Yankee Candle Exits Canadian Retail After 14 Years

Yankee Candle has officially exited Canadian brick-and-mortar retail, closing its final store last week at Oshawa Centre in Oshawa, Ontario. The location remained open through the 2025 holiday season before shutting its doors last week, marking the end of the brand’s company-owned retail presence in Canada after more than 14 years.

The Oshawa store had been the last remaining Yankee Candle location in the country and its closure coincided with a broader round of store shutdowns across the United States and Canada. These closures were announced as part of a wider corporate restructuring initiative by parent company Newell Brands, which has been rationalizing its retail footprint amid changing consumer behaviour and rising operating costs.

Entering Canada With Big Ambitions

Yankee Candle entered the Canadian market in August 2011 with significant expansion ambitions. At the time, the company launched five company-owned stores in Southern Ontario, positioning Canada as a key international growth market and publicly outlining plans to eventually reach 50 locations nationwide.

During the mid-2010s, Yankee Candle expanded its footprint to roughly a dozen stores, almost entirely concentrated in suburban enclosed shopping centres across Ontario. The strategy mirrored the brand’s U.S. mall-based retail model, which had previously supported hundreds of locations south of the border.

However, the Canadian rollout never reached its originally projected scale. Following the brand’s integration into Newell Brands in 2016, growth slowed and the store network began to contract, reflecting broader challenges facing specialty retailers operating in shopping centres.

By the early 2020s, Yankee Candle’s Canadian store count had been steadily reduced, with closures accelerating after the pandemic as mall traffic patterns shifted and e-commerce gained further ground. By mid-2024, only one store remained in operation nationwide, the Oshawa Centre location that has now closed.

The retreat from physical retail was not isolated to Canada. Newell Brands announced in late 2025 that it would close approximately 20 Yankee Candle stores across North America as part of a global cost-reduction and productivity initiative. The Oshawa closure appears to have been included within that broader program, effectively bringing the brand’s Canadian retail chapter to a close.

This evolution shows how dramatically the economics of mall-based specialty retail have changed over the past decade, particularly for discretionary home categories that are now widely available through mass merchants and online platforms.

A Strategic Pivot to Wholesale Distribution

Despite exiting physical retail in Canada, Yankee Candle has not exited the market itself. Instead, the brand has shifted decisively toward a wholesale-led distribution model, significantly expanding its presence through major national retailers.

Today, Canadian consumers can purchase Yankee Candle products at chains including Canadian Tire, Walmart, and Staples Canada, as well as through Amazon.ca and various other retailers. This approach provides the brand with far broader geographic coverage than it ever achieved through company-owned stores, while avoiding the fixed costs associated with operating mall locations.

The wholesale strategy also aligns with Newell Brands’ broader focus on capital efficiency and margin discipline, leveraging established retail partners rather than maintaining a standalone store network in a highly competitive category.

More from Retail Insider:

• Yankee Candle announces wholesale expansion into Canada (2024)
• Yankee Candle Co. Opening Stores Across Canada (2014)