KaleMart24, a Montreal-based convenience store chain founded by Oussama Saoudi, is preparing for a rapid expansion across Quebec and Ontario, with nine locations now operating and plans to have at least 22 stores open by the first quarter of 2027.
The first KaleMart24 opened at Montreal’s Berri-UQAM Metro station in March 2024. Saoudi said 17 locations have now been secured, with eight of those under construction and expected to open by the end of the fall, while five additional franchisees are still looking for locations. The company is targeting urban areas with high pedestrian traffic and typically seeks spaces of about 1,000 to 1,500 square feet.
He said the first KaleMart24 location in Toronto will open Saturday at 601 Yonge Street.
Saoudi, a Moroccan-born civil engineer who previously founded a matcha energy-drink company, said KaleMart24 was created to offer an alternative to the traditional convenience store model. The stores retain conventional convenience-store products while emphasizing ready-to-eat meals, smoothies, acai bowls and other products marketed as better-for-you options. He said the company is aiming to surpass 100 locations by the end of 2027.
Oussama SaoudiKaleMart photo
Looking for locations out West
“We’re mostly Quebec and Ontario. Nothing in Calgary or BC yet, but we’re looking for franchisees there. But, you know, we were focusing mostly on Quebec and Ontario, Toronto,” said Saoudi.
“I grew up in Casablanca, Morocco, until I was 17. I moved to France, to Paris, to do engineering. So I’m a civil engineer by education. I spent five years in Paris doing civil engineering, then moved to Canada as part of a double degree with Polytechnique in Montreal, and then decided to stay. And before, when I was an engineering student, I used to be a huge Red Bull consumer.
“I used to drink three, four cans of Red Bull every day. You know, it’s very unhealthy, very caffeinated, gave me jitters. When I came to Canada, that’s where I discovered matcha. Matcha green tea.
“It changed my relationship with caffeine, how I see caffeine. I started drinking matcha every morning in a bottle of water. I stopped drinking Red Bull. My previous company was called Toro Matcha, which was a matcha energy drink. So basically, like a Red Bull can, but with matcha, natural ingredients. We got that company into Costco in Canada, into Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, you know, even in the U.S. with some retailers like Sprouts Markets.”
How the idea for KaleMart came into being
Throughout that journey, he was traveling a lot, going to conferences, travelling the world, seeing what’s going on, and he noticed that the convenience store landscape in Canada and the U.S. was really missing something.
“People go to convenience stores in Canada and the U.S. only to get alcohol, tobacco, or lottery. Whereas, in Europe, in Asia, people are going there for breakfast, for lunch, for snacks, for food. So there is something to do in North America in terms of convenience stores. They need to be revamped to something more premium with better products, with a better destination, better experience.
“That’s where the idea came from for KaleMart24. Once I exited that company, I started KaleMart with the idea of really keeping classic categories of a convenience store, but bringing better-for-you products, better ready-to-eat items, better meals to the people across our stores.
“Because a convenience store, you can open it at every corner in a city, whereas, a supermarket you need higher foot traffic. It’s harder to get the space.”
KaleMart photo
Real estate space opportunity
Saoudi said there are many spaces available for convenience stores that only need 1,000 square feet to 1,500.
“So there is much more opportunity in a convenience store than supermarkets to open many. And all the convenience stores right now in North America are missing that touch of food, better-for-you snacks, a clean experience, nice experience. When you go to a convenience store today in North America, it’s only to get alcohol, cigarettes, or lottery.
“You don’t really go there thinking, “Oh, I’m going to get a smoothie or an acai bowl or food.” You’re going there really to get those three items. And if you look at data, 70 per cent of sales of classic convenience stores such as Couche-Tard, Circle K are coming from tobacco, alcohol, and lottery.
“When you look at KaleMart24, 70 per cent of our sales are coming from ready-to-eat items, smoothies, acai bowls, packaged products like better-for-you products even if it’s chocolate, chips, gums, whatever, but natural products.
KaleMart photo
Changing the convenience store landscape
“We’re changing the convenience store landscape. We’re catering it to people that are looking for these items and our sales are even higher than a classic convenience store, but because people are really coming not just for the classic items, but also for these better-for-you items, for the food component of the concept.”
