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BRIEF: World’s 1st Combined Bass Pro/Cabela’s Opening in Canada, Uniqlo Launches Innovative Pop-Up

By
Helen Siwak
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World’s 1st Hybrid Cabela’s/Bass Pro Shops to Open Soon in suburban Halifax: According to local online retail publication Halifax ReTales, The world’s first combined Cabela’s/Bass Pro Shops will be opening at the massive Dartmouth Crossing big-box centre in suburban Halifax. The outdoor hunting/fishing and outdoor gear retailers will co-brand a space that will span about 50,000 square feet. 

Cabela’s announced that it was opening a Halifax-area store almost three years ago, and locals have been waiting patiently — the original announcement was made on June 9 of 2015, when it was revealed that Cabela’s planned to open a store. The original announcement stated that the store would employ about 150 people. 

Bass Pro acquired Cabela’s in the fall of 2017, and some questioned the future of some of the store branding. The co-branded Dartmouth Crossing store is an interesting move — we hadn’t heard back from Cabela’s Canada as of press time as to what the plan is for other stores and their branding. Cabela’s currently operates 10 stores, while Bass Pro Shops operates 5 stores. 

One of Bass Pro’s stores is in suburban Moncton, New Brunswick. In February of 2018, suburban Moncton’s Cabela’s store suddenly closed — when the combined Halifax location opens in the next while, it will therefore be the only Cabela’s nameplate in the Canadian Maritime provinces. 

The Shoe Company & Shoe Warehouse are Picking Up What Sears Dropped: The Shoe Company and Shoe Warehouse are helping Sears customers “get back on their feet” with a month-long discount offer. Sears Canada’s closure earlier this year left thousands of individuals with defunct Sears loyalty memberships or unredeemed gift cards. 

When shoppers visit any The Shoe Company or Shoe Warehouse location before May 15th and present their old Sears card, they will receive $5 off their entire purchase. Plus, as an exclusive one-time bonus, new Shoe Lover Rewards members will receive an extra 2000 points upon sign-up which is equivalent to an additional $10 off your next purchase. 

With these offers, the company hopes to alleviate the loss, and provide an alternative for those looking to fulfil their footwear needs.

Indochino Announces 8 More Showrooms: The world’s largest made-to-measure suit retailer has announced that it will open eight more showrooms in the United States over the next four months. The reason it’s remarkable is because by the time the stores will have opened, the company’s base of showrooms will have been expanded by a third in a relatively short period of time. 

Showrooms in Denver and Bethesda, MD will open in May, followed by Short Hills NJ and Scottsdale AZ in June. Columbus OH and Newport Beach CA are also scheduled to open this summer in addition to previously announced locations in Dallas, opening May, and New York’s Madison Avenue, slated for late summer.

Indochino’s unique virtual inventory model enables it to run a very efficient retail business, which it is leveraging via its expansion strategy. The company achieved 49% Gross Margin in 2017 with 52% forecast in 2018. It is expecting to end the year with a 53% three year Compound Annual Growth Rate.

In December 2017, Retail-Insider reported that Indochino announced plans to open up to 18 locations in 2018 following the 8 which opened in 2017. Indochino launched and established itself online before opening its first bricks and mortar location in Vancouver’s Gastown in 2015 and is continuing to make strides with its immersive and engaging showrooms and its three-week delivery promise on all orders.

UNIQLOs Graphic Tee Exhibit is an Ode to Pop Culture: UNIQLO’s huge new series of collaborations is a game-changer for anyone who’s ever dreamed of wearing images ofyummy Chupa Chups, the never-ending Star Wars, loveable alien ET, American artist Basquiat, and the highly desirable Ladurée macarons on their tee-shirts.

To celebrate the launch, UNIQLO is hosting a four-floor exhibit at 202 Queen Street West from May 2nd-5th. Attendees will be able to view nearly 1,000 different graphic tee designs displayed among art installations and other interactive pieces. Pop-up facilitator thisopenspace provided the venue, and an invite-only party was held to unveil it on Tuesday of this week. 

This year’s limited-edition collection overseen by Rei Matsunuma, Director, UT Collaboration for UNIQLO, draws on a massive range of authentic cultural references, and takes inspiration from traditional brands, up-and-coming artists and comic book characters. Each design was created exclusively for the collection.

There will be plenty of niche collaborations for shoppers to choose from like one with Japanese manga Weekly Shonen Jump for its 50th anniversary, 30 top animé and manga titles including Dragon Ball, Naruto and Hunter x Hunter, the winning designs of 2018s Marvel-themed UT Grand Prix, and six unique versions of Mickey Mouse. 

 Visit the exhibit to scope out this epic collection of pop culture from around the world.

Six Hundred Four Launches VR Sneaker Gallery: Six Hundred Four, the limited-edition sneaker brand, located in the heart of Vancouver’s Gastown and steps away from the world famous steam clock, creates shoes based off of art pieces. 

