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A week after closing its Leaside Future Shop, Best Buy Canada is laying off 950 people at its combined Future Shop and Best Buy retail stores. The company reveals that it has been hurt by intense competition during the holiday sales period. Online competitors such as Amazon and retail store competitors like Wal-Mart have cut into sales of electronics. Best Buy recently revealed that revenue fell 0.4 per cent to $12.8 billion in the holiday period with same-store sales dropping by 1.4 per cent. The Future Shop in the RioCan Centre at Eglinton Ave. E. and Laird Drive closed it doors January 24, 2014 at the end of business. The shuttering of the store will seem more abrupt to customers and employees than it is to the owners. This is said to be the third Future Shop to close in Toronto in past months. Business will be consolidated at the jointly-owned Best Buy store in the SmartCentre down the street. Employees at the large electronics retailer were stunned to learn they were out of a job when told by the company last Sunday. A number said they had not had a chance to adjust to the loss of employment much less start looking for another job. Some are said to have worked for the store since it opened in 1995. Nor will the landlord, national commercial space owner RioCan of Toronto. be surprised. The property bounded by Laird, Eglinton, Vanderhoof Ave. and the property line to the east is slated for re-development in anticipation of the arrival of the Crosstown LRT. As reported by The South Bayview Bulldog, there will be a secondary LRT station on the property now owned by RioCan near the main intersection beside the Pier One outlet.