us of... Oh, Braun, I remember, absolutely. I love hearing these brands. So you're going to sprinkle a lot of this nostalgia. But before we talk about the, you know, what is, because not everybody listening knows what the heck we're talking about. Like, what is consumers distributing? And then talk a little bit about the history before we get into it.

Who the heck are you, Lorraine? I just met you on Blue Sky and now you're an FOTM. Who are you? I'm actually a writer right now. This is what I do with my grown-up life. I write the mother-load column for the Hamilton Spectator. I'm an automotive journalist for Driving.C.A., and I've been doing that over 20 years. But in my heyday, starting in 1979, I began an almost 10-year career with consumers distributing.

And anybody over a certain age, when you say consumers distributing, they lose their minds. They lose their minds. And I'm here for it. It's awesome. Well, you're literally here for it because that's a pretty, that's a good run to work at consumers. So we'll get into the nuts and bolts of like where you were. But you're writing for, what is it in, driving.ca? Yeah, I'm an autojournalist.

And I also, I've been writing a mother load column, which is about my kids and my cats, which they've obviously all grown up or left home. Well, it's not obvious to me. You'd be surprised at how many obvious, it wouldn't be obvious to Andrew Ward, who thought I didn't realize 45 years ago today, John Lennon was murdered. But, okay, there's a name I want to drop on you before we get into the history of consumers distributing. Also, periodically, I think I'll just play an ad for consumers distributing. So it'll just be 30 seconds, and I'll just do it when I hear a pause in the action here. But here's a name. This gentleman showed up at a TMLX event as a guest of Perry Lefco. His name was, because he's sadly no longer with us, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. His name was Norris McDonald.

I love Norris. Norris was the most wonderful man. And he was a really big part of getting my career going and kind, gentle, smart, funny, and the stories. He's the guy you wanted to sit beside on the plane as you headed over to Austria or somewhere. You weren't trapped with him. He knew everyone and everything. Great racing, autojournalist, lovely, lovely man. So sadly, we lost him in November 2023, but I want to, you know, Perry Lefco, who was at the most recent TMLX event at Palmer's Kitchen, have you ever been to a Palma Post?

in Mississauga or Oakville? I have not. I'm not a huge restaurant person. Well, it's more like it, I don't even think of it. You can eat at Palma's Kitchen, but it's more of like a retail store. Like you'd pick up some frozen goods or some hot food to eat later.

Like, it's more of like a... I have a step kid who loves Palma pasta. That's all I hear about. You know, we're zooming this because you're in Burlington, but had we been in person, your step kid would be eating lasagna for days because I give out that. So thank you, Palmer Pasta. Thank you, Great Lakes Brewery. And much love to Norris McDonald, the late Great. I knew when you said you were writing about automobot, about cars, et cetera, autos that you would know and love Norris McDonald.

I was a star for several years, so I was working with him. And the thing is, when you're not a journalist, when you're at the same outlet with somebody, you don't go on trips together because only one person goes from that outlet. So it's better when I went to the Globe and Mail that I went to post media. Then I got. to see Norris Moore. Lovely man, and I'm glad I had an opportunity to meet him. Lovely man. Now, you said you right now, have you ever written about consumers distributing? Yeah, the mother-low column I write for The Spectator in Hamilton is very much slice-of-life stuff. And whenever I drop in a reference to consumers, my mail lights up like a Christmas tree. It is the thing that binds us all together if you're over about 45 or so, I'm going to say.

But the catalogs, and I used to deliver them, I used to unload the trucks. We used to do everything. The stores had very, very few employees in them out here in the hinterland. But everyone worked at consumers. It was everyone's first job at Christmas. There was eight stores in Hamilton region, I think, and there was two in Burlington. So everyone has a consumer. So we're going to very succinctly and quickly, we're going to address the history of the store and what it was.

Because I know I tease that catalog. And we get, like, what the heck was consumers? For those who don't know, and then we get all, Lorraine, all of your consumers distributing real talk, like good, bad, and ugly, and then I'll be here to react and I'll have some, you know, follow-up questions. But I, and again, if you want to handle this, I don't even know if you've done any prep, did you want to handle the history or do you want me to just walk you through it? It's pretty simple. I mean, the guy that started like door-to-door, stuff, I believe. Yeah, Jack Stup. Yeah, who did a lot of bad things later with that.

the idea. But you can address the history part. Sure. Okay. So a couple of gentlemen are credited with opening the very first consumers distributing, which opened here in Toronto in 1957. And you mentioned Jack Stupp, and we're going to talk about him. And sometimes I want to say stoop, but I think it's Stup. And a gentleman named Sidney Druckman. So Jack and Sydney, they opened the store in 57. So they own this thing. It's privately owned. In 1969, they take consumers distributing public. The owner for several years was a company I worked for for about five years. Oshua Group, which is like you might know Oshua Foods.

They owned Food City when I worked at it at Galleria Mall. My paycheck would come from Oscewa Group. So they owned it, I guess, from 69 to 78. And then Oscewa Group, they sell the company. And I understand it was picked up in, by, well, actually, Osher Group holds on, I guess they own this company

until 87, and then this might only address like who sends you your paychecks, but we'll get into your account in a moment, but Provego, I hope I said that right, they own it from 87 to 93,

and then a place named Ackermans and Van Herron, they pick it up until consumers distributing goes bankrupt and shuts down in 1996. So I was going to ask you before we get your story,

and part of your story, story as we talk will be you mentioned some some ugly stuff happening with jack stup uh you know he and this will coincide for when you join consumers distributing and we're going to talk about this but we're going to talk about jack being arrested for insider trading of consumers distributing shares so this all happened in the aftermath from that but i was going to ask you and you kind of did it off the top but how old do you have to be to remember consumers distributing you said 45 i i think That's, yeah, definitely the 50-plus crew, but absolutely the memories, if you were the little brother or sister. So I'll scoop in the 45-plus, I think, in there.

But some will be surprised to know it survived until 1996. Yeah, we watched it Peter out, but they pushed really hard into the U.S., and that didn't work, and then they tried to come back, and just retail changed. And then, of course, Amazon came in. And basically, you could go to Sears or Eatans and walk through. these massive places and buy stuff or consumers you walk in and there's no bells no whistles nothing you walk up to the counter and they run in the back and get it for you so they could really cut the prices down well less we uh we don't to you know ignore this giant gorilla in the room no one is walmart but walmart shows up so between zellers and walmart consumers couldn't

compete yeah because their thing was always they were cheaper because they had less um help you know and they didn't have to have great big fancy showrooms, but you're right, Walmart walked in and just ran over everybody, including Zellers. Yeah, it's interesting that, like, just thinking that Walmart became so successful in this country, and today, Walmart will do big business in this country, but, you know, Target came in,

and I don't know how long they lasted, but it was a cluster fuck from the get-go, and they were out of here before you knew it. There's a really fabulous story about how Target screwed up, and I'm not sure which magazine did the big story on it. Yeah, Canadian business or something.