In an attempt to parlay their retail business into a unique online experience, they have recently launched the Six Hundred Four virtual gallery that merges VR and e-commerce. It allows virtual visitors to ‘click and stroll’ around the flagship store, viewing the original art pieces while adding shoes and other items to their shopping cart. The best part is that the shopping experience does not require a VR headset.

The brand sees the problem with VR and e-commerce is that one usually hinders the other. A full, immersive VR experience makes it difficult to complete a purchase, while standard e-commerce prevents a deep brand experience which VR offers. Up until now, it has been one or the other.

Six Hundred Four’s retail space is both an art gallery and a shoe store, coined as a “Sneaker Gallery.” This arrangement produces a minimalist aesthetic that makes it ideal for this type of platform, allowing visitors to engage with individual products without feeling inundated.

Six Hundred Four partnered with Method Visual on the project, a leader in 360 photography and VR to create an exciting experience with practically no learning curve resulting in a platform that is intuitive, clean, and user-friendly.

Toronto’s OKV Launches Environmentally Conscious Leather Bag Line for Men: New luxury leather bag line, OKV, will launch its website and e-commerce platform on May 8th featuring the brand’s first men’s handbag collection Primo Edition. The collection consists of six on-trend yet classic styles with a price range of $190 for a wallet to $1,800 for the limited edition custom painted hold all. 

Created and designed by Wayne Mayers in Toronto and produced in Italy, OKV is leading the resurgence in sustainable fashion with its responsible and environmentally-safe methods of production. Each item is tanned using only plant-based products including fruits, fruit pods, leaves, oak, chestnut quebracho, and mimosa tree bark. 

Meyers was looking to lessen the environmental impact of traditional leather production and sourced a Tuscan facility, which is a member of the Genuine Italian Vegetable-Tanned Leather Consortium, to produce OKV’s luxury pieces. 

The initial collection is produced by running 50-90% solar energy, with waste from the leather making process recycled to manufacture construction industry bricks, wastewater is collected, reused, and purified, hairs and small fibres from the skins are also repurposed into fertilizer. 

Bumble Hive Bringing “Female First” Programming to TO: From May 4-6th dating app Bumble will be hosting three days of ‘female first’ programming with notable speakers, performers, and panels to Toronto. While the app has presented similar spaces in New York, London, and Los Angeles, this is its first time in Canada, and guests can expect complimentary entertainment, drinks, snacks, and an impressive array of interactive sessions. International thought-leaders and entrepreneurs including Erin Foster, Maria Qamar, and Alex Williamson are all on the roster.

What began as a ‘female first’ dating app quickly grew into one of the top online dating apps, with over 27-million downloads, and has been valued at over a billion dollars. It is now a ‘beehive’ of empowerment for women looking for the ability to control the conversation when not only dating, but in finding friends and networking online. The unique Bumble business model put women in charge with the dating app, Bumble BFF, Bumble Bizz, and an online community that shares on friendship, careers, wellness, city guides, and navigating campus life.

The 3-day Bumble Hive Toronto event will be held at 950 Queen Street, and RSVPs are required through the website. 

J.C. Williams Group/Ebeltoft to Release 2018 Global Trends & Innovations Report

By
Craig Patterson
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J.C. Williams Group/Ebeltoft is about to release its 2018 Global Retail Trends & Innovations Report, which highlights some key insights into what innovative retailers are doing around the world. The release will include video discussion as well as a free downloadable version of the book. 

The report is useful for retailers seeking out leading industry insights, brokers seeking new concepts to approach, designers and architects, and anyone who is interested in gaining knowledge as to what’s working in retail during this age of disruption. 

The report also highlights four ‘hot trends’ for 2018: Smart Shopping, Interaction, Emotional Retail and Responsibility. Examples are used to illustrate each, in an engaging report that will soon be available online. 

Ebeltoft Group is a global alliance of consultancy companies with members in more than 25 mature and emerging retail markets. J.C. Williams group is a leading Canadian consultancy, based in Toronto and Montreal. 

Watch for the first video to be released early next week. 

Nordstrom Rack Unveils Glass-Enclosed Canadian Flagship [Photos]

By
Craig Patterson
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Nordstrom’s off-price division Nordstrom Rack opens its Canadian flagship this morning at 1 Bloor Street East in Toronto’s Bloor-Yorkville  area. The impressive store features a glass facade that supplies ample natural light, and is stocked with an expansive offering of luxury brands. We toured and took photos prior to the store’s public opening. 

The new store spans two floors at the base of the 1 Bloor Street East retail podium, with almost 9,000 square feet at street-level as well as an additional 30,000 square feet upstairs. The retail podium at the south-east corner of Yonge Street and Bloor Streets was acquired by First Capital Realty from developer Great Gulf in the summer of 2016, and is located below a nearly completed condominium tower that soars 76-stories above. 