Saoudi said the brand is looking for high foot traffic areas, dense urban areas. But it’s also looking now at different types of locations to test a different crowd, more like in gas stations or strip malls where people park and go shop.
The typical size of a location is 1,000 to 1,500 square feet. But it can go to bigger stores of up to about 2,000 square feet.
“We’ve tried smaller stores. The smallest we have is 300 square feet. It’s really small. But the problem with those sizes is that we don’t have enough offerings. The store is really small, so we can’t offer as much products as we would want to.”
Editor’s note: The brand’s national expansion is being led by Think Retail, with brokerage founder Tony Flanz overseeing site selection and deal execution across Quebec and Ontario.
Altea has signed a long-term lease for about 51,000 square feet at RioCan REIT’s Bayview and Broadway property in Toronto, with plans to redevelop the space into a wellness club scheduled to open in December 2027.
The deal marks the second project between Altea and RioCan and comes as the Canadian fitness and wellness operator looks for additional sites in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.
Leaside site selected for club
The space at 1860 Bayview Ave. in Toronto’s Leaside neighbourhood is expected to undergo redevelopment beginning in early 2027. Altea said the site met the main criteria it uses when assessing potential locations, including floor space, parking, demographics and the mix of other tenants at the property.
The club will occupy a single level, allowing Altea to include its training floor, studios, recovery facilities and lounge in one space, along with a dedicated HYROX zone. The property also has structured parking, while Altea said the surrounding area provides a dense residential population and existing demand for boutique fitness services.
The company said RioCan is developing an everyday-needs and wellness-oriented tenant mix at the property, with Altea intended to serve as a daily-use component of that offering.
Altea photoAltea photo
“We are highly selective about real estate,” said David Wu, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of Altea. “We look at 10 sites to do one deal. The floor plate, the ceiling height, the parking and the demographics all have to work. If one of them is off, we pass. Bayview has all four. No two properties are the same, so we sit down with the landlord and work out the design and the deal structure that makes a club fit their asset. This is the second time we have done that with RioCan. We expect to announce further locations in British Columbia and Alberta over the coming months, and we are actively reviewing sites.”
Expansion plans
Altea said its clubs are designed as daily-use facilities, with training, studio fitness, recovery and lounge and coworking areas housed together. The company said that model is intended to generate regular member visits and allow customers to use the facilities throughout the day.
The clubs are built without aquatic facilities, with recovery offerings including contrast therapy, sauna, cold plunge, compression and massage. Altea said that approach allows it to consider a wider range of existing retail properties for conversion and cited previous projects involving a former Lowe’s in Edmonton and a former Cineplex in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood.
The new Leaside club is expected to include a full training floor and studios for Reformer Pilates, Mat Pilates, Yoga, Barre, Strength & Conditioning, LF3 small-group strength, Running + Turf with HYROX-style conditioning, Boxing and Cycle. It will also include recovery facilities, a smoothie bar and lounge and coworking space, with interiors using natural stone and wood.
“Our job is to build the best club a member has ever belonged to,” said Jeff York, Chief Executive Officer of Altea. “Everything is in one building — the studios, the training floor, recovery and the lounge — so a member isn’t paying for two or three memberships and driving between them. Members join because the place feels good, and they stay because they get fitter. That is what makes us a tenant a landlord wants for twenty years. Leaside will be built the same way.”
Altea photo
More sites under consideration
Altea said it is seeking properties in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, with flexibility around development structures that include build-to-suit projects, conversions of existing retail space and locations within mixed-use developments.
The company is generally seeking about 50,000 to 60,000 square feet for a standard club, more than 80,000 square feet for a large-format destination club and about 30,000 square feet for an urban AVANT-format location. Single-level properties are strongly preferred, while parking, ceiling heights, column spacing and the characteristics of the surrounding trade area are also part of its site criteria.
The company’s first project with RioCan, Altea Ottawa at 1660 Carling Ave., remains its largest club.
Altea currently operates four clubs in Canada in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto, along with AVANT by Altea in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood. Two additional clubs are under construction: a 125,000-square-foot location in west Edmonton targeted to open in the first quarter of 2027 and a 54,000-square-foot location at Oakridge Park in Vancouver targeted to open in the second quarter of 2027.
The company is also developing a 59,000-square-foot club at 1651 Queen St. E. in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood on a former Cineplex property, with an opening targeted for 2028.