I know what you're referring to. You're referring to the point of sale system. Well, just they misread the Canadian market so thoroughly that they shot themselves in the foot. They came in going, we're going to do this like Americans. And no, it didn't, they were here. You looked at your watch. That's right.

You looked at your watch. That's a long target lasted here. And I think they took over most of the Zellers locations. I only know one, like one place that was per. purposefully built for Target. It's in the stockyards. So it's very close to St. Clair and Keel. And now it's, oh God, it's a going concern now.

I can't remember what's in there. There's some big, you know, place where you buy food and you can eat there. It's doing really well. But that's the only, like, we built this to be a target. Everything else was a Zeller's, like from Cloverdale Mall to, you name it. But it didn't last long. So we're going to hear you tell us. exactly what was consumers distributing before we get you there and then get the stories.

But I do have an important message from consumers distributing. Getting ready for the season. And sharing is the reason. Getting ready for the season and consumers book is right. Mattel knows what little girls dream of, like posable perfume, pretty Barbie, with her own fragrance, just 1688. Her locks are long, curly, and lovely. It's Lady Lovely locks and friends.

only 1199, and pretty little Miss makeup with her magic applicator just 2288 each. Because consumers book is right for the season. Bored again, interested in a new way to meet people, just pick up a phone and dial. I just wanted to keep that in there because those party line ads were everywhere. I wanted to keep a little bit of that 19.7. But there's a, like I said, I'm going to just play these things. but what was consumers distributing? In case there's somebody listening,

I know Leslie's listening, she grew up in Montreal, she says they didn't have consumers distributing there, but what was consumers distributing? If you picture a store, a Sears or an Eaton's or a bay or whatever, massive floor space given over to displays and people walking around helping you,

well, enter the strip mall. As long as you had a front bay, like with windows, and then a huge warehouse. So the idea was all the, all the stash is warehoused. It's not displayed out front. So you walk in and the famous counters with the little stubby pencils and the order sheets and catalogs that we had to put those plastic sheets on every single page and they're anchored to these counters. So you stand there and you flip through and you write down your catalog number and then you go up to the front

and there's someone like me standing there and we take your little piece of paper and usually we tell you we have it and then half an hour later we tell you we don't. But we flip through a book that tells us whether we have it in stock or not, then we go and get it and give it to you. So instead of you seeing a big pile of candle, you know, stereos and you pick one, we bring you the one. Here's your one. So like a good comparison for somebody would be, I feel like that roller ramp or whatever

is like the beer store. Very, very close to that, absolutely. Or the auto section at Canadian Tires where you go to the counter and then they go in the back and get the piece for you. So it's more like that. it cut down cost hugely. You can imagine not having to, you know, have all this display stuff maintained. And then the warehouses where they, that was a crazy land. That was no man's land. It was crazy back there. But no, the whole idea was you don't get people explaining how to work it.

You don't get to try it out. If you tell us you want to open it, we give you this look of death and go, okay, if you have to open it, you know, that's fine. And you have a lot of high schoolers, a lot of high schoolers running that counter. okay okay so we're going to get the dirt here my personal memory is that you'd have the catalog delivered to your home the consumer's distributing catalog and you would go through it and you kind of circle things you wanted or whatever and then I don't know if it was your birthday or maybe your grandma would get you something within this budget for Christmas and whatever you'd make the trek to the yeah to the consumers distributing and you'd go in and then

you know those little pencils remind me of IKEA sort of these like mini pencil things and you'd fill in this form and then if you were lucky and we'll get to this because there's a common joke whenever you say consumers distributing somebody will say

out of stock is what they'll say and we'll get the real dirt from you in a moment but like you would basically hope they had it and it would come out on that roller like you just ordered a 2-4 of Molson or whatever my store I worked in several stores

we didn't have rollers there's a back counter where we'd stack the stuff up and you'd pull it out But you can see your things sitting there. You're waiting, waiting, waiting. And then you come up and you realize someone else ordered it and it's not your turn. And, oh, it used to get a little punchy in there. Okay, so let me walk you through this.

So you mentioned there were two stores, two consumers distributing in Burlington. Yeah. So when you first show up, are you just a teenager? I guess there's a Christmas rush, so they hire up for Christmas. Tell me how you first ended up getting the job at consumers distributing in Burlington. everybody worked there all my friends would work there and i hadn't turned 16 yet so i lied and there's no way to check that back then and honestly at christmas if you could stand upright they would hire you they needed so much staff at christmas because that place was packed to the doors with the

parking lot overloaded it was crazy so if you walked in and said hi i'd like to apply for you're hired can you start now and you can imagine not everybody was super qualified some of them weren't even 16 yet. It's like, okay, but you got pressed into action immediately. And so that's why if I write about it here in the Hamilton area with that paper, everyone goes, my first job was at consumers because there were six or seven stores in Hamilton. They would hire anyone. You just came in, okay, go. They hire you. Okay, now I have a question. So my first job is exactly a decade after your first job, okay? And I know that I required, I had to go get a social insurance number. So, so in

1979, you could get a job at consumers distributing without even that or you would, or do you remember? I had, I had a social insurance number because my first job was at the library, but the library you only had to be 14. So I had an S-I-N. Okay.

But when I walked in there in the craze of Christmas, nobody cared. It's like put your, fill out the app, put your phone number on it and your name and you'd start today. And so we had a manager, bless his soul, he's passed, he was lovely. He wasn't big on details.

Do you remember what your rate was? What were you paid in 1979 to work the Christmas rush at the Burlington consumers? Probably around $4 an hour maybe. At the library, I'd gotten up to $2.45, two years before, or the year before. So probably around $350. That sounds pretty good for $79.

Like, I could be off here. I was pretty young, but I remember what I was paid in 1989. we were pretty impressed we were getting a whole $5 an hour. Yeah, I work $5 an hour on my university summer jobs in Toronto commuting $5 an hour, and that was in the 80s, early 80s. Maybe $3 an hour at consumers. Whatever minimum wages, they were famous for not paying well. But if you work there full-time, the benefits were awesome.

So did you ever work full-time at consumers? I did on and off. Mostly I was Christmas help. I'd come back. I'd be at school, and I'd come back, and I'd come back, And I could walk into a job. I had a walk on whenever I wanted the job. Because you were reliable.

I knew everything. I knew the place inside out. And I became head clerk. Do with that what you will. That's what we were called. So I was considered management. I could work 25 hours a week and it was considered full time. So I got benefits, which was great.

And then I'd quit and I'd work in the summer for a real full-time job for school. But I drifted it out in those 10 years. And there's a couple years pretty much. sustained full time. But again, they were fair back then. 25 hours a week, they go, okay, that's qualifying, you're in here steadily, regularly. That's benefits.

You know, that's a nugget from the past. Today, forget about it. Like, you know, everyone's part-time. Even if you're working 50 hours a week. Sorry, you're technically part-time, no benefits. Yeah, that's gross. It's really gross. And that's the only reason I stuck around.