Nordstrom Rack’s street-level is dedicated primarily to accessories and home goods, while the second level houses fashion and footwear. On the main floor, a corner entrance leads to a display of luxury-branded handbags and small accessories that includes some of the world’s top brands such as Chloé, Stella McCartney, Kenzo, Proenza Schouler and Balenciaga — it’s an assortment not found in most suburban Nordstrom Rack stores in Canada, or the United States. A sunglasses department features hundreds of pairs of designer frames, and there’s also areas for fragrances and beauty, home goods and luggage — Nordstrom notes that residents in the area tend to travel, so offerings are extensive. 

The second floor features men’s and women’s fashions, as well as a large footwear department that spans the entire south end of the floor. Thousands of pairs of shoes are available for men and women and similar to downstairs, some of the world’s leading luxury brands can be found at substantial savings. Women’s ready-to-wear labels include the likes of Saint Laurent, Valentino, St. John, and others — product has been brought in from Nordstrom’s full-line Canadian stores, which include designer ‘Collectors’ departments that boast some of the worlds most popular and pricey labels. The footwear offerings are extensive and some of the deals are eye-popping — a Lanvin boot regularly priced at $2,185 was marked down to about $225, as an example. 

Merchandise is a mix of product from full-line Nordstrom stores (about 30% in Canadian Nordstrom Racks vs. about 15% in its US locations), as well as some items specifically purchased from top brands sold at Nordstrom. 

Nordstrom Rack has attempted to make the shopping process simpler by grouping some areas so that consumers can find products — departments for denim and career wear, for example, are clearly marked. The store also features spacious dressing rooms with enhanced lighting both from within the room as well as from above. Nordstrom is also introducing mobile checkout to further expedite the purchase process — one complaint about off-price retailers is that “the hunt” can also be time consuming, and Nordstrom is attempting to help consumers save time. 

The overall experience feels a bit different from that of a typical suburban Nordstrom Rack store. The Bloor Street flagship is flooded with natural light and its windows look out to the bustling cityscape that is undergoing a transformation. Directly across Yonge Street is the construction site for ‘The ONE’, which will be an 85-storey tower spanning over 1000 feet into the air, with multi-level retail that will include a large corner anchor. On the northwest corner, landlord Kingsett Capital will upgrade the retail podium below the 2 Bloor Street West office tower, and further westward there’s construction at Manulife Centre (which is being overhauled and adding Eataly) and the Holt Renfrew Centre will see a new Aritzia flagship, as well as a remodelled Holt Renfrew store. (We will be publishing a comprehensive Bloor Street update later this month). 

Directly south of Nordstrom Rack in the same retail podium will be the entrance to a grocery store operated by celebrity chef Mark McEwan. The grocery entrance will be on the main floor with about 870 square feet of space, with a further 17,230 square feet located on the basement level directly below Nordstrom Rack. Other retail spaces are available for lease (First Capital Realty’s Eric Sherman is handling the leasing, according to signage). 

The area is very busy and this could become one of Nordstrom Rack’s top-selling stores. About 100,000 pedestrians walk past the site daily, and the store is located directly above Canada’s busiest subway station with more than 400,000 daily riders. About 65,000 cars also pass by daily. The surrounding area is also highly educated and relatively affluent — Yorkville and nearby Rosedale house millionaires and even some billionaires, and the University of Toronto is located a few blocks to the west. Toronto’s busy Gay Village is located adjacent both south and eastward, and the overall population in the area is exploding as thousands of new condominium units are completed and occupied — the area is in a state of transition that will be incredible once completed (though one questions if it ever will be completed, given Toronto’s appetite for development). 

Nordstrom has said that it plans to open between 12 and 15 Nordstrom Rack stores in Canada, and the company has already revealed where six of these will be located. Nordstrom Rack’s first Canadian store opened in suburban Toronto at Vaughan Mills in March of this year, measuring 35,315 square feet over one level. The retailer’s second Canadian store opened last week at Deerfoot Meadows in Calgary, in a 30,600 square foot box. Nordstrom has also confirmed that it will be opening three Canadian locations in the fall of 2018, with dates to be revealed closer to their opening. These will include locations at The Ottawa Train Yards in Ottawa, at South Edmonton Common in Edmonton, and at Heartland Town Centre in Mississauga. All three locations will be approximately 35,000 square feet, according to Nordstrom.

Nordstrom has had a presence in Canada since 2014 when it opened its first Canadian store at Calgary’s CF Chinook Centre in September of that year, followed by locations at Ottawa’s CF Rideau Centrein March of 2015, at CF Pacific Centre in Vancouver in September of 2015, and two Toronto stores in the fall of 2016 — at CF Toronto Eaton Centre, and at Yorkdale Shopping Centre. 

Brokerage Northwest Atlantic represents Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack in Canada, and has negotiated Nordstrom’s lease deals in Canada. 

*Photos by Craig Patterson

Edmonton’s 1st Outlet Mall Opens to Massive Crowds [Photos]

By
Craig Patterson
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Premium Outlet Collection Edmonton International Airport

The Premium Outlet Collection Edmonton International Airport has officially opened in Edmonton, and there were crowds of people waiting to get in for the May 2nd grand opening. Some waited in line since midnight to be the first to see inside the completed centre, which is located south of the city on airport property.