Familiarity with the location
York said he knows Leaside from his Farm Boy days.
“We opened our biggest store in Toronto there, and Longo’s put their flagship there 10 years before that. Grocers don’t do that unless the neighbourhood is strong, and the same people who shop those stores are the people who join our clubs,” he said.
“At every one of our clubs, more than 60 per cent of the members are university-educated women, and they come in three or four times a week. That’s the customer every premium retailer wants on their site, and it’s the same customer Farm Boy built its business on. There hasn’t been a premium fitness option in Leaside because no building has been big enough to support one. Bayview & Broadway gives us a space that’s already the right size and shape, on a main street, easy to get in and out of, with structured parking.”
Getting the traffic
York said members show up three or four times a week and stay an hour or more.
“Most retailers would love that kind of traffic, and the other tenants on the site benefit. When a landlord has a big empty box, an old cinema, or a podium that’s hard to lease, we can take the whole thing on a long-term lease instead of them chopping it up into small units. We’ve done conversions, taken over a grocery box, and built a club on three floors of a new tower. We build to the building,” he said.
Future expansion targets
Over the next three to four years, Altea expects to add four greenfield deals in Calgary and Edmonton using its new 85,000 square foot prototype, plus two large retail conversions in the Vancouver market, 90,000 to 100,000 square foot former retail boxes, both in development now,” said Wu.
“There’s more coming in Ontario as well. We’re not chasing a number. We’d rather open a few great clubs a year than a lot of average ones, and the pipeline right now is the deepest it’s been,” he said.
Altea photo
Challenges finding 50,000 to 60,000 square feet sites
Finding the square footage isn’t the hard part. It’s finding demographics, visibility, access, parking, and ceiling heights all on the same site, explained Wu.
“Most older big boxes were built for retailers who didn’t need the height, and urban sites are usually short on parking. The neighbourhoods we want tend to be built out, so we must be creative about where the club goes. Our Vancouver club is 43,000 square feet over three floors of a brand-new office building, and it’s one of our best. Bayview is a single-level former grocery box. Layer on construction costs and how long approvals take in the big cities, and that’s why we look at 10 sites for every one we sign,” he said.
Second deal with the same landlord, long-term leases, and redevelopment flexibility
“When a landlord comes back for a second deal, it’s because they’ve seen what we do to a building. We put serious capital into every club, well beyond what a typical retail tenant spends, and the landlord ends up with a completely different asset than the one we walked into,” noted York.
“Our Ottawa club was a vacant former retail box on Carling Avenue. Today it’s a 129,000-square-foot premium wellness destination with nine boutique studios, a 25-metre pool, pickleball courts, a dedicated HYROX training zone, a women’s-only fitness suite, a recovery lounge, saunas and steam rooms, a kids’ club, coworking space, and a café and bar. It’s the biggest club in the city, and it draws people to that property every day of the week.
“That’s why we need long leases. We’re not putting that kind of money into a 10-year deal. That’s why we look for landlords willing to work through the redevelopment with us. We keep doing business with asset managers who understand that trade.”
Todd Daniels says Gallery Streetwear was years in the making before it opened its doors in downtown Kelowna in 2024, bringing a curated selection of exclusive streetwear brands to a market he believed was missing something different.
Daniels, founder and owner of the boutique at 588 Bernard Ave., said the concept had been developing for about two decades. After working in the board sports industry and seeing once-exclusive brands become widely available, he decided to build a store focused on limited releases, independent labels and customer experience rather than volume. The shop carries apparel, footwear and accessories with influences from skateboarding, golf and contemporary streetwear culture.
Despite opening during a challenging period for retail, Daniels said the business has continued to grow by emphasizing exclusivity, community and a strong online presence. He said Gallery Streetwear has attracted customers from across Canada and visiting tourists alike, while future expansion into larger markets such as Toronto and Vancouver remains a long-term goal.
Todd DanielsTodd Daniels
The store is located on the main strip in downtown Kelowna and consists of about 1,550 square feet.
“It’s right on the main thoroughfare. It would be like your Robson Street of Vancouver. It’s right in the main section,” said Daniels.
