Holt Renfrew’s discount concept hr2 will open its second Canadian location at Toronto’s Vaughan Mills Shopping Centre. It will be located at the current ‘Holt Renfrew Last Call’ store currently on site, and be about 28,000 square feet. Holt Renfrew Last Call will close permanently to be replaced by hr2.
Holt Renfrew Last Call will close February 2nd so renovations can begin. The new hr2 will open April 2013.
Sears Canada is partnering with Buffalo and ALDO. Both companies will produce private-label merchandise for Sears.
Buffalo International will design and manufacture Sears’ ‘Nevada’ line of clothing for both men and women. ALDO will design and manufacture brands ‘Nevada’ and ‘Attitude’ clothing for men and women, as well as the ‘Jessica’ brand of women’s shoes. These product launches will happen for the Fall 2013 season.
Buffalo is a 1973-founded Montreal-based clothing manufacturer and retailer with distribution in 18 countries via about 3000 retail locations. It was started by designer David Bitton.
Image: bootlovers.typepad.com
ALDO is a 1972-founded Montreal-based shoe manufacturer and retailer with about 1,600 retal stores in 80 countries. According to Sears’ press release, “ALDO Product Services (APS) is a division of the ALDO Group dedicated to providing branded wholesale and private label fashion footwear and accessories. Through its work with select retail clients, APS creates and develop brands, by offering all the tools and resources to help companies succeed, from research, product design and development to branding, marketing and distribution.“
Sears Canada seems serious about succeeding. We’ve been told by someone close to the company that we can expect other innovations under their CEO, Calvin MacDonald. We’ll report on more Sears activity when received.
Sears issued two press releases from which this article was written. The link to Buffalo’s involvement is here, while the link to ALDO’s involvement is here.
Suburban Toronto’s Vaughan Mills is about to enlarge by 150,000 square feet, bringing in about 50 new retailers and three anchors, including ‘LegoLand Discovery Centre’. This isn’t just significant for Toronto… Canada is about to see a boom in outlet mall shopping.
Vaughan Mills isn’t just an ‘outlet mall’, however. It’s got some ‘concept stores’ as well as some full-priced retailers, and it also considers itself to be an ‘entertainment venue’. Entertainment will be important to future retailing, as we described in yesterday’s Retail Insider article about the future of retail.
Vaughan Mills will grow to about 1.274million square feet. Construction starts either late April or early May, according to a source at landlord Ivanhoe Cambridge. The mall will spend a reported $87million on the expansion. When completed, Vaughn Mills will have 250 stores and 19 ‘major tenants’ (large in size, we presume).
According to their press release, the expanded Vaughn Mills will include: -50 new retail concepts and 3 new major tenants including LegoLand® Discovery Centre -An entirely newly-designed Entertainment court that will build off the existing “Discover Ontario” theme which celebrates the beauty and diversity of the province within an innovative and contemporary setting -Renovations to the common areas and the food court -A highly visible and distinctive new entrance as part of the centre’s unique design and existing neighbourhood extension -450 new parking stalls for a total of over 6,500 stalls Upgraded common area elements, including floor and ceiling treatments, in addition to energy efficient LED lighting
Vaughan Mills’ current floorplan. Source: searchingtoronto.com
“Today, over 13.5 million shoppers, families and tourists visit Vaughan Mills year after year for a shopping experience that includes: 16 specialty anchors, brand fashion, 50%+ brand and luxury outlets, entertainment components and unique dining options all within 6 themed neighbourhoods and 6 themed transition courts.
Vaughan Mills includes attractions such as Bass Pro Shops and the world’s largest Pro Hockey Life. Its powerful retail mix offers many Canadian retail “firsts” and “exclusive-to-Vaughan Mills” concepts, such as Holt Renfrew Last Call, Michael Kors Outlet, Juicy Couture Outlet, J. Crew Factory, UGG Australia Outlet, Calvin Klein, Lacoste Outlet, A/X Armani Exchange Outlet, North Face Outlet, Banana Republic Factory Store, and many more.”
We’re still doing our homework on other outlet mall retail coming to Canada. We’ve reported on some already. Soon, there may be no desire to cross the Canadian border to shop in the United States for bargains or otherwise.
What will Canadian stores look like in a few years? Here’s a glimpse of what some experts predict.
Technology will play a big role, not surprisingly, while ‘bricks-and-mortar’ stores will become more ‘entertainment’ based rather than simply a means to a purchase. We’ll post some pics and descriptions.
1) Sales associates on the sales floor with hand-held devices. Auto-charging customer’s accounts via smart phone technology will become common, and is already used at retailers like Nordstrom (see image below).
Image: Nordstrom
2) Cash registers, when used at all, will be streamlined, flexible, and integrate the mobile technology described above. The cash register below is an iPad placed within a bamboo holding.
Image: gizmodo.com
3) In some stores, inventory may not even exist in the “store” environment, but will instead be shipped to your home via a distribution centre. This has already been initiated at the House Of Fraser.com store in Aberdeen, Scotland (though customers often use iPads at H of F to browse merchandise, not unlike Canada’s defunct catalogue store Consumers Distributing).
4) Some retailers will devote less space to sales floor ‘mass product’ while devoting more space to ‘product immersion’. Think Apple Stores, for example.
7) Technology will be integrated into retailing, including this chef’s specials illustrated on digital screens above him. This is a grocery store where LED signage will be used liberally, below.
We can expect new technologies to be quickly integrated into innovative retailers. Canadian Nordstrom stores will certainly use hand-held checkout technology, for example. In the coming years we’ll see store technology that we may not have yet have dreamed of.