The centre is a partnership with landlords Ivanhoé Cambridge and Simon Property Group, boasting 428,000 square feet and almost 100 retailers. There are over 2,200 parking spaces and the centre now employs more than 1,000 full and part-time staff. More than 200 construction-related jobs were created for the centre, which saw an investment of about $215 million. The centre is LEED Certified, according to Ivanhoé Cambridge. 

GRAND OPENING. PHOTO: IVANHOE CAMBRIDGE

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Interactive Map

Six anchor tenants include: DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse, Forever 21, H&M, Nike Factory Store, Old Navy Outlet and Marshalls (which opens this summer). The centre also announced 70 retailers earlier this spring, and we listed these in a previous article in March of this year. 

Since then, several more retailers have been announced for the centre, with some of them yet to open. Genesis Motors has opened in the centre — the car company is rolling-out retail spaces nationally in some leading malls. Browns Shoes will open the region’s first ‘Browns Outlet’, which is sure to be a hit amongst those seeking designer footwear at reduced prices. Lacoste is listed as a retailer that will be ‘coming soon’ and popular pretzel concept Wetzel’s Pretzels is also a confirmed future tenant. Polo Ralph Lauren, a staple in most premium outlets, has signage up for a soon-to-open space. Edmonton-based designer Kelly Wolf has opened a store as well. 

Another update: Laura Severs confirms that signage for a future Kate Spade store is now up as well. 

Stores open at Premium Outlet Collection Edmonton provided by Christopher Lui (Twitter), below:

A surprising tenant for the centre is Jack Georges, which is known for its pricey, high quality leather bags and accessories. It would appear that this would be the brand’s first standalone Canadian store — we tried to call the store to confirm but the Premium Outlet Collection’s website appears to have accidentally put another retailer’s number on its website, as of press time. 

The centre is attempting to differentiate itself from other regional shopping centres, and one unique retail concept is SHARE, which is an innovative market which brings together local producers, artisans, and a specialty coffee shop. 

Services at the centre include: DeliverEASE parcel shipping and delivery, which ships direct-to-home; gift cards and gift wrapping; CUP, Alipay and WeChat Pay (accepted at Guest Services as well as participating retailers); stow and go (coat, luggage and parcel); boarding pass printing and flight arrivals/departures screens; complimentary mobility assistance; complimentary baby supplies; portable cellphone chargers; airport shuttle stop information; free Wi-Fi and lounge area; complimentary refreshments; ‘refresh room’ for weary travellers on long stopovers at the airport. 

Opening soon photos provided by Christopher Lui (Twitter), below

“We are thrilled to bring our premium shopping experience to the Edmonton International Airport and surrounding community,” said Claude Sirois, President, Retail, Ivanhoé Cambridge. “Premium Outlet Collection EIA will be a unique shopping destination for Alberta, guaranteed to draw visitors from within and beyond the province. The combination of value-focused retailers, all under one roof, and our signature array of guest services and amenities is sure to please value-seeking and fashion-conscious shoppers.” 

“We are so delighted to team up with Ivanhoé Cambridge in Edmonton,” said Stephen Yalof, CEO of Premium Outlets, Simon. “This is Premium Outlets’ fourth opening in Canada and I have no doubt that our commitment in delivering sought-after brands and value will continue to resonate with our Canadian customers.”

*Additional photos below have been curated from social media from the opening day.

PHOTO: IVANHOE CAMBRIDGE
PHOTO: GRANDEUR (INSTAGRAM)
PHOTO: BOATHOUSE STORES (INSTAGRAM)

‘Ripple Metrics’ Technology Provides Data for Retailers to Efficiently Manage Store Staff

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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With labour optimization a constant challenge in the retail world, new technology by Halo Metrics is offering retailers an efficient – and cost effective – way to manage their staff in stores.

The company, which launched Ripple Metrics early last year, uses a proprietary combination of sensors and algorithms which anonymously and accurately counts and tracks visitor movement within a store.

Ravinder Sangha, marketing manager of Halo Metrics, says the result is an extremely accurate suite of visitor traffic metrics that include customer presence, return frequency, stay time as well as the ability to map out the customer journey through a store, all of which is easily accessible through a cloud based dashboard.

Now that technology, with its highly-accurate traffic count, can help retailers in the area of scheduling their staff in each store, said Sangha.

“We’re actually starting to see some great results when customers (retailers) start using this data for optimizing their scheduling and their labour,” he said.

“Something very, very important is that we are able to give the retailer the tools to help them schedule the right staff at the right time doing the right tasks. That’s a key thing to understand. First of all, I think we’re all aware that labour costs are going up throughout the country because of minimum wage and other things putting a pressure on labour costs.”

Shopping Purchase Retail Customer Consumer Sale Concept

Sangha said the technology allows retailers the ability to re-allocate that labour in a way that they can schedule their staff during peak traffic times.

“The results have been pretty incredible. For example, we have customers who have been relying on other methods to gauge traffic in their stores. They might be using POS. They might be using other technologies,” said Sangha.