“We have a mix of stuff. It’s mainly what we call streetwear, which is kind of an urban term for cool menswear and womenswear now. We do some stuff mixed with skateboard culture. We’re not necessarily a skateboard shop. We carry some decks just because it’s fun, but we’re not a skateboard shop. A lot of streetwear culture has its roots in skateboarding.
“We also carry golf apparel, but streetwear golf, so it’s kind of a young, more urban golf vibe . . . We do brands that you won’t find anywhere else. We don’t do mall brands. In fact, I have this kind of set policy: if certain shops carry it, we don’t. Our shop is based on more of an exclusivity or scarcity model, so we don’t carry huge amounts of most brands. We kind of prefer to sell out. I don’t love having tons of inventory.
“We also sell shoes.”
Gallery Streetwear photo
Daniels grew up in Kelowna. As a professional snowboarder when he was younger, he travelled the world.
“I’ve always been into this kind of culture. I was really into board sports like skateboarding as well. I worked quite a few other jobs too. I lived in the woods being a fire watcher,” he said.
Over the years, he helped start up other retail stores.
The current store concept came along later.
“We kind of hit the right note at the right time. We got away from generic and the same. I don’t even want to say young people because we have a pretty good age range. With the golf category, we just kind of hit the right crowd as far as what I would call social affluence,” said Daniels.
“We’re not super cheap. We’re at a little bit higher price point.
“I believe people should come into our store and have an experience. Otherwise, they’ll just walk and go somewhere else. We have to treat every single person well. I treat selling a T-shirt like selling a snowboard or a car. You teach them about the materials and why it costs what it does because we tend to be higher priced. We explain it, and we have stories behind every brand. I think that’s helped too because people come in, and they just like hanging out. We have a very big community vibe.
Gallery Streetwear photo
When the stores gets people from the bigger cities, especially from Japan and from New York, they’re amazed. “This is a shop from a big city.”
“We do really well when people drop by. They say, “We wish we had this in our bigger city.”
“I would like to expand. I just have to make this one pay for itself. It’s paying for itself, but I want to make sure of that before we expand. I’ve seen other board shops expand, and they just blew up because they didn’t really contain each of the locations. A lot of them do well for six months, and because they’re not there and they have management, they end up imploding.
“It has to be timed. If I had one in Toronto, I’d have to be there for a year or two, which I’m fine with. I’m very hands-on.”
Beverage company Oatly recently transformed a narrow storefront on the popular Ossington Avenue in Toronto into a fully realized, monochromatic-green hotel world. Its Matcha-tality Suite.
It was part luxury suite, part visual joke, and part physical expression of the Oatly Matcha brand.
Rather than build a traditional branded pop-up, their creative team treated the space like an actual hotel suite and designed every detail around that fiction: a green bedroom and bathroom, a bathtub filled with Matcha cartons, retro hotel-room objects, custom robes and sleep masks, “stolen from the suite” amenities, a faux balcony overlooking Niagara Falls, room-service styling and an entirely green exterior takeover.
The intention was to create something that felt like a coherent interior and visual identity rather than a collection of branded touchpoints – essentially turning the product’s colour and personality into an inhabitable space.
What was the thinking behind turning Oatly’s Matcha-tality concept into a fully realized hotel suite, rather than a more traditional branded pop-up or retail activation?
We wanted to create something people could actually enter and experience, rather than simply walk past or sample from. The hotel-suite concept gave us a much richer creative framework to work with because it let us build an entire world around Matcha, not just a branded footprint.
A traditional pop-up can sometimes feel like a series of product messages and photo moments. With the Matcha-tality Suite, we could create a space with its own logic, humor and personality, where everything from the room service to the robes to the bathroom details helped tell the same story. That gave people more reasons to stay, explore, interact and ultimately connect with the product in a much more memorable way.
Oatly photo
How did your creative team translate the Matcha-tality concept into the physical design of the Ossington Avenue space, from the monochromatic green palette to the furnishings, bathroom, faux balcony and hotel-room details?
Once we committed to the idea of a hotel suite, the creative challenge became making that fiction feel complete.
The monochromatic green palette was the starting point because it immediately connected the space back to Matcha and gave us a strong visual system to build from. From there, the team treated every element as if it belonged in a real hotel room, just filtered through Oatly’s perspective.
That meant thinking about the bedroom, bathroom, wet bar, room-service moments, toiletries, robes, slippers, the retro phone, glassware and even the view outside the “balcony.”
