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Pulse Creek headphone discount for Retail Insider readers

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Retail Insider
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Pulse Creek is providing a discount on LSTN headphones to Retail Insider readers. The headphones are made from reclaimed wood and Pulse Creek donates money from sales to a good cause. The following details and promo code have been provided by Pulse Creek:  


The technology industry continues to pump out some of the most innovative products on the market today, but there’s one area that the status quo has failed to innovate and that’s aesthetics. Frustrated with the cold, unimaginative, tech designs being mass-manufactured, PulseCreek has taken on the challenge of bringing you tech gear with a twist of nature. Pulse Creek has proudly partnered with LSTN to bring you their take on premium headphones. Made from reclaimed wood, LSTN creates unique, hand-crafted headphones that are closer to works of art. Plus, for each pair sold, LSTN donates money to the Starkey Hearing Foundation to help restore hearing to a person in need. What’s better than that? Well I’ll tell ya, we’ve also come to your melodic aid. Pulse Creek is offering Retail Insider readers $15 off all Troubadour and Fillmore headphones until February 9th. Just use promo code “Insider” at checkout and overhaul your 2014 music experience.


[Starkey Hearing Foundation website]


[LSTN website]


[Pulse Creek website]

Mountain Equipment Coop may build a new Downtown Toronto flagship

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Retail Insider
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Sources say that Vancouver-based Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) may build a new flagship store in Downtown Toronto. The store would replace a 28,000 square foot surface parking lot at the corner of Queen Street West and Soho Street in the heart of the city’s popular Queen West shopping area. 

The location of this surface parking lot is unusual. It has remained vacant for years despite its prime location in the centre of one of Toronto’s busiest and most popular shopping districts. Most stores in the immediate area are of a smaller size compared to the expected size of the MEC store. Its recently announced North York store will be 44,000 square feet, for example. 

Buzz Buzz Home reports that MEC will locate its Toronto flagship store at the base of a new building on the site that will include commercial offices above and underground parking below. 

MEC already has a Downtown Toronto store a few blocks south on King Street West. We received an update that this building has not been sold, nor has it been listed for sale. A source told us that its building was sold to a Toronto-based real estate developer, and we have been updated that this was incorrect. 

We’ll update you when we learn more about this interesting retail and real estate development.

INFOGRAPHIC: Consumer Psychology and the E-Commerce Checkout

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Retail Insider
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We wanted to share with you this detailed and informative image. It looks at the motivations underlying customers’ behaviour during the checkout process on e-commerce sites. [Source:Vouchercloud]


[Source: Vouchercloud]

Nordstrom is the number one brand on Pinterest

By
Retail Insider
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With over 4.4 million followers, Nordstrom is the number one brand followed on Pinterest. With Nordstrom’s imminent arrival into Canada (its first Canadian store opens in Calgary this September), Canadian retailers must recognize the importance of social media.

For those unfamiliar, Pinterest is a photo sharing website. Users may create and manage theme-based image collections. Users may browse other pinboards for images and ‘repin’ them to their own pinboards, or ‘like’ photos. Its popularity continues to grow substantially, and it now boasts over 70 million users.

Digital Insights analysed Pinterest and came up with some interesting numbers. Almost 70% of Pinterest users are female, and 57% of all posts are food-related. 80% of Pinterest’s pins are ‘repins’. Only 6% of Pinterest users have connected their pages to their Facebook accounts.

Nordstrom has taken Pinterest one step further. Popular items on Pinterest are displayed in-store with a red tag (see above photo). And Pinterest is paying off. A source at Nordstrom tells us that the retailer is enjoying tremendous success with its Pinterest experiment. Pinterest shoppers tend to spend more than users referred from other social media, and Nordstrom appears to be on the forefront of this trend.

RELATED:

[Nordstrom on Pinterest]

La Maison Simons could open at Montreal’s Fairview Pointe-Claire

By
Craig Patterson
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La Maison Simons could open at Montreal's Fairview Pointe-Claire

Sources tell us that La Maison Simons could open at Montreal’s Fairview Pointe-Claire Shopping Centre. If talks are successful, it would occupy part of the 181,795 square foot Sears store that currently anchors the mall’s eastern portion. 