“If they’re using POS, they’re at a fairly significant disadvantage because traffic in the store is not always reflected by transaction counts at the POS. We actually had an example of that where a customer had a measurable difference between the two in terms of traffic and transaction counts.”

Sangha said Ripple Metrics’ reports can get very granular, getting traffic counts down to 15-minute increments throughout a day and also track that traffic throughout different departments.

“Certain things unfolded as we shared this with the customer. They knew certain days were busier but they didn’t realize how busier they were,” he said. “We were able to tell them their typical peak hours throughout the week. And once they saw that they started to take that into account and started using the system for scheduling.

“The biggest thing for them is once they realized when their peak times were, and peak days of the week were, they right away were able to schedule their staff appropriately.”

The data enables retailers to have their staff focused on selling during peak times instead of putting away stock or taking breaks. If they are going to be taking breaks during peak times, they can determine appropriate coverage for that.

By determining traffic counts right down to individual departments within a retail store, this too can ensure the right amount of staffing is in place to deal with shoppers. Drilling down further, the technology could help staff certain departments to make sure employees with specific knowledge and expertise of certain products are available when customers are most likely coming to the store for those products.

“At the end of the day, they’re using this information and they’re scheduling staff to be in the right place, at the right time doing the right tasks. And what we’ve seen is an immediate lift in sales,” said Sangha. “And that lift in sales is attributed directly to when they started scheduling based on actual traffic coming into the store.”

The technology takes the matter of scheduling staff down to a science.

“It fully opens your eyes because we’re also tracking stay time in the store overall and also within the departments. We’re tracking new customers versus returning customers,” he said. “We’re also tracking marketing and promotional events as well.”

Visit www.ripplemetrics.com to learn more.

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*Partner content. To work with Retail Insider, contact Craig Patterson at: craig@retail-insider.com.

How The IoT Is Influencing the Brick-and-mortar World of Retail

By
Retail Insider
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Real Examples of How IoT Applications in Retail

The Internet of Things, or IoT, catchword is one that has been hyped up all across the retail market for some time now, and it is steadily becoming more visible. Not necessarily as IoT either, but as a solution for land-based businesses in terms of digital transformation. With online retailers reigning supreme over brick-and-mortar Mom-and-Pop-type trading, the smaller organisations are starting to fight back.

In the same way that the IoT is becoming far more frequently seen around our home spaces, it’s being used to drive business into brick-and-mortar stores more often as well. The kinds of solutions IoT provides are not simply being implemented by major corporations with millions to spend, but also has smaller makers installing insight-driven equipment in order to up their returns.

Beacon Alerts

The first IoT solution on our list is the Beacon Alert. This alert app uses Bluetooth geolocation in order to provide shoppers with possibly valuable information that’s sent directly to their smartphones. This could be in the form of notifications about a special in the third aisle, for example, or the fact that a store is having a 50% Anniversary Sale.

Connecting with customers is a chief concern for business owners, and, as digital technology is starting to permeate the regularity of our interactions, Beacon Alerts have allowed many a merchant to touch base with their audiences without them having to say a word!

Shopper Mapping

Strategically placed sensors are able to provide very valuable insights to Shopper Mapping and the high-traffic points within a store. Knowing where and how a consumer locates a product is important to sales departments, managers, and marketers alike. The kind of insights that Heat Maps and Customer Trace provide allows Canadian retailers to better position sale items, adjust the setups of their stores in order to eliminate vacant space, and record shopping trends over pre-set periods.

Certain technology allows security camera images to generate a heat map of a store’s layout, and then translates the data onto a dashboard for use by store managers. For instance, the volume of traffic of people walking past the storefront versus the amount of these who actually enter the shop can be measured in real time and compared to other time stamps.

This insight, paired with how frequently one of these potential customers actually makes a purchase, will hugely drive the success of advertising statistics. By making use of so-called People Counters and Location Heat Maps, storeowners are able to refine both the exterior and interior advertising and overall appearance in order to maximize how any likely clients actually enter the store and buy something. As application developments and sensors continue to drop in price, the demand for more of these types of insights grows exponentially.

The Business/Customer Relationship

In the past, business owners built relationships with their customers with face-to-face interaction as the foundation for these. Today, retailers are making use of the IoT to learn from, interact with, and advertise to their clients.

Using real estate as an example, there are ways in which house hunting has become far easier, and more convenient. When a home becomes available, for either rent or sale, agents are able to place sensors and upload video content from their smartphones or tablets to an IoT-based cloud application. This then allows prospective tenants and homeowners to view and virtually visit these homes whenever they want to, from wherever they are. No more Sundays spent viewing open houses!

Brick-and-Mortar Retail Has a Fighting Chance

Implementing the kind of IoT solutions outlined here provides invaluable insights for business owners, allowing them to generate more income and attract potential customers with their endeavours far more successfully.

Automated Frozen Yogurt Chain Reis & Irvy’s Looks to Disrupt Canadian Market

By
Megan Harman
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A new frozen yogurt chain that takes a futuristic spin on the traditional froyo concept is breaking into the Canadian market with ambitious growth plans. 