The faux Niagara-front view is probably the clearest example of the tone we were aiming for. It looks polished and immersive, but there is still a joke embedded in it. That balance between craft and absurdity is very Oatly.
Oatly photo
What role did the narrow storefront and the Ossington Avenue location play in shaping the design and overall visitor experience?
The narrow footprint actually helped the concept because it naturally created a sequence of spaces rather than one large open room. As people moved through the Suite, they discovered different parts of the hotel world one by one, which made the experience feel more layered and gave us more opportunities for surprise.
Ossington also felt like the right setting because it already has such a strong mix of food, fashion, hospitality and independent retail. We wanted the activation to feel like it belonged in the neighborhood rather than being dropped into it as a temporary branded installation. The location helped us reach people who are already culturally curious and used to discovering new restaurants, shops and experiences in that part of Toronto.
How did Oatly approach balancing the playful elements and visual humour of the suite with the goal of creating a cohesive, immersive environment that people would actually want to spend time in?
The humour only works if the world itself feels convincing.
We did not want the space to feel like a collection of jokes or props. The creative team was very intentional about making the visual language consistent from room to room so that the playful details felt like they belonged inside one coherent environment.
That meant obsessing over things that might seem small: the styling, materials, signage, objects, uniforms, glassware, props and how the product showed up throughout the space. The jokes are there, but they are embedded in a place that still feels designed, considered and comfortable enough that people actually want to hang out in it.
Oatly photo
What did Oatly learn from the Matcha-tality Suite about using physical spaces and experiential design to build a connection between a product and consumers?
The biggest takeaway is that physical spaces can make a product feel much more dimensional.
People are surrounded by product messaging all day, so simply telling them why they should care is rarely enough. Experiential design gives you an opportunity to create a feeling around a product and let people discover it for themselves.
With the Matcha-tality Suite, the product became part of a broader experience that people could taste, photograph, talk about and spend time inside. That kind of interaction creates a different kind of memory than a traditional ad or sampling moment.
It also reinforced something we believe strongly at Oatly: when you create something people genuinely want to participate in, the brand message travels further because consumers become part of telling the story themselves.
Procurement in retail has always felt a bit like juggling several things at once. Buyers need to lock in the right products at solid prices from suppliers they can actually trust. At the same time, they have to keep inventory lined up with demand that can swing pretty fast.
Most of this work used to happen through spreadsheets, calls, and experience. That’s starting to look different. AI is what’s pushing the shift.
The Procurement Challenges Retailers Face Today
Ask any retail buyer what’s keeping them up, and the same challenges surface.
Supplier management is the big one. A mid-sized retailer can work with hundreds of suppliers, each bringing different lead times, payment terms, and quality track records. Keeping track by hand is almost impossible.
Then there’s price volatility.
Raw material costs swing fast
Shipping rates jump without warning
Currency moves can erase a margin before anyone notices
By the time a buyer spots the shift, the damage is often done.
Customer demand adds another layer. Trends spike and fade in weeks. Seasonal patterns no longer follow the old rules. Forecasting starts to feel like a guessing game.
On top of everything, many procurement teams are still stuck in manual work. Purchase orders get typed by hand. Approvals sit in inboxes. Supplier data lives in systems that don’t talk to each other.
For retailers facing these issues, Artificial Intelligence in procurement helps lighten the load. It takes care of routine tasks, digs into purchasing data, and backs faster, more confident decisions. Skip that support and the opposite happens—slower choices, more mistakes, and less time for the work that actually matters.
5 Ways Retailers Are Applying AI to Procurement
AI isn’t taking over procurement jobs. It’s handling the repetitive number-crunching that used to eat up most of the day. These are the areas where the impact shows up most clearly.
Spend Analysis
Tools dig through years of buying history and sort spending by supplier, category, and SKU fast. That visibility often spots duplication across teams and points to consolidation that lowers costs.
Demand Forecasting
Models pull in sales data, seasonality, promotions, weather, and social signals to forecast actual demand. Procurement can then order closer to what customers will buy instead of building excess stock.
Supplier Evaluation
AI scores suppliers on delivery, quality, responsiveness, and pricing consistency on an ongoing basis—not just once a year. Buyers get a much clearer view of real performance.