The 1 million square foot Fairview Pointe-Claire Shopping Centre is owned and operated by landlord Cadillac Fairview. It features almost 175 stores and is one of Montreal’s most productive malls with yearly sales per square foot of $617.

Simons is expanding across Canada and plans to open new stores in West Vancouver, Ottawa, Gatineau, Quebec and Mississauga, Ontario. It may also open a store in suburban Calgary. We’ll keep you updated on Simons’ Canadian expansion including this possible new suburban Montreal store.

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Holt Renfrew creates Twitter accounts for its individual stores

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Retail Insider
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Holt Renfrew has created Twitter accounts for each of its 7 stores in English-speaking Canada, as well as a bilingual account for its Montreal and Quebec City stores. Individual store twitter accounts for retail chains have recently enjoyed a gain in popularity. 


Individual store twitter accounts became more common after Nordstrom‘s recent authorization of the creation of individualized Twitter accounts for its various stores. These accounts have become quite popular and Nordstrom’s Seattle flagship, for example, has over 7,000 Twitter followers. Saks Fifth Avenue joined the trend and recently launched Twitter accounts for several of its stores and even one for its new Chicago men’s store.


Holt Renfrew has further leveraged Twitter by creating an account for its restaurant division called ‘Holts Foodie‘. It continues to maintain a information on job postings at its ‘Holts Careers‘ Twitter account.


We’ve found that following these Twitter accounts provides timely information for keeping track of what’s in store. Here are links to Holt Renfrew’s accounts on Twitter:


[Holt Renfrew (Main Twitter Account)]


[Holt Renfrew Toronto: Bloor Street flagship]


[Holt Renfrew Toronto Yorkdale Shopping Centre]


[Holt Renfrew Toronto Sherway Gardens]


[Holt Renfrew Quebec (Montreal + Quebec City)]


[Holt Renfrew Ottawa]


[Holt Renfrew Edmonton]


[Holt Renfrew Calgary]


[Holt Renfrew Vancouver]




Hudson’s Bay and other larger retailers may wish to follow this trend and at least create Twitter accounts for their flagship stores. With all of the recent exciting developments in Canadian retail, individualized Twitter accounts may be an excellent way to promote in-store events, as well as a way to enrich the entire omni-channel retail experience.


[Holt Renfrew website]

Vancouver designer Nancy Lord opens in the city’s ‘Heritage District’

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Retail Insider
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Nancy Lord Photo: Colin Arber

Vancouver-based fashion designer Nancy Lord has opened her flagship store in Vancouver’s ‘Heritage District’. The 1,800 square foot store includes 1,350 square feet of ground floor retail as well as a 450 square foot mezzanine space. The store sells ready-to-wear women’s clothing, and custom-made designs are also available.

The new store is located at 410 Howe Street and is alongside such upscale retailers as Cartier and Euoko Cosmetics. Steps away are shops such as Versace and Roche Bobois furnishings. Despite having these upscale tenants, however, the neighbourhood has struggled over the past couple of years with the departure of such stores as Chanel, Hugo Boss Woman, Escada and, most recently, Mount Cashmere.

We’ve been told that Vancouver’s ‘Heritage District’ is looking to update its image, including sidewalks and various public-space fixtures. The area will seek to regain some of the prestige lost with the exit of some of the above retailers. We’ll follow up this article when we learn of further details of the area’s rejuvenation.

[Nancy Lord website]

Could La Maison Simons join Nordstrom at the Toronto Eaton Centre?

By
Retail Insider
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Photo by Julia Pelish Photography

Although Nordstrom has leased 213,000 square feet of Sears’ Toronto Eaton Centre store, there is still about 140,000 square feet of retail space available within the Sears space. La Maison Simons‘ CEO Peter Simons has made it no secret that he’d like to open a store at the Toronto Eaton Centre, and there may still be room for his store.