San Diego-based Reis & Irvy’s, a chain of robotic frozen yogurt dispensers owned by Generation NEXT Franchise Brands, Inc., has partnered with Froyo Vending Canada, Inc. to launch Reis & Irvy’s Canada. In April, the Canadian franchisees announced a large-scale franchise agreement, which will see the frozen yogurt chain gain a hefty presence in Edmonton and Calgary.

Reis & Irvy’s ‘Froyo Robots’ are fully automated, 15-square-foot machines that dispense frozen yogurt and process transactions independently. Customers can customize their order, choosing from a variety of different frozen yogurt flavours and toppings. Each order takes approximately 60 seconds to dispense.

Since the robots do not require a staff attendant on site, aside from refills and cleaning, the concept could disrupt the so-called froyo market considerably.

“It’s a robot – it does all the serving itself, so you don’t need someone there 24 hours a day,” says Brett Beninger, president and CEO of Froyo Vending Canada. “It’s quite simple, and it’s really on trend.”

Brett Beninger, president and CEO of Froyo Vending Canada.

Reis & Irvy’s launched in the U.S. market in 2016. It has since grown to include more than 180 franchisees across the U.S., and has pre-sold more than 1,000 units.

Under the Canadian agreement, Froyo Vending Canada serves as the exclusive master franchisee of Reis & Irvy’s Froyo Robots in Canada for five years, with an obligation to purchase a minimum of 500 of the robots over that period.

Recently, Froyo Vending secured a major franchise agreement, in which entrepreneur Barry Ehlert will have exclusive rights to all Reis & Irvy’s locations throughout Edmonton and Calgary.

“I love this product,” says Ehlert. “The brick and mortar frozen yogurt and ice cream retail industry in Canada is ready for this kind of unattended and very disruptive vending technology.”

In total, Froyo Vending Canada has pre-sold approximately 110 Reis & Irvy’s Froyo Robots in Canada, with 30 of those locations set to be operating by July. The first locations are expected to open in late May and early June.

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“We’ve had some success in the west, and now we’re just starting to push out east,” says Beninger, who notes that the company has made inroads in many provinces across the country.

The chain targets high-traffic locations such as amusement parks, hotels, movie theatres, shopping malls, airports, colleges and universities. The product appeals to consumers of all ages, Beninger says.

“We’re looking for locations that average about 1,000 people per day in foot traffic,” he says.

Although franchisees such as Ehlert are launching large-scale Reis & Irvy’s operations, franchisees also have the option of purchasing as few as three robots. That presents an opportunity for individuals who are working full time and looking for a second source of income to launch a side business with few overhead costs and a limited time commitment, according to Beninger.

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He notes that the robots are programmed to alert franchisees when maintenance is required or refills are needed. “It will do all of that for you, so you don’t have to be present,” Beninger says. “It could be a second income for someone…it’s actually quite a simple business to own and operate.”

  • World’s First Robotic Frozen Yogurt Kiosk located in the Philippines. Photo Kaisen Sei

The compact nature of the robots, he adds, makes it easy to relocate units that aren’t performing well. “We can pick it up and move it into a better location, if that is the case,” Beninger says.

‘Amazon of Cannabis’ Namaste Plans for Explosive Growth in Canada

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Namaste Technologies Inc.

Vancouver-based Namaste Technologies Inc. has been described as the Amazon of the cannabis space.

It calls itself the largest online retailer for medical cannabis delivery systems globally, distributing vaporizers and smoking accessories through 24 ecommerce sites in 20 countries and with distribution hubs located around the world. Namaste has majority market share in Europe and Australia, with operations in the UK, Canada and Germany and has opened new supply channels into emerging markets including Brazil, Mexico and Chile.

Now it is poised for further growth into cannabis sales.

Kory Zelickson, co-founder and COO of Namaste Technologies Inc., said Namaste, which began in 2014, recently acquired Cannmart Inc. – an Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations Production License applicant.

“We’ve created the first application in Canada that’s available for download on your iPhone or Android device called Namaste MD which is 100 per cent virtual patient acquisition,” said Zelickson.

“We’re the first company to fully digitize patient acquisition in compliance with Health Canada’s standards and regulations. We’ve created a portal where people can book a consultation . . . and through a video conference on their phone get their prescription. And then what we’re doing, instead of having those prescriptions for a particular patient go straight to a grower directly, we’re going to be one of the first retail businesses where we’re actually under our licence with Cannmart going to be buying in bulk from different providers and creating a marketplace for cannabis where a patient can come to source their cannabis from one location and have access to multiple providers from domestic growers and also internationally-imported cannabis too.”

Namaste Technologies Inc.

Zelickson said the concept is a unique one in Canada because a lot of the medical cannabis market works where patients go directly to a grower.

“There’s no marketplace at this point. So that will be something very unique. The MD is the patient acquisition portal we’ve been launching already and starting to acquire patients,” he said.

“Namaste focuses a lot on the ecommerce site. So we said to ourselves we want to start getting involved in the direct sale of cannabis. Our interest wasn’t into cultivating. We see ourselves more like Uber. We have the service. We’re selling cannabis but we’re never going to possess it. We want to be very hands off. We don’t want to cultivate. We want to focus on the technology side.”

He said the company will be leveraging all its technology currently in place for its ecommerce platform into cannabis sales.

“So our focus in the cannabis market in Canada for now is going to be on acquiring patients at a very accelerated rate because we have a tool that no other company has to acquire patients as fast as we can. We’re going to be leveraging all of our data, all of our technology towards that end,” said Zelickson.

Namaste acquired Cannmart as a late-stage ACMPR applicant, with the intention of creating Canada’s most expansive marketplace for medical cannabis. It currently operates one of the largest global ecommerce platforms for cannabis delivery devices and plans to leverage its technology and consumer data with the end goal of acquiring medical patients.

NamasteMD will serve the company as a patient acquisition tool, allowing patients to connect with doctors and nurse practitioners in a safe and secure online environment from the comfort of their homes. NamasteMD was designed to streamline the patient onboarding process in comparison to traditional brick-and-mortar clinics.

Its vision is to become an all-inclusive online cannabis marketplace and create a platform that consolidates many of the best product offerings by the top ACMPR Licensed Producers in Canada.

“This important milestone represents an incredible achievement for Namaste and its shareholders. Receipt of the ACMPR Production License not only validates Namaste’s strategy but it serves as a critical component of the Company’s anticipated growth moving forward.  We are very proud to have met our goal of receiving our ACMPR medical cannabis Production License from Health Canada as we look to explore the tremendous opportunities that exist in the Canadian cannabis market,” said Sean Dollinger, President and CEO of Namaste, in a statement.

The company said sales for the second quarter of 2018 were $5.6 million, representing a $3.7M or 195 per cent increase quarter-over-quarter. Gross profit for the second quarter was $1.9 million, representing a $1.2 million or 150 per cent increase quarter-on-quarter. For the first six months of the year, the company had sales of $10.6 million, representing a $6.6 million or 165 per cent increase year-on-year. Gross profit for the first six months was $3.6 million, representing a $2.1M or 140 per cent increase year-over-year. The gross profit increase relates primarily to the growth in revenue outside the United States, it said.

T&T Supermarket’s Cindy and Tina Lee to Receive Prestigious 2018 RCC Grand Prix Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award

By
Craig Patterson
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Retail Council of Canada has announced that T&T Supermarket founder Cindy Lee and CEO Tina Lee as the winners of the 2018 Canadian Grand Prix Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award. The Award will be presented at the Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards Gala on May 30, 2018 at the Toronto Congress Centre, from 5:30pm to 8:30pm ET. [Info/Buy Tickets Here]

Special pricing is available for Retail Council of Canada members. 

Retail Council of Canada’s Canadian Grand Prix Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes individuals or families who have demonstrated outstanding service and dedication to the Canadian retail and grocery industry. Recipients reflect the industry’s spirit of community and trust, while also demonstrating a strong commitment to innovation – be it both in their company’s products as well as the leadership they provide within their organization. 

“Retail Council of Canada is honoured to recognize this amazing mother-and-daughter team, Cindy and Tina Lee, with this Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award in conjunction with T&T Supermarket’s 25th anniversary,” said Diane J. Brisebois, President and CEO, Retail Council of Canada. “Cindy and Tina have shown an exceptional, relentless passion to serve their customers with the highest-quality grocery products in a retail environment that is culturally aligned with the unique food needs of Asian families. T&T Supermarket has inspired all grocery retailers to make their stores increasingly relevant to more immigrant families in Canada.”  

Cindy Lee founded Asian grocery chain T&T in 1993, and her vision and tireless work (along with that of her team) created an unrivalled authentic Asian food experience that continues to operate 25 years later.  When Cindy retired in 2014, her legacy was furthered by her eldest daughter, Tina, who took over as CEO. Tina is leading T&T with a people-oriented, purpose-driven management style that anticipates consumers’ increasing demands for the highest quality goods. Today, T&T Supermarkets is the largest Asian grocer in Canada, and by the end of 2018, will have 27 locations nationwide. T&T is also widely regarded as one of the best Asian grocery chains the world.

Retail Council of Canada’s Canadian Grand Prix Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award has previously been awarded to such distinguished recipients such as Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee CEOs Paul Higgins Jr. and Michael Higgins, and most recently, Longo’s President and CEO Anthony Longo and the Longo Family. 

The Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Cindy and Tina Lee at Retail Council of Canada’s Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards Gala on May 30, 2018 at the Toronto Congress Centre, from 5:30pm to 8:30pm ET. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.rccgrandprix.ca/gala-tickets.

The Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards Gala will close the second day of Canada’s biggest retail conference, STORE 2018, which will feature more than 80 speakers and attract more than 2,500 retail leaders from across North America. Media are also invited to attend STORE 2018, from May 29 to May 30, 2018. Special pricing is available for Retail Council of Canada members.For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.storeconference.ca/tickets.