Like I said, the pay was not good, but the benefits were good. And I worked hard. I was good. I was really good at what I did. Well, you worked hard for the money. Okay, on that note, so a quick commercial break, and we'll be right back. I want value for the money. It's right in the book.

Because I work hard for it, honey. It's right in the book. We get value for the money because consumers' book is right. You'll fund it all in the pages. Consumers branding pages. Because I work hard for the wages. Consumers' book is right. We get value for the money.

Value for the money. Well, that's a big song to license for your consumer's book is right in the book. Well, that's a big song to license for your consumers distributing ads, I'd say. I thought so, too, at the time. That's Donna Summer. That's Donna Summer. We didn't know all the insider trading was going on at the time because it was always churning.

They're always churning through people, but we'd see these splashy commercials. And those catalogs are not cheap to produce. Those glossy catalogs delivered everywhere, and we had to go and make sure you got your catalog. So you got it, and then one of us would knock on your door and say, did you get a catalog this week? So they were paying us man-hours to make sure you got that free catalog, and they weren't cheap. But it drove so many sales. That catalog was just opening up Fort Knox for that store. Okay, so.

Wow. So it sounds like things are going gangbusters when you're there, which at some point we'll have to address the fact this thing is, shout out to Ridley funeral home in the mid-90s here. So we still have you. So we have you starting at 79. What was the address of this Burlington? Do you remember where exactly was? Of course, you remember, but where exactly was it?

It's on February Street where the value village is now between jury lane and Gulfline on the south side. And the other one was in Appleby Mall. And I spent most of my time in Appleby Mall later on. And then actually out at six points in a Tobacco for a very memorable week after Christmas one year. Okay, I'm very familiar with six points. So what was memorable about it? Well, I was management and they wanted me to go in the week of Christmas and the week after because people were on holiday, I guess.

So they said, well, you go out. So I was going to be management in that store. And I'm like, okay, and I'm coming from Burlington where it's just waspy and everyone's like, you know, there's no fist fights or anything. I get told at six points, I go in and say, hey, everybody, I'm here. and I went to go pick an order I had it in my hand and I went to go with the warehouse to go get it for a customer

and I get met it's like a gang and they go you do not go in the warehouse we run the warehouse and basically it was the equivalent of a gang these dudes ran the warehouse and someone goes no no we don't go in the warehouse I go I'm the manager of this shop

I'm responsible for the warehouse as well as the front while I'm on I kind of got a little uppity about that stuff maybe but no you don't because what everyone at consumers used to do, this is why it went bankrupt, they would load the dumpsters up with stuff while they were on shift, and then their friends would come later and empty all the dumpsters, and everybody knew they were doing this, like everybody knew, and it was really bad, and I actually made an appointment, I think I was 21, I made an appointment with the head office

in Downsview, and I drove out and had an interview, like I wanted to have a meeting with somebody who was important at consumers distributing, and my manager's laughing at it. at me going, well, nobody cares. Trust me, nobody cares. They're like, no, I have some suggestions for how they can make this place better. I, oh, oh, just lovely, blessedly unaware that nobody cares, but I drive all the way out to Downsview and I take a meeting with someone's EA, I'm sure, I don't know, and they humored me, and I listed off all the things they could do to, you know, increase sales, drive

traffic, do this, cut down on theft, all the rest of it. I look back and go, who did I think I was? Well, you sound like a. Mr. Smith goes to Washington, okay? Remember? He was like, I don't know. He was like a Boy Scout and he had this idealized vision and everybody's laughing. Like you have no idea how greasy this is. This is the most corrupt anything. It sounds to me like these gangsters in the warehouse loading merchandise into dumpsters. So of course they would be, I don't know if snow was involved, that Darren O'Brien ever waltz into the six points consumers distributing. But, this corruption sounds like it's just happening in open sight and it doesn't sound like anyone cares and possibly this is a good time to just talk about our friend Jack Stupp for a minute.

Is that how you say it? Stup. I've never said it before until you called me. Why do I want to say Stoop? I know. I'm trying to make it all German on, but let's go Stup, okay. You know, what do I know? I don't ever said out of that either.

But okay, so Stubb was arrested for insider trading of consumers distributing shares in 1979. So this happened actually before you debuted that Christmas rush. And then somehow, even though he was arrested

for insider trading of those shares in 79, he continued to, he kept his job at consumers distributing as chairman and CEO, and he held that job until 1986.

And the reason he lost it in 1986 was he was fined $100,000 for stock manipulation and consumers itself was fined $125,000 for accounting irregularities and for hiding

$250,000 in payments made to Teamsters between 79 and 82. And basically that was an effort to buy labor peace. All of this very much against the law. But I'm not surprised when the head of your company

is so corrupt and he was convicted. So I think we could, I think Lauren Honnickman will let me say that without being allegedly. But no wonder this store had

no chance because it was essentially almost like a front. It was like a front. Yeah, go ahead. No, it kind of felt like that because this was happening at a lot of the stores. Like, this was common knowledge. We knew this. The employee theft was insane. And it felt like every few years

and again, I was in and out part time, full time, like back and forth. But every time they were trying to get going again and we get very earnest people, they'd handled, you know, they hired to be managers and assistant managers and training managers. And everyone's like, yes, this is my big break. And I'd watch it going, it's just re-upping all the nonsense. And no wonder no one cares if there's a dumpster full of car stereos out there because the head of this place

is going to jail and paying massive fines. So, and it's before automation. It was before computers, before cameras, it was before everything. And we all knew, everybody knew. We used to do inventory. I'd do it once a year, inventory, count every single thing. And I worked at one store. And the manager, there's an big empty TV box sitting on the shelf. And we all knew it. It was an empty TV box. It was marked out of stock. We didn't have it.

We only sold this one. He had given the TV to someone who went home because they were sick. And it was in their home for two years. But the box was on the shelf and we knew to count it as inventory. And it was like, okay, and we just did that. So we knew an empty box was supposed to mean it was on display out front. No, no, we knew this TV was in someone's house for two. years. Well, when you've got management pulling stuff like that and we're just going along

going, okay, oh yeah, that's in. Someone goes, but it's empty. Oh, no, count it is in. Well, I got to ask you this question. So you come in sort of like, like I said, Mr. Smith goes to Washington. You're like a girl guide or whatever and you have these, you're a bit naive, of course. But then you see what's happening around you and you realize that's the culture of this place, consumers distributing. Greasy A.F. Did any candle clock radio make its way to your home without proper payment? Oh, probably.