Walmart is thinking ‘small’. It’s opening a 2,500 square foot store on a university campus in Atlanta, GA, and already has 3,500 square foot store at a university in Arkansas. Could Walmart ’boutiques’ come to Canada?
It’s a novel idea that might actually work in some markets. Walmart’s low prices within a ‘convenience store’ might be welcomed by those otherwise paying higher prices at smaller stores in locations not served by larger-floorplate discount retailers.
The mini-Walmart will include “ramen noodles, power bars, frozen pizza and soda” (According to this article) as well as some electronics like iPods, peripherals, and grocery items like frozen foods, fresh foods, ‘grab-and-go’ and beverage items.
We may be reporting on what could become a new trend for Walmart in Canada. Target’s Canadian store openings (starting in March) will give Walmart a run for its Canadian money. We’ll keep our ear to the ground to see if any new, interesting retail concepts arrive in Canada.
We got word that Canon’s first store, to be located in Calgary, will be called ‘Image Plus’ and will be located at Calgary’s Eight Avenue Place. This is the world premiere of a retail concept that will soon be seen world-wide. It opens today, January 15th 2013, at 12:00noon.
We reported on this store’s opening yesterday, see link here.
Eighth Avenue Place is located in the heart of Downtown Calgary, very close to the Holt Renfrew department store and Core Shopping Centre. See map below.
We were provided photos of the store by CBRE (thank you!) and we’re posting them, below.
1 of 3
And these two images are from Skyscraper Forum Calgary:
Discount contact lense/eye glass retailer Clearly Contacts is opening a retail storefront at 1049-51 Robson Street in Downtown Vancouver. This is the first of what may become multiple store locations for the company.
Their parent company, Coastal.com was founded in Vancouver in the year 2000 and is one of North America’s largest glasses and contact lens retailers, with over $180million in sales in 2011.
We stumbled across the store’s future storefront while shopping on Vancouver’s Robson Street this weekend. A post-stroll google search produced a link to the Vancouver Skyscraper Forum, where poster VanK posted a link to job postings for the retail shop.
The retail space at 1049-51 Robson Street was formerly occupied by a Little Burgundy shoe store.
We’ll keep in touch with the company and monitor the success of their retail storefront (it will probably do well – we plan on buying glasses there). We’ll let readers know if more Clearly Contacts stores will be opening in Canada.
The world’s first ‘Canon Experience Store’ will open soon in Downtown Calgary. It will be followed by similar locations world-wide. The Calgary location will be about 6000 square feet and “will provide unprecedented customer interaction with Canon, its products and solutions, for both consumer and commercial clients” according to a job ad on Craigslist seeking staff for the store.
We are copying and pasting this content from Petapixel, describing the store:
“According to Canon Rumors, the first of the stores will open in Calgary, Canada; followed by more all around the globe. That piece of news seems to be all but fact. What’s less determined is what exactly these stores will look like.
Rumor has it they will be Apple store-eque: a simple, all white design with plenty of space to try different cameras and lenses. There should also be an educational section to the store, where you can take advantage of a set of iMacs and your local Canon professional.
(Underlining is ours) The coolest of the rumors is that customers will have to walk through an LED tunnel to enter into the store — fingers crossed on this one. Supposedly this will put you in a more creative mood by surrounding you in sights and sounds.
Whatever they end up looking like, the first store should be announced in the coming days, so Calgary residents keep an eye out for LED tunnels and camera equipment.”
This follows more recent trends towards ‘retail as entertainment’. Some retail analysts have speculated that in the age of online shopping, ‘bricks-and-mortar’ stores will become obselete. Canon and other retailers (be it Apple, Tesla Motors or Rolex) are building retail experiences with hopes that customers will attend and experience products rather than shopping online.
Thank you to a retail insider (who didn’t want their name used) for providing us with this tip and article link. If you have any retail related news, gossip or information, feel free to email us at: insider@retail-insider.com
Italian fashion label Miu Miu will open its first Canadian boutique inside of Toronto’s Holt Renfrew department store at 50 Bloor Street West. The company is leasing space on the ground floor of Holt’s and the accessories shop will include bags, jewelry and sunglasses. Toronto’s Miu Miu will open early February, 2013.
Miu Miu has recently opened many new stores worldwide, including numerous shops-in-store like the new Toronto location. More Canadian locations may follow.
Miu Miu was started in 1993 by Miuccia Prada, of Prada fame.
Upscale womenswear designer Ports1961 is closing its two free-standing Canadian stores: One at 717 Burrard Street in Vancouver (already closed at press date) and another at 151 Bloor Street West in Toronto. A Ports1961 shop-in-store at Montreal’s Ogilvy department store will stay open for now.
The women’s label will continue to be carried in Toronto in Vancouver, both within ‘The Room’ at Hudson’s Bay. Men’s Ports1961 will be carried at selected Harry Rosen stores.
The label started in Toronto in 1961 and was called ‘Newport Canada’. In 1994 the label left Canada and became a major fashion label in China, including, currently over 350 stores. In 2004, the label changed its name to Ports1961 and became headquartered in New York City.
The label includes menswear, but the Canadian boutiques in question only carried womenswear.
In 1988, Canadian twins Dan and Dean Caten started designing for Ports International. They are now now world-renowned for their Italy-based fashion label, DSquared2.
The Toronto Ports1961 retail space will be replaced by Stuart Weitzman. We are awaiting permission to reveal the tenant which has already leased the former Vancouver Ports space. No word yet on the fate of the company as a whole.
