Consumer Electronics & Appliance Store
The industry — Electronics and appliances retailers
Base industry report for 4492 →- Establishments · CanadaA
- 4,367
- Under 10 employeesA
- 78%
Of 4,367 Canadian establishments with employees, 78% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.
Entry signal — what decides who wins here
Execution decidesThe hurdles here are ones a better operator clears. That is not a promise of success — it is the absence of a structural reason you cannot win.
Find something that compounds. Entry is achievable and so is the first customer; what is missing is a reason the next entrant cannot repeat it as easily as you did.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
This is not a probability of success, and it is not a verdict on you. No survival probability is published per market, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What the bar reads is how much of the outcome sits inside an operator's control: green means the hurdles are ones a better operator clears, red means the binding constraint is capital, an asset or a permission rather than execution. Someone arriving with an advantage this screen did not assume can win a market shown in red.
Companies named in this market · 8
The binding constraint — defensibility
The pre-screen says electronics retail 'has largely moved online'. Best Buy Canada says something more exact. The International segment of Best Buy — which is Canada and nothing else, 142 stores — took US$3,413M of revenue in fiscal 2026, up 3.7%, with comparable sales up 2.3% [A]. So the store-based format has not disappeared. What it earns is the finding: a gross margin of 21.6% and an adjusted operating margin of 3.4% [A], at national scale, with vendor funding, its own distribution centres and a services arm. Computing and mobile phones were 49% of the mix; services were 6% [A]. An independent selling the same televisions, laptops and phones buys them for more than Best Buy does, sells them at the price on the customer's screen, and starts from a gross margin below 21.6% with nothing beneath it. Nothing on the shelf is unavailable elsewhere at the same price the same day — that is the cut, and it holds even if rent and capital were free. Appliances, where independents have traditionally held on through delivery and installation, fell 5.1% on a comparable basis at Best Buy Canada [A], and the existing 449 record already makes the point that the defensible version of that business is installation and service, which is a trade, not retail. Where the 78% of Canadian establishments with fewer than ten staff actually earn a living — phone repair kiosks, carrier dealerships, custom audio-video installation — was not examined; those are different propositions wearing this code.
A store draws from its own town, which is why geography is stated as local. But the price of every item is visible nationally and the largest competitor delivers to the same postal code, so the local catchment confers no pricing power at all. The Best Buy figures size the competitor, not a market an entrant could address.
Who you would be competing with
The operators already at scale here, and whoever is buying these businesses. In most of these industries the competition an entrant meets is local, so this is who sets the terms rather than a list of everyone in the trade.
Financials & market size — sourced
Figures that came from a filing, a results release or reputable reporting, each carrying its evidence tier.
The field
Every operator named on this record, and what each one discloses. A private single-site operator discloses nothing, which is the normal case — the listed consolidators are the only window in.
Competitor set · 6 named · 0 disclose revenue
| Name | Revenue | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best Buy CanadaNYSE: BBYA | not disclosed | — | Best Buy’s International segment is Canada and nothing else: US$3,413M in fiscal 2026 across 142 stores, and US$1,396M in the first half of fiscal 2027 at a 1.3% adjusted operating margin. Reported in US dollars, so deliberately not added into a Canadian-dollar total here. |
| Leon’s Furniture Limited (The Brick)TSX: LNFA | not disclosed | — | $2,573.7M in 2025 across 300 stores, but spanning furniture, mattresses, appliances and electronics with no category revenue split published — so no part of it can honestly be assigned to this group. LFL does say mattresses and electronics fell mid-single digits in 2025. |
| Costco Wholesale Canada / Amazon.ca / Walmart Canada / Canadian TireC | not disclosed | — | The general merchandisers take the same television, laptop and appliance sale and are classified elsewhere in NAICS, so they do not appear in the $19.32B above. None publishes a Canadian electronics figure and none was researched for this record. |
| Mega Group Inc.C | not disclosed | — | Member-owned buying co-operative, Saskatoon, trading since 1965: 744 participating members, 940+ supported storefronts, $2.5B+ of member retail sales annually, and dealing with 440+ vendors. Self-reported figures; not audited. |
| Cantrex Nationwide GroupC | not disclosed | — | Montreal-based buying, marketing and business-support group for independent appliance, furniture, bedding, home decor, consumer electronics and floor-covering retailers, with regional managers in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Central Canada, Alberta and British Columbia; affiliated with the US Nationwide Marketing Group and its PrimeTime buying show. Publishes no member count or volume. |
| The independent single-site majorityA | not disclosed | — | 3,421 of the 4,367 Canadian establishments with employees in this group — 78% — employ fewer than ten people (Statistics Canada, December 2023). None publishes anything, and that tier is the competitive structure an entrant actually joins. |
Nobody here publishes revenue. The market is not sized for that reason — an estimate built on nothing would only look like knowledge.
Evidence
Evidence. All Best Buy figures are read from its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 January 2026 (International segment table, revenue-mix table and store list) [A]; they are in US dollars. Counts are Statistics Canada [A]; US figures did not join for this group. What this establishes: the margin the scale operator earns in Canada. What it does not: an independent's buying cost or margin, which nobody discloses; the statement that an independent starts below 21.6% is inference from purchasing scale, not a measured number. Repair, carrier-dealer and custom-installation businesses inside this code were not screened and may deserve their own records. The cut factor is analyst judgment. Added in the completion pass: the six-month and second-quarter fiscal 2027 segment figures are read from Best Buy’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 1 August 2026, filed 4 September 2026 — the segment tables and the International segment MD&A table, not the headline bullets [A]; the same filing is where the statement that the International segment is all Canadian operations is read. Group retail sales for 2017–2026 are read from Statistics Canada table 20-10-0056-01 (unadjusted, NAICS 2022), downloaded whole and summed by calendar year [A]; the 2026 months carry “good” and “acceptable” quality flags and will be revised, which is why the 11.4% first-half fall is stated with that caveat rather than as a settled number. The exchange rate used for the one converted comparison is the Bank of Canada’s 2025 daily USDCAD average, 1.3978, computed from the Bank’s own observations series; the conversion is arithmetic, not a company figure, and the share it implies is tiered accordingly. Mega Group’s and Cantrex Nationwide’s descriptions are their own published claims and are tiered C.
Where the industry talks
The associations, forums and events where people in this trade actually talk shop — where to listen before entering, and where the first customers are found. Each link was opened on the date shown.
Member-owned buying co-operative for independent home-goods retailers (appliances, electronics, furniture); 'over 700 members coast to coast' per its homepage.
National retail trade association; blocked automated access (403). Search results show the live site and its membership pages.
US buying group for independent appliance, electronics and furniture retailers; '5,500+ Members' per its homepage. Runs the PrimeTime buying show; Cantrex Nationwide is its Canadian affiliate.
'1300+ Member Companies' per its homepage; mostly manufacturers and brands rather than store operators. Produces CES.
Association for custom audio-video and smart-home installers, the trade the record says many small establishments in this code actually practise. cedia.net redirects here. No member count stated.
Canadian trade news site for furniture, mattress, appliance and electronics retailers; articles dated 15 Sep 2026 on the homepage.
Independent electronics and appliance dealers in Canada organise through buying groups (Mega Group, Cantrex Nationwide) rather than a dedicated association; the custom-install end of the trade talks at CEDIA. Dealerscope (US trade magazine) did not resolve when checked and is not listed.
Software serving this industry
Vertical software markets filed along the same branch of NAICS — who sells to these businesses, and who an entrant would have to displace.
No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch yet. The base industry report says what the subsector typically runs on.