SSENSE Unveils 5-Storey Montreal Flagship [Photos/Video]

By
Craig Patterson
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Montreal SSENSE store. Image supplied

Montreal-based SSENSE, the “global fashion platform known for its directional retail mix and original content”, has formally announced that it will open a flagship concept in Montreal this week that it says will reimagine the convention of retail. The five level space opens to the public on Thursday, May 3, and it will be unlike anything in Canada. 

The five-level Montreal SSENSE is located in Old Montreal at 418 Saint-Sulpice in a renovated heritage building spanning 13,000 square feet. Milan-based David Chipperfield Architects has been responsible for designing the space, which features a heritage facade and concrete interior — it’s the first building in Canada to be designed by the Italian firm. 

Located adjacent to the city’s iconic Notre-Dame basilica, SSENSE is housed in what the company describes as “an in-situ concrete structure — a building-within-a-building — where the concrete architecture is transparently expressed and explicitly exposed while preserving the original historic facade”. 

Image: SSENSE
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Image: SSENSE

The unique building acts as a way to bridge SSENSE’s online and brick-and-mortar operations by “creating a seamless interface from online to offline.” The Montreal space will use an appointment-based personal shopping model facilitated through its proprietary interface (montreal.ssense.com) as well as a stylist app to allow for over 20,000 products available on ssense.com to be entirely accessible for clients to try on within 24 hours of scheduling an appointment on the website. 

Fashion platform SSENSE, known for its mix of luxury, streetwear, and avant-garde labels, was founded in 2003 by three brothers — Rami Atallah, Firas Atallah, and Bassel Atallah — and the online platform currently serves 136 countries, operating in English, French and Japanese. The website generates an average of 53 million monthly page views while achieving high double digit annual growth since its inception. 

Co-founder and CEO Rami Atallah said, “SSENSE MONTRÉAL is the physical manifestation of everything we stand for at SSENSE. It is backed by 15 years of insights gathered on both ssense.com and our previous retail location and I am confident we have established a blueprint for retail in the future. E-commerce enables scale but is suboptimal in important ways, especially fostering human connection. A seamless integration with physical spaces fills the gaps in the customer experience. I am so proud to launch SSENSE MONTRÉAL, a space for our community and a space for Montréal.”

Image: SSENSE
Image: SSENSE

Two of the building’s five levels are dedicated to hosting personal shopping appointments in a space featuring eight spacious fitting rooms. SSENSE stylists will be available for consultation via appointment, and merchandise bookings will be facilitated through the website. The remainder of the space is dedicated to cultural space, as well as a top-floor 34-seat café that offers “a relaxed yet inventive culinary experience,” with a constantly-changing market-fresh menu developed by noted Montreal-based restaurateurs Jason Morris and Kabir Kapoor. A glass ceiling over the café spans its entirety, offering an unobstructed view of the sky above. A small book store is also located on the top level. 

According to SSENSE, the space has a unique functionality, featuring a 60 cm grid system embedded throughout the structure that “acts as the framework and placement of a hidden convertible socket system for all mechanical, functional, and technical elements”. The grid system “enables flexibility and agility, adapting to the change of pace and simultaneous activities occurring in the space at any given time,” according to a press release. 

Image: SSENSE
Image: SSENSE

A Vertical Lift Module will be utilized for delivering and storing appointment orders — the technology is typically used to optimize industrial space and improve warehouse management and in the case of the Montreal SSENSE, the technology will provide “inconspicuous muscle for front of house activity”. 

Various activities will periodically animate the building with a range of ‘site-specific projects’ that will draw visitors to the space for events and activities. The inaugural project, called Arca / Tormenta for Prada & SSENSE, is described as “a site-specific performance-cum-installation commissioned by Prada and SSENSE. Exploring the integration of splintered self-states, Tormenta is framed in three distinct and interdependent rituals that converge to exercise the permeable connective tissue separating the once-repressed and the manifest, the embodied; a strengthening of the thin film between self love and self harm”. The public installation will be available to view through June 3, following a live performance in the space on April 26 which was available as a lifestream online. The rather unusual presentation, which we watched live last week, can be viewed here: tormenta.ssense.com, and is described as having “a voyeuristic, multi-camera perspective”. 

Image: SSENSE

As part of the Prada-iniative, an exclusive four-piece Prada capsule collection, in collaboration with Arca, is available at SSENSE MONTRÉAL and online at ssense.com. Prices range between US $295 and US $745.

It’s clear that SSENSE in Montreal will become a focal point for projects from some of the world’s trendiest and well-known designers and brands. The company says that some of its upcoming programming will include original projects by: Virgil Abloh, Moncler, Wales Bonner, DIS, Berlin Community Radio, Heron Preston, Kwaidan Editions, Vejas Kruszewski, and Amnesia Scanner. The store may also act as a tourist attraction for Montreal, given SSENSE’s global profile. 

Youtube video

[Video above is via SSENSE]

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