Purchase-Order Automation
Once inventory hits a set level, routine orders can be generated, approved, and sent without the usual manual steps. Processing time shrinks, and people get more room for the higher-value work.
Risk Monitoring
Systems track news, financial reports, and logistics data to flag potential problems early—factory issues, bankruptcies, port delays. Retailers get time to find alternatives before supply is affected.
How AI Is Changing Supplier Relationships
One noticeable shift from AI in procurement is the change in buyer-supplier dynamics. Hard data replaces personal relationships or sales talk as the basis for comparisons, so negotiations feel more objective. Buyers arrive knowing exactly how a supplier’s pricing and delivery compare.
Monitoring moves from periodic to continuous. Suppliers see they’re being measured on real metrics, which often improves accountability. AI can also flag a likely late shipment early, giving buyers a chance to raise it before it becomes a crisis.
Negotiations end up better informed and relationships more open. Strong performers get more volume. Others receive a clear explanation backed by data.
The Link Between Procurement, Inventory and Sales
Most retail teams still treat procurement, inventory, and sales as separate functions. AI is beginning to pull them together.
Link purchasing data with live inventory and reordering improves. Let sales trends guide buying decisions, and orders track what people are actually purchasing. Results include:
Less surplus stock in warehouses
Fewer markdowns
Better availability in stores and online
That connection is where the financial upside sits. Excess inventory drains cash and margins. Stockouts frustrate customers and cost sales. AI lets teams manage the balance more steadily than manual processes could.
How to Introduce AI Into Retail Procurement
Trying to roll out AI everywhere at once usually falls flat. It makes more sense to begin with simple, repetitive processes such as purchase-order generation. The ROI is easy to track, and the downside is limited.
That said, the data has to be in decent shape first. Cleaning up supplier records, standardizing SKU data, and centralizing procurement information gives the tools something reliable to work with. The old “garbage in, garbage out” rule applies here more than almost anywhere else.
Integration matters too. AI doesn’t work well bolted onto the side of existing systems; it needs to connect with ERP, inventory management, and supplier portals. And throughout the process, human review should remain in place — especially for high-value orders and supplier decisions. AI is a decision-support tool, not an autopilot.
What the Future Could Look Like
Procurement is becoming predictive. AI flags low stock or price spikes early and suggests actions. Automation also spreads into contracts, invoicing, and compliance.
Supplier scoring and risk alerts move into everyday workflows. Teams then focus on strategy—category planning, supplier development, sustainability—while the system handles execution.
Retailers that adopt it carefully, with clean data and realistic goals, can improve efficiency. It gives teams more time for decisions that still require human judgment.
Conclusion
AI isn’t some future concept in retail procurement anymore. It’s starting to show the difference between retailers who just react and the ones who can actually plan ahead.
Companies already using it are making decisions faster, working better with suppliers, keeping stock leaner, and protecting their margins. The ones still waiting risk getting left behind by competitors who forecast demand earlier, spot problems sooner, and negotiate with better data.
The technology itself isn’t the advantage. It’s how you use it—letting AI handle the speed while people handle the judgment and the relationships. With margins this tight and customers expecting more, that mix is getting hard to ignore.
A storefront window has one job, and it is not decoration. It has to interrupt a person who is already walking somewhere else. For most of the last decade it lost that fight to the phone in the shopper’s hand, a device engineered by some of the best-funded companies on earth to hold attention and give none of it back. Retailers responded the way the numbers told them to: less money in the window, more money in the feed.
That calculation is shifting. Digital advertising has grown more expensive and less reliable at the same time, while the sidewalk in front of a store remains one of the few audiences a retailer does not have to bid for. The people moving past a Queen Street West storefront, or through a mall concourse on a Saturday, are already in a shopping posture and already within a few steps of the door. They are unclaimed by any platform. The window is the last piece of genuinely owned media most retailers still have, and a growing number of them have started treating it that way.
The Window Lost Its Audience Slowly
The decline was gradual enough that most operators never made a decision about it. Visual merchandising budgets were trimmed. Seasonal installs went from four a year to two. Mannequins stayed in place long enough that staff stopped seeing them, which is usually the point at which customers stopped seeing them too.