La Maison Simons is seeking store space in the 100,000 – 120,000 square foot range. Given that there is about 140,000 square feet of retail space still available, Simons could possibly secure retail space alongside the new Nordstrom store. 

An insider tells us that Nordstrom is expected to occupy most of the three levels directly below Sears’ four levels of office space, leaving about 140,000 square feet of retail below grade (the mall’s second level, technically) and possibly on the ground floor (the mall’s third level, technically). Peter Simons has said that he’d prefer a prominent street-level entrance for a Toronto Eaton Centre store, so it remains to be seen how a possible deal could play out. 

At 816,000 square feet, the Toronto Eaton Centre Sears store was the largest Sears in the entire company. Of that space, the top four floors (approximately 460,000 square feet) will continue to be occupied by Sears Canada as its corporate offices. Sources confirm that Sears’ rent was only $1/sq ft/year for the space. Given the substantially higher cost for office space in Downtown Toronto, Sears Canada will continue to get a deal by continuing to occupy this space.

We’ll keep you updated on the possibility that La Maison Simons could join Nordstrom at the Toronto Eaton Centre.

Opening of Sherway Gardens Nordstrom delayed until spring 2017

By
Retail Insider
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Nordstrom Sherway Gardens Rendering

The opening of Nordstrom at Toronto’s Sherway Gardens has been delayed until the spring of 2017. It was originally scheduled to open in the fall of 2016. Some may be disappointed with the delay, especially since the Sherway Gardens Nordstrom was the first Nordstrom to be announced for the Toronto area when the company made the original Canadian store announcement in July, 2012.

Nordstrom spokesperson Brooke White says that the Sherway store’s delay is due to the considerable construction activity required to build Toronto’s two other Nordstrom stores. Nordstrom’s Yorkdale and Toronto Eaton Centre stores are both now scheduled to open in the fall of 2016. Nordstrom announced the opening of its 188,000 square foot Yorkdale store in April of 2013, which will be built as part of a mall expansion. This week Nordstrom also announced that it would build a 213,000 square foot flagship store at the Toronto Eaton Centre, replacing part of a current Sears store.

Nordstrom Sherway Exterior Rendering

Nordstrom’s Sherway Gardens store will be a newly-built 138,000 square foot space which will replace retailer Sporting Life at the south end of the mall. Sporting Life will relocate to a newly built store in a northward mall expansion, possibly alongside an expanded Holt Renfrew store.

Images above are renderings of Nordstrom’s Sherway Gardens store, courtesy of Nordstrom Canada’s Media Kit. 

[Sherway Gardens website]

[Nordstrom website]

Sears Canada is ready to sell its 27 Quebec store leases

By
Retail Insider
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Photo: Sears

Sears Canada is reportedly interested in selling its 27 store leases in the province of Quebec. Sources say that these stores could be sold if Sears receives advantageous offers from landlords, similar to deals made in English Canada. Although Nordstrom entered the Canadian market through Sears lease purchases, we don’t believe Nordstrom will take any of the Quebec leases.

Company spokesperson Vincent Power says that Sears will consider selling leases back to mall landlords if the lease sale prices are in excess of the estimated profitability of a Sears store over 20 years. Sources tell us that talks are already under way for several of these Sears stores, and that La Maison Simons could be close to securing one of the Sears store locations.

Since April 2012, Sears Canada has sold back 11 of its store leases to mall landlords for a total of about $762 million. The sale of the first four Sears stores paved the way for Nordstrom’s entry into the Canadian market. Sears has since sold back more leases paving the way for even more Nordstrom stores, as well as a La Maison Simons store in suburban Toronto.

A source familiar with the company tells us that Nordstrom currently has no plans to expand by opening stores in the Province of Quebec, at least for now. Nordstrom turned down our request to interview its Canadian President, Karen McKibbin, on this subject.

Industry sources say that talks are already in place between landlords and Sears Canada to sell off more store leases. We’ll keep you updated as Sears Canada continues to liquidate its assets.

RELATED: 

[Article Source]

[Sears Canada website]

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