I survived the grand opening Biway

[samurainoir]

Given the fact that it's one year later, and we haven't heard anything probably means Consumers Distributing hasn't come back yet.

http://o.canada.com/business/consumers-distributing-hopes-to-revive-its-catalogue-shopping-for-next-christmas/

[Brown Bear]

My Mom worked many years at Consumers Distributing when I was a kid. Loved that place.

[ubermanx]

We had a Woolco and Woolworth here in Peterborough. The Woolco store became our first Walmart and the downtown Woolworth became discount Zellers ( Zellers Express I think).

- Marty

[palitoy]

I was practically raised in a regular Woolco store but I don't remember a Woolco catalog store.

[MysteryWho]

Hey, I had that "Tek Force" Robo Space ship! It was fun and had a lot of extras/play value.
I also recall enduring the taunts when a brand new winter coat I got at Bi-Way lost its
hood after being grabbed once. I tried to explain that it was designed that way, in case
a bear got hold of me it would rip off, but I don't think the kids bought it.
That was the one good thing about Catholic High School. Uniforms. The great equalizer.

[MysteryWho]

Here's a very thorough review of the Tek Force Robo Ship.

http://www.jomitoys.com/2012_08_01_archive.html

[megocanada]

I remember a Towers when I was about 8 in Scarborough and it had lots of Megos but I was just interested in DC heroes at the time (lots of Iron Man Thor Conan and FF's) and then in the 80's at Biway in Brampton I used to but the LJN WWF wrestlers.

[samurainoir]

Here's a very thorough review of the Tek Force Robo Ship.
http://www.jomitoys.com/2012_08_01_archive.html

Boy do I love the idea of Generic vehicle playsets for 3 3/4" figures. someone should be doing that these days with the resurgence of 3 3/4" scale. Although I guess the generic Toys R Us brands do that somewhat. My brother's been using them for his Gi Joe RAH.

[EmergencyIan]

I was practically raised in a regular Woolco store but I don't remember a Woolco catalog store.

Woolco's Toy department was pretty good. I got a lot of those 3 3/4 inch Empire Western figures and playsets there. The Woolco's in Evansville, Indiana later became Hill's department stores.

From the 1930s to 2002, they had a "catalog" showroom/store here in the U.S. called Service Merchandise. You could go in the and order items from the catalog and pick them up right there. They had a wide variety of items including lots of toys. I'm not sure if this was always true of this store, but at least by one point in time, not only could you go in and order items that you saw in their catalog, you could just shop in the store. I remember going through the toy isles there. However, with other types of items, I'm sure many were display only and that many others were not displayed at all. I remember a lot of Casio keyboards and Harmony electric guitars there, as well. Now, they are exclusively an online retailer...a very watered down version of their former self.

- Ian

[cjefferys]

Oh yeah, I remember Service Merchandise, I went to the one in Buffalo sometimes. That place was similar to Consumers Distributing up here, at least in the catalog ordering aspect. It had more of a showroom than Consumers though.

[samurainoir]

okay... this sounds about right to me for pricing at Consumers distributing. My boba feet did come in a set, and I was disappointed... not rocket firing.