I need you to confess. I feel like there's a statute of limitations here. Oh, yeah. No, we would take stuff like that, definitely, especially if it'd been out on display for a while and it's dusty, it's like, eh, or, or, you know, run through something at the wrong price sometimes. I just visit, if I visit you,

like, I'll just surprise you at your door in Burlington and I walk in, everything is citizen. Like everything in your house is the brand name, or there's, except for that stereo, that high-fi stereo, that's Yorks. I'm trying to think if I've got anything that's still consumers. I probably do. I definitely at the cottage, but I bought it. You had to ring up each other's stuff. And I mean, it wasn't, we weren't that bad. The dumpster stuff, that was terrifying to me. Or the trucks would come in and we'd unload the trucks. And the trucks were short. Like, they wouldn't have all the, so it got stolen before the truck even got to the store. The stuff was. missing because we'd have a manifest of what we're supposed to have. And whenever people are wondering, how come you never had any stock, half of it never reached the store. You are an unbelievable whistleblower. We're basically, I feel like this is like 60 minutes here. I know people suspected things, but we

have an insider blowing the whistle here. In 1987, you're still working there in 87 when... I think so. I want to say it right, provigo. Let's call them provigo. Yes, it's provigo. Yeah, it's a Montreal change. Yeah, so there you go. That's a quote. Yeah, you mentioned a Montreal-based grocery retailer that buys consumers distributing. So they must, like, I wonder, like, they must have known what was going on or they didn't care. Like, that's a, that's new ownership.

You'd think they'd try to clean this stuff up in 87. But if that guy got busted for irregular bookkeeping, it tells you that here's the books for the company you're going to buy. And the books are some, I could have written them in the back. What they, there's. Yeah. Like so many organizations. Cook the books and don't get caught. This is something I've got insiders all over the place, Lorraine.

Holy smokes. But the fact that they were actually not only caught but convicted, I mean, he was fine. It must have been pretty overt. Yeah, like this is absolutely $250,000 here. Like not to mention the fact, you know if the Teamsters, this deal buying labor piece included the fact that, okay, your guys can run this warehouse and yeah, whatever disappears, whatever losses occur in these deals. dumpsters. We didn't see a thing. I think it had to be that, especially Hamilton or

Burlington. Like, I worked in different stores, or sorry, Toronto, especially. Yeah, it was, like, you didn't go back there. And I was really young and naive. I was probably 18 at the time when I'm there. It's like, whoa, this is, this is all new to my little naive face. I don't know what's going on. But, yeah, I mean, nothing, the stock stuff. Nothing correlated. If we weren't getting what we were supposed to, nobody did anything about it. It's like, well, I guess we don't have any. Okay.

And then when they started doing their pretend automation, they brought in computers. Oh, Lord. Every time you put something in, you're supposed to put in, if we didn't have it, you also enter that catalog number and then with zero. Well, it's like an unsubscribe button. It's not connected to anything. So we're putting in all this information, and it's absolutely useless. because it's not telling anyone that we don't have it. It's just, we're like little rats hitting a button and nothing's coming down the shoes.

So there's no centralized database that you're reading from? They told us there was, but there wasn't. So if you called me and said, do you have this in stock? And I said, no, do you know when you're going to get it in? Even if I had a printout saying, we're getting a truck on Monday, and I'm seeing that I'm supposed to get some of these. I know there's a really good chance we're not. And so we would say, there's a truck coming in.

You can call us later that day. And I felt bad because I had a small store there was just one other woman and I that would work and the manager being the back and we knew everybody. I got Christmas gifts. I got flower arrangements. I got like my customers were great. I had a little van. I would take their stuff over to the retirement home. The toys they bought, I'd deliver it after work on my way home.

So it was very beaver cleavery. And I seriously felt bad when we didn't have anything that we were advertising and I knew we weren't going to get it. And you lived through one cabbage patch Christmas in your. life and I think you're good. I think you're done. I was going to ask about those cabbage patch kids in just a moment here. But you're hitting the nail on the head here, which is, you know, today, if I bring up consumers distributing with somebody who remembers consumers distributing, the first thing they'll say, well, they'll say, oh, I love that place. I love the catalogs. I loved it. But what I wanted was always out of stock. So is that

something that's just sort of like over the years has become this like urban legend that keeps growing, that things were always out of stock? Or is this corrupt? Is this corrupt? you're describing the fact that this point of sales system or whatever this public warehousing software supposedly wasn't like plugged in or whatever and you had all this stuff leaving from the truck and you had the dumpsters filled with merchandise going to the black market no wonder things were out of stock well i think the bigger problem yes there was corruption and theft we all knew that i think the bigger problem was they got really popular they advertised aggressively they got dawn a summer for crape's sake so yeah no you can swear in the show you can you can I swear in the show. But I think they didn't really know how to order and anticipate what, like, every year, I mean, toys or else would have the same problem, but because they charge more, they could buy more stuff. But every year, whatever was on the cover of the magazine that came out twice a year, whatever patio set they put on the cover, we knew we're doomed.

We cannot keep enough of them in stock. People see it and want it. Yeah. They didn't know how to order. And then they had to spread it around between all their stores. who would, we would call eight other stores looking for you to try and find you this thing. They'd say, could you put it on hold? They'd tell us to we're not allowed to put it on hold.

I knew everyone at all the other stores. We'd put it on hold if we liked you. A victim of their own success, if you will. Probably. They couldn't scale. Well, on that note, here's a, we're going to talk about Cabbage Patch Kids, but there's another toy that I was very into in Christmas, 1983. Let's listen to this ad.

Right. Today's popular toys, convenient and value-priced. That's Consumers Distributing. Right now. Featured now at Consumers, the action and excitement of G.I. Joe from Hasbro. The G.I. Joe Headquarters Command Center. G.I. Joe Combat Jets Skystriker XP-14F. And G.I. Joe Moabat Motorized Battle Tank.

Feature-priced fun you'll find at Consumers Distributing right now. Consumers right now. Consumers right now. Okay, Lorraine, let's talk about these uber popular, you know, items of the season. And this will include Cabbage Patch Kids and G.I. Joe's. But what do you remember from your decade at Consumers Distributing? What were the crazy items everybody had to have? Optimus Prime was a big deal.

Yes. The remote control cars when they came on the market was new. Cobador 64, everyone had to have the first gaming system. Right. But the remote control cars, the batteries cost more than the toy. And people were always stunned when that happened. But cabbage patch was its own crazy thing. We had singing Kermit and Elmo, but cabbage patch dolls because every single one was different.

That was the whole marketing thing, was that no two dolls are alike. So someone would come in and if we happened to have some, which no one on the planet had them. I remember. They wanted to see them all. So we didn't even seal the boxes. We just left them all open because people wanted to see. And it got to the point where we would bring out, if we had them, three, they'd go, and they'd look at three and go, is there another one back there? It's like, you have to pick from these three.

It was really good training for when I had my children later. I didn't say, what do you want to wear? I said, do you want to wear the blue one or the red one? Because you cannot give people choice. You just can't. So it was good training ground for that. But the other problem is everyone we knew that work there, we also wanted them and our friends. And there was people offering us more money than the price of the dolls.

I did not partake in that. But I know some of my colleagues probably did. Oh, my God. So obviously, if everyone and their grandmother is trying to buy these cabbage patch kid dolls, because I remember that craze, okay? I remember. My wife still got a cabbage patch kid somewhere in storage. Like, she's still got it.

It's like, oh, yes, I remember here. Xavier was the guy, right? He would sign the adoption certificate or whatever. Okay, I'm remembering now. Although I never owned one myself. I was more of an optimist prime man, but we'll get to that. But like, if you know, 10 people who want it. I don't even

remember. Do you remember what the price of a cabbage patch kid doll was in the heyday at consumers distributing? What were we talking about? I believe 2999. So yeah. Okay. So 30 bucks. Who wouldn't pay? Like, who would not pay at that time, even in

$193 or whatever, $192? Who wouldn't pay $60 to get that toy that their kid wants so badly? So there won't be any for the general public because the staff many of whom we already discussed are a bit greasy, they're going to buy up what they can

and then resell it at twice the price. Or we'd have people come in and just buy as many as we would let them. And we knew it was right before Christmas. Like a scalper. Yeah, well, there's a show with the office when someone's buying the unicorn dolls and selling them.

It's got to be Rayne Wilson's character, I'm sure. But no, buying up popular toys, is scalping them. Yep, they do that. And so we had to say you could only buy. I won. But then we're looking, someone up and down, deciding if they're a scalper or not, which is probably someone's grandmother. I don't know. Yeah, and they're going to leave the store, put it in the trunk, and come back off a fake

mustache. Yeah. And we never had 30 or 40 dolls ever. We'd get a few at a time. Wow. Oh, you had to know somebody on the inside. You pretty much did. I got one for one of my nieces, and that was it. I wasn't playing. But I know, I know a manager at another store that his daughter. had like 10. I think it was ridiculous.

It was collecting every, you can't collect every one, but I mean, you can't tell me 10 of them on your bed is okay. That's, that's not cool. No,

you're hoarding these cabbage patch kid dolls. You've got to share that love. Okay, and how big was, because I, my personally, I was really into Transformers, as you can imagine,

a child born in the 70s, but coming of age in the 80s. I loved Transformers so much, watching the show, the movie that came out in the mid to late 80s, and collecting these damn toys. So you're telling me, Optimus Prime was the big seller

in the Transformers world. There was a big Christmas for Optimus Prime, I remember, and the G.I. Joe stuff. Right. But Optimus Prime was a big box. I remember that. I can see where it is in the warehouse still, because all we did was, you know,

but again, small stores, you might get six, and they're gone in 10 minutes. And I felt bad. Like, I knew. And we would, there's a magnet on the shelf. If you go and take the last one, put a magnet on a board. It eventually has to get out front so they can mark it that we don't have it anymore. But you can imagine during this crush at Christmas, the time it takes for someone

to make it to scratch out at the book when we're running on all cylinders could be an hour or two hours. So you might stand there waiting and waiting and waiting. We come out and go, sorry, we sold the last one while you were in line. Wow. Wow. And it wasn't a power trip. People thought we were power tripping. We weren't. You wish you had more stock. But I can't, you know, I'm shocked any cabbage patch kids got into the warehouse knowing what was going on of these dumpsters. Again, I only know my store. We didn't put, we weren't dumpster diving in my store.

No, you were six points was your big one. Not dumpster. That was very revealing to me. It's going, oh, there's a different power thing into your bigger staff. Well, that's Toronto for you. I know it was a Tobacco. They had their own mayor back then. But you were in the 416.

Hey, tell me about the creepy Teddy Ruckspin. Oh, oh, oh. And there's actually horror stories about this. This thing, it was a talking bear, only it would start talking. You're in the back of a warehouse that's kind of dark and crappy, especially in a low one. We don't have a lot of employees. All of a sudden, this bear would freaking talk to you off the shelf. He walked by and sometimes it made proper Terry Ruxpin sayings.

sometimes it said something like a possessed devil and you didn't know what it was going to do so there was some really creepy Oh, I like that I think you just called them Terry Ruxpin Unless I was mishearing. Oh, Teddy Ruxpies. That could have been his name But you know, I want to segue to

Sad Lonely Men on Christmas Eve showing up at your consumers distributing But first, an important message from 1984 Aren't you just crazy about fine jewelry? Don't diamonds make you shiver? Don't you love gold? I do. And it's all very affordable at consumers.

Save this week on the two-tone quartz analog from the new generation of quality watches from Remex. Also specially priced is the rugged Remix men's adventure pack quartz watch with extra cases and bands, date, compass, and water resistance to 100 feet. And for the ladies, save $10 on this dressy quartz analog. I love consumers' jewelry. Fine quality jewelry at down-to-earth prices. In 1989, consumers, when you want to put it on, Pick it out, pick it up.

At consumer's jewelry boutique. Pick it out, pick it up. Join the gold rush. Pick up imported 10-carat gold chain from Italy. Get superb quality, stunning prices. Dressor and individually nodded cultured pearls, trams of beauty from the jewelry boutique. Pick it out. Put it on.

Consumer's distributing. All right, tell me what it was like if you were working on Christmas. Christmas Eve at consumers distributing. It was gross. We'd close early and they'd bang on the doors. But no, it was always sad because dudes had come in. Always dudes. Always, sorry, I'm stereotyping, but it's true.

No, it's true. I got to get or something. And we had our jewelry boutique. And they pushed the jewelry hard because I heard we made at least 100% markup on it. And it was not great quality jewelry. But we had lots of it and they really pushed it. I think Canada's number one watch seller. several years in a row like we sold a lot of watches. Anyway, these sad guys come in and they go,

I got to get her something. And they're just looking around. And their eyes are darting. And so we'd always have someone dedicated to jewelry. And we go, let me take you over here. Let me help. And a lot of the young women that work there are high school girls. And we're like, hey, you know, what are you going to do? We would push them into the most expensive crap because they deserved that. If you haven't given a thought to this, because I have a thing for guys out there, if you want to by jewelry. Buy me something that you

had to get engraved. It's the only way I'm going to know you didn't buy it at consumers distributing last night. Wow. Wow.

Okay. Now, that's amazing. You're buying crap. You're overpaying for crap. But as I know, if you're a desperate man on Christmas Eve, you'll buy anything.

Yes. And so we would sell because we got, um, not bonuses, but we got credit. If we sold like of our jewelry sales, we're higher year over year and stuff,

we would get a party or a pizza party or our, you know, we get more hours for the store to give to employees. As a manager, you have to divide it all out by sales, how many hours you can shift people. And so if our jewelry sales were up, we would get more hours. So we are definitely going to steer you over to this, you know, tricolored, braided chain. Remember those people? Oh, my. Oh, my.

I do remember these, goodness gracious. Now, you know, I mentioned those little pencils kind of remind me of, what you get today at IKEA and of course when you buy something at IKEA you know you're going to have to build this damn thing yourself like this is part of the deal but like where they're like for example

you sold barbecues and wall units like these things don't come built right oh no in the flat pack that you know with genuine veneer the wall units that everybody have and they've probably still got them in their basement now to store stuff on them but the three section wall units

and when you wheel out the box their face would fall I'm going you're not at like we're not going to bring you up this thing and they'd have to make it and the problem is if it didn't go together right you had to unmake it and put it back in the box if you wanted to return something to us it had to be in the original box the original condition with your bill well by the oh it was a pain in the butt and technically if you bought a kettle and it didn't work a week later if you came in we would send you to here's black and decker's phone number to call them that's your warranty it's not with us the thing is is, if you're really nice to me, I'm just going to give you another kettle. I don't care. It goes back to the vendor. It's no problem. So if you came in and we're calm, and this still works today, if you're going to beat up, if you come in with a head of steam, ready to get mad, we do have power. People do have some power and discretion, and they'll choose when to use it. So if someone came in all mad at me, it's like, here's Black and Decker's number. Sorry about your

cattle. Anyone else? Yeah, I got to, we still care. If we still carry it, I can give you another one because it can go back to the vendor. I don't care. But you mentioned there's a, it was often just a couple of people on staff. It doesn't sound like you had a lot of bodies there, right? So somebody, I guess somebody at front and then somebody gets something from the, pick

something from the warehouse. Why do I remember the role, or maybe my location, which I think was on Dundas? It could have. Yeah. We had rollers in the warehouse, download the trucks. We definitely had rollers, but no. My store was small. Bigger stores had dedicated warehouse staff, obviously, to rip everything

off and dedicated front but we did both like we unloaded the trucks so we came out and sold it to you what would happen if someone came in and said i want to buy this full set of uh weights dumbbells that was the worst thing in the world we had home gyms full free weights and benches like we sold this and you see it in the catalog woohoo so they'd come in and i'd be on with a woman 10 years older than me and we'd just look at each other and so i'd make it's always a dude i'd make it come in the back and get it himself here's the trolley we had We had buggies. We had everything. It's here you go. I'm not wrecking myself over this set of weights. And so many people, we only sold a few a year, but it was a good price. But they'd come in. It's like, no. So I really hope it's a guy who's already been working out because that stuff's heavy. Really, really heavy. It's crazy. Okay. Yeah, go in the warehouse and pick it yourself, buddy, because we're not working this thing. Well, that's funny. That's funny. Now, I'm going to give some love, not just so consumers distributed.

We're having a great nest. I haven't even mentioned an item that I got more questions about than anything. It's coming. I'm teasing it. I'm holding it. Good broadcast. 407. 407-122.

That's the catalog number. Okay, well, wow. Okay. Hold that. Unbelievable. We're going to get to that in a moment. I do want to tell everyone that if I'm shopping for Christmas stuff, I can't go to consumers distributing.

I'm going to retro festive. Okay. And everyone listening can go to retrofestive. com. You don't have to worry about this out-of-stock thing because the Schwartz family, they got everything in stock in their Oakville store, and they'll take care of you this Christmas. So what are we on here?

December 8th. Oh, yeah, the 45th anniversary of Rob Proust's Spoon's debut. That's a very important day in history back in 1980. So go to retrofestive.ca, use that promo code, and visit Ty the Christmas guy and his lovely family at the Oakville location. I've already given love to Palma Pasta and Great Lakes beer and Ridley Funeral Home, but I want to give some love to Nick Aienis. going to be here Friday morning.

I was the Grand Marshal for the Etobico Lakeshore Santa Claus parade two days ago. And Nick Aienis is going to tell us the history of this parade, which includes his uncle who founded this parade. It's going to be wild. So that's Friday morning, but listen to his two podcasts, building Toronto Skyline and building success. And if you have an old candle clock radio or York's stereo, you know, or something, citizen watch or whatever you have. Did citizen make watches? I doubt it, right? Okay. Yeah, they did. They did. They made

everything. Just check your house there. Okay. But when it does eventually die, and it might die in its 100th year of life or something, you don't throw it in the garbage because those chemicals end up in our landfill. You go to Recyclemyelectronics. com, and you put in your

postal code and find out where you can drop it off to be properly recycled. I have a question about your sister, but first, and important ad from consumers distributing. Let the savings begin. The 1992 Consumers Distributing Spring and Summer Catalog has arrived, and smart consumers are

racing into shop consumers for thousands of brand name items at the lowest prices guarantee. For even more savings, watch for your early buy-friar arriving with a new consumer's guide to the lowest prices. Like this Sony Walkman, 6988, and Black and Decker Thermal Coffee Maker 5999. Consumers. Shop Consumers. The lowest price is guaranteed.

That ad mentions the Sony Walkman, which I had like attached to my body for, I don't know, for a long time. Like from the mid-80s until, I don't know, until I got an MP3 player, right? So I'm wondering, like, I know you sold the knockoffs, like the Sanjo portable cassette player in like maybe there was a citizen one as well. But were the Sony proper Sony Walkman's a hot item at consumers distributing? Absolutely. Because we would, the price would be less than Sears or somewhere down the fact we probably never had them in stock. I mean, that didn't pays anybody. So, you know, oh, no, we sold a lot of top shelf stuff without a doubt and it was gone all the time.

It was all the cheaper stuff, though, that was close enough that we, that's where they made their mark. And plus candle and yorks and all that was bought right out of China direct, you know, back in the day when they weren't really making great stuff. So stop or whatever his name is, he had a lot of pipelines. Yeah. He had the, yeah. He had the right stuff, as they say. Yeah, he had the Pacific Rim just, you know, bubbling away with. Yeah, because with Sony, of course, a Japanese company, but that's the good stuff.

That's a Walkman. That's a trademark. We all know this. So I tried to like sports Walkman or whatever. But if you have a $69 sports walkman at consumers distributing, it'll be out of stock. And then you got a kid who was like, oh, this was a birthday gift or a Christmas gift or whatever.

Like we were going to consumers to get the Sony. Well, sweetie, for $39.99, you can get the Sanio. It's the same thing. Sanio, Sony, close enough for me. Save a lot of money. And, yeah, I bet those Sony ones ended up in the dumpsters to be sold on the black market or whatever. and the Saniel ones would be there for the clientele.

Again, not all consumers, people, just some of the big ones. Six points. You know what? I feel like if this place shut down in the mid-90s, it's too late for me to get some, I don't know, a takedown order or a cease and desist or something. Because who, you know, I feel like there's a statute of limitations on this, but we'll find out.

But tell me, your sister worked at consumers too, right? Yeah, I got my little sister into the racket. and so she ran the Fairview store and I ran the Appleby store so we were in cahoots which was great for customers because we looked so much alike we'd just send somebody

they'd go what if I drive all the way out there and they don't have it for me and they don't have it for me and the other way and she will take care of you so we had a little syndicate and it was the opposite of loading up the dumpsters

and block marketing stuff it was helping people you're like Batman yeah oh we're great and with the Hamilton stores we had people we knew in there as well so if you could really help your customers. We made

them feel better about the store. But Summerfeld's kind of, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right, and we take pride in our work because that is a thing. So, yeah, we had our little syndicate of helping people. Or we would bring stuff back and forth ourselves. We'd pick

it up right to the store for them. No, that's beautiful. We need more Summerfelds in this world. And less of those gang members in the warehouse, making sure the Sony Walkman's never made it to the shelf. I just envision if I could go back in time and visit one of these warehouses. And again, I know you were just talking about this experience at six points.

They weren't all like this. But I feel like I get in the warehouse, it'll look like it's completely full of stuff and every box will be empty. Well, a lot of them, if it's on display out front, there's a sticker on it that says it's on display. And like I said, the TV was a one-off for us. That was kind of funny. But I know there's tricks. If the box is on the shelf, is it really missing? You know, and I think when there's not a lot of oversight and literally no cameras oversight, people were doing all kinds of things.

And again, half the stuff that on the manifest says it's coming in didn't. And they don't check that. There was no number I called and said, we're short, six cabbage patch dolls. There was no follow up if it didn't match the bill of leading, which, what? Like, how do you run a company that way? Well, it doesn't last. that's for sure now and it but you know and if for a while you're going gangbusters because in spite of all this corruption and this loss and all this you know consumers had a good run like it did

it did very well maybe it was you like that was a good decade for consumers no they did really they had a concept that people really liked which was I just walk I want to walk in and buy it and if you're someone like me I hate shopping I cannot stand walking into a department store and walking around, looking from the thing I want, makes me crazy. So it was a precursor to it showing up on your doorstep when you see a picture. This was the in-between. You're right. And consumers, it was handy.

Well, you know, essentially, this is what we do today. Well, many people, I actually try not to do this, but many people just in a web browser instead of a catalog, they're just clicking what they want and then they're paying and it's showing up at their door instead of on that, my, the rollers or whatever. But it was, you know, with better software and maybe less corruption, you know, maybe consumers distributing could have been Amazon. I think it was ahead of its time. I believe that. I actually believe that.

And the mismanagement and the lack of, you know, centralized computer stuff, which they didn't have. We didn't know. When they brought it in, it was crazy. But, no, the idea of people don't want to be hassled. You know, when I go to IKEA, I go in the exit. because I only buy candles there. So I just walk in the back and buy them and come out. I do not want to get trapped in the maze of trying to go through all this.

I hate it. I'm not a shopper. So consumers was perfect for people like me. We need a to a toaster and a kettle. We walk in. We go to the counter. We get them and leave. And you can still see your car through the window.

It was perfect. And a lot of us love that place. I know I did. I got some notes when I said I was doing a consumers distributing episode. So Will wrote in and just said, looking forward to it. In my recollection, everything was always out of stock. all of the time. Great catalog though. So Will might be

stretching something because I did definitely. I had desired items that were out of stock and it was very disheartening for me that oh, it's in the catalog but not in the store. I can't have this. But I think over time we've sort of decided everything was always out of stock all of the time and of course

that could not have been true. Well, no, but it was often enough that Will is right and that's too bad. And the fact they didn't have like a system where you could back order it. And so I know the staff in my store, we would keep sheets of paper with customers' names on it and we would call them when it came in because we were small enough that we could do that. Like we could help them. But it was frustrating. Also, you cared. Like,

the Summerfelds gave a shit. Like to me, it's like, you know what I mean? Like, that's an exception, I'd say everybody, now that I know this, I should have been going to Burlington to go to my consumers because it's a home. Oh, absolutely. Yes, to the Summerfeld Syndicate at consumers distributing. Yeah. If you did something, we'll find it for you. So you mentioned there were, what, six or seven shows in Hamilton? A six or seven consumers distributing stores in Hamilton? Yeah, they're all over the place. Because they're cheap to put up.

You just need a warehouse with a baby showroom on the front. So now they were all over the place. So Hamilton, Mike, writes in, he writes, there was a hard demarcation between the kids who made their Christmas wish lists from the consumers distributing catalog and those who used the Sears catalog. So is that right? So is it just, like I was a consumer. I never circled things in the Sears catalog.

I kind of liked the vibe of what was happening at consumers, but it sounds like there was one of the, one of the, one side or the other as a kid at Christmas time. Well, Michael, like this, there was times when people brought the Sears book to us and got all stroppy because we didn't have whatever they were pointing to. Then they have to go out and look at the name of store they're in. So, you know, they came out the same time of year, their same heft, same color. So, yeah, the Sears wish book and the consumer's distributing catalog. But no, people would come in with the other to the wrong store and get really, really spicy.

Jack says that's called getting stuppy is what Jack says. Okay, you like that one. Okay. So Len Lumber's writes in, he was my 1,000 guest. I don't know what number you are, but it's greater than 1,000. And I'm glad that we connected and we could have this nostalgic romp into the history of consumers distributing. I think of very much. But Len Lumber's, he sent me a picture of the catalog.

And there in the bottom left corner is a personal massager. And it was $2.99, which is a mind blow unto itself. And we're going to talk about this personal massager right after this important commercial. Hi, I'm here to talk about something new from consumers distributing. You already know they're experts at cutting their costs. Like I wear a bag and make half as much. That's how they give you the lowest price. And now, if you find a lower price, they promise to beat it by 5%.

The 5% promise on every single item they carry. Like this 10-speed blender, this automatic camera, or this cassette CD player. I hope. Consumers distributing. Their difference saves you money. Do you remember this price matching? That was from 1992. I remember it because 5% was a really stupid number.

So we used to just take out the stamp and on the farm. we'd put our staff discount on it, which was 10%, because it was easier to calculate. That's funny, because you're right, it's effortless to calculate 10%, but you've got to divide that by two if you want to get to five. So we were just, no, we're busy, so we'd pull out the, it was a couple stamp. But maybe that's why people were bringing in the Sears catalog. They're like, hey, you've got to beat this. Oh, yeah, I remember they brought it, but their prices were already pretty cheap. And actually, most people back then, they didn't really care about 5%.

And again, I didn't want to be, I couldn't be arse to calculate it. So I'd just slap on my staff discount. Well, that's wild. This insider info is amazing. So Hazardous writes in on Blue Sky. I remember being told by an employee at the time that they were not to hand a customer a personal massager in an upright position. The box needed to be laid flat on the counter. I don't remember.

What's a you? I don't remember being told that. But as I said, the catalog number, 407, 122, and it was $299. The batteries cost $4.99. And I actually remember the battery numbers as well. So does my sister. We sold more of those. Oh, hey now.

I'm sorry. Everyone said they were buying it for a bachelorette party. That's what everybody said they were buying it for. It was a bachelorette party. They weren't. And that's fine. And I don't care. The sickest thing in the world, get ready for this, when people tried to return them.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So it's like returning underwear. Yeah. It's worse than that. No, no, no. So, wait a minute, I'm confused, Lorraine. I'm a very naive, innocent person.

What do you mean? Personal massage, or that's for, like, your neck or whatever, right? Your back, maybe. Well, they always showed it a woman holding it up to her cheek. I've been on this planet over 60 years. I've never seen someone hold one of those against their cheek, but okay. And again, oh, it's just for a bachelor party, it's for a joke. Okay, but we had guys that worked in the back when it was busy, and they would fill the orders.

And what they used to do is if somebody had ordered one of these, remember those little pencils you've mentioned? You put the name at the top, and they would put a fake name, Smith. Somebody people named Smith bought personal massagers. Mr. Smith goes to consumers. Yeah. What the guys would do is they would erase the name. So you had to come out and go, who ordered?

And you had to hold it up and yell, who ordered the massager? This is wild. I think as a kid, you're kind of naive. Literally, you're naive to this. Like, no joke. As a kid, that personal massager is, like code so you don't just stick the word vibrator in your catalog. I honestly, I probably saw the personal massager in the catalog, and I probably saw a woman

holding it to her cheek, and I probably thought, oh, she's using that to massage her cheeks or something. Sheak, exactly. And I mean, that's fine. It's, you know, but erasing the name was pretty mean. And we also sold singing Kermit the Frogs. He had Velcro on his wrist, and it was in an open box. So he's sitting there singing, singing Kermit.

And the guys used to put the hands down between Kermit's legs, so his hands are jammed down. And air hockey tables were really big. And they would tie fishing string around the top of them. So you start to bring it out, and it would stop. And you couldn't get it through the door. It would stop because they tied it with fishing string that you couldn't see. So you're struggling the whole time. So these are the games that the kids that work there are all playing against each other.

But erasing the name on the vibrators was constant. So you had to go out there and yell, who ordered this, and wave it around. like an idiot. Do you want the batteries for that? That's hilarious. So $2.99 though. Even if you do the inflation calculator, that's a bargain. It's a, but again, the batteries.

Oh, it's like buying, yeah, you know what you're reminding me of like how they sell printers in 2025. It's like, uh, exactly. Here, the printer's free, but you don't want to know what that ink is going to cause to you here. Oh, gosh, that's, I love the stories about the personal massagers. A.k.a. Vibrators. Okay, take that jacked up. Okay. So, this sale, so we talked about ProVigo, who bought it from Oscewa Group, the Osceau Group. They bought it in 87, and they hold this thing until 1993. And then I say the word hold because it was sold to a Belgian holding company known as Ackermans and Van Herron. So they pick it up in 1993, but by 1996, consumers distribute, is shouting out Ridley Funeral Home,

they sought bankruptcy protection, and that was it. When do you leave consumers distributing? I think my last summer there was, or Christmas was probably 88, I'm going to say. Probably 88. It was my last. Well, I do honestly believe,

and again, I know it started back in the 1950s. It was started in 57. But I think the decade that you're at, at consumers distributing is the biggest boom decade for consumers. I think that's when... I think it was peak. It was crazy.

And there's a robbery at the one on Fairview. People came in with guns and robbed it. That never happened to Burlington before, ever. This is your chance. So before we say goodbye, you've got to drain the swamp here. I mean, already you've been amazing. And you've opened my eyes to everything here. We did talk earlier about some of the factors

that cause consumers to go down And it sounds like they had a terrible point of sales warehouse tracking system, 3PL or whatever, the public warehousing software. It sounds like it wasn't very good. It sounds like there was a lot of corruption at the very top. And it spread. So some locations probably had super thievery and bleeding out of items. You told us about six points.

I'm sure there's more examples than just six points, of course. And we got to, you know, shed out Zellers, where the lowest price is the law. And we got to talk about the arrival of Walmart, Canada, and consumers just could not compete. They tried to go upscale. They built an Oakville showroom, and it was, oh, so much noise. They're doing this fat. And everyone wanted to work at the Oakville News store. So they tried to go upscale, which goes against the stream of what consumers is.

It's supposed to be that you're getting a great price because there's not frills. And they tried to build this frilly store. Of course, in Oakville. Well, I'm sorry. It didn't work So they lost their way There was a lot of corruption From the top, as you mentioned

They were paying these fines It wasn't going well They had a reputation for never having anything in stock Even though they had the dishes you wanted I can guarantee it But they lost their way They lost the message They didn't know how to compete

As the retail world shifted and changed And it's too bad because when they were good They were good and they could have been on Like today it would probably work A version of this might work But they lost their way But it gave you a good decade, not just a good experience working and some money in your pockets, some great benefits, it sounds like, but also these stories will last you a lifetime. Oh, I can bond with people anywhere by just saying these words. It's hilarious.

Everybody knows it. Everyone work there. Everybody worked there for five minutes. All right. I'm going to drain my swamp because I have two more ads I want to play. Here's a voice you might remember from the Partridge family. Consumers Catalogues Showroom sell name brands at surprisingly low prices. I was amazed, and these low cataloged prices are in effect every day. Now you know why I'm so attached to consumers. And if you shop consumers this week, you can save even more with specials like Toastmasters' continuous clean toaster oven for only 3894. Or Saniel's compact microwave oven now only 159.86.

Even Hobart's famous KitchenAid food processor is sale priced at 16990. Consumers wrote the book on today's best way to shop and smartest way to save. All right, before I press play on this co-lab between consumers distributing and Miracle Food Mart, I got to say, I feel like that's dangerous to have a San Yo microwave. I don't think I would trust it to keep that radiation out of my body. I don't know if you have a San Yo microwave in that house there in Burlington. They were okay. No, I don't have one, but I have to think we have standards, like a commission of standards for Canada.

Well, they got the stamp, right, the CSA stamp or whatever. Okay, so one last ad before we say goodbye. When you shop Miracle Food Mart, there's a whole lot in it for you. Terrible recording, but I'm still going to listen. But now there's a little Christmas magic, too. Great gifts from consumers distributing. Miracle Food Mart offers you an opportunity to save $1 for every $10 purchased at consumers. When you check out of Miracle Food Mart, something wonderful will happen.

For every $10 you spend, you'll receive a Christmas dollar coupon, redeemable, at consumers distributing, but hurry, before this exciting offer closes. So I'm sure you only heard that in the left side. Okay, so there's no right side of that audio I pulled from YouTube. But that was some alliance between consumers distributing and Miracle Food Mart. I wasn't there for that, but I hate all those optimum programs and all those cards and zippy points at Zellers or whatever. Club Zed. I'm terrible.

that. Not a good shopper, not a good, here's my card for that. It's like, forget it. Here's my money. Let me go home. Not a good shopper, but a great podcast guest as we dive deep into the history of consumers distributing. I thoroughly enjoyed this, and I'm glad that you gave me over an hour of your time on this anniversary of Rob Proust's debut of this been. It's been very fun. Thanks, Mike. And that brings us to the end of our 1,000. 800. What number are we at? Lorraine? You would be keeping track of this. You're a good store manager.

I'll tell you what this is. 1,814. 1814. It was a great year. Trust me on that one. It was a great year. You can follow all of my adventures at Toronto Mike.com and much love to all who made this possible. That is retro festive, Great Lakes Brewery, Palmapasta. Nick Iieny's Recycle My Electronics.C.A. and Ridley Funeral Home. My next episode is going to be a tribute to Frank Gary. He is a legendary architect who passed away just a couple of days ago. And I'm going to speak with Jim Sheddon, a beloved FOTM, about his experience working with Frank Gary. So stay tuned for that.

See you all. Then. Subdivisions Subdivisions Thank you. You know, I'm going to be able to