The sightline problem got worse at the same time. Storefronts migrated into mixed-use podiums with deeper setbacks and more glazing, a combination that photographs beautifully and flattens the view from the sidewalk at any angle other than straight on. A static window has a narrow window of its own. It works on the shopper looking directly at it, from roughly head-on, during the two or three seconds they spend passing the glass. Everyone approaching at an angle, walking the far side of the street, or scanning a concourse for a specific banner gets nothing at all. The display is technically visible and functionally invisible.
Motion Is the Cheapest Form of Attention
Human peripheral vision is poor at resolving detail and very good at detecting movement. That asymmetry is old news to anyone who has worked a trade show floor, where a rotating display will pull a crowd away from a better product sitting still fifteen feet away. It is the cheapest lever in retail presentation and the one most storefronts have quietly stopped pulling.
Flat screens are the obvious answer and a partly successful one. They are bright, easy to source, simple to schedule, and unmistakably screens. A shopper walking past a 55-inch panel in a window reads it the way they read every other panel in the building, which is to say they skip it. Screens solve the motion problem and inherit a credibility problem, because looking exactly like a hundred other surfaces competing for the same glance is not a neutral design choice.
What a Holographic Fan Display Actually Does
The format that has moved fastest into storefronts over the past few seasons takes a different approach. A set of blades studded with addressable LEDs spins fast enough to paint an image into the air. Because the blades disappear at speed and the frame behind them is matte black, the image appears to float, attached to nothing. A product rotates in mid-air at eye level. A logo assembles itself out of empty space and dissolves again.
Calling it a hologram is a stretch in the optical sense. It is persistence of vision, the same principle as a sparkler drawing a shape in the dark on Canada Day. But the perceptual effect is what matters commercially, and the effect is that the image has no bezel, no glare rectangle and no visible edge, so the brain does not file it under advertising. Shoppers stop. More usefully, they point, and then they film. A commercial 3D hologram fan is available in sizes from roughly 16 inches across, suitable for a countertop or a queue line, up to life-size units built for an atrium or a double-height window, with content loaded from an SD card or pushed over a local network.
The operating economics are unusual for retail hardware. A mid-size unit costs less than a single month of a modest paid social campaign, draws less power than a desk lamp, and carries no recurring media spend at all. Once it is mounted and loaded, the cost of running it is electricity and content.
Match the Display to the Sightline, Not the Budget
The most common installation mistake is buying on price and then discovering the display is too small to register from where people actually stand. Sizing should start with viewing distance and work backwards to the invoice, not the other way around.
As a working rule, the image needs to occupy a meaningful share of the viewer’s field of vision at the distance they first encounter it. A 16-inch unit reads well from roughly two to four metres, which covers a service counter, a lineup, or a narrow storefront on a tight street. A 39-inch unit holds up across a standard mall corridor or a sidewalk with a modest setback. Anything wider than a corridor, including an atrium, a two-storey window or an anchor entrance, needs a life-size unit or several smaller ones tiled and driven as a single canvas.
Ambient light deserves as much attention as distance. These displays are emissive and they compete directly with daylight. A south-facing window at two in the afternoon in July will wash out an underpowered unit completely, and no amount of content work will fix it afterwards. Brightness specifications are worth reading closely and worth testing on site before the install is signed off rather than after.
The Content Is the Product
Hardware is the smaller half of this investment, and retailers routinely get the proportion backwards. A holographic display running a stock rotating logo is a novelty that exhausts its audience inside a week. These units earn their place when the content is specific: the actual product, modelled or shot cleanly, turning slowly against black.
Three constraints govern content that works in this format. Backgrounds must be pure black, because black is how the display renders transparency, and anything lighter becomes a visible rectangle that collapses the floating effect entirely. Detail must be coarse, since effective resolution is low compared with a panel and fine type, thin rules and subtle gradients simply vanish. Loops should be short, ideally eight to fifteen seconds, because a passing shopper sees one loop and never the second.
Retailers who already hold 3D product assets have a real head start here. Footwear, eyewear, jewellery, small electronics and packaged goods brands often have models built for e-commerce configurators that need only a lighting pass and a black background to become display content. Anyone without them can commission a single asset per campaign for less than the cost of a conventional window install.
Power, Noise, Safety and the Landlord
Four practical considerations decide whether an installation survives its first quarter.
Power is the easy one. A standard outlet will do, ideally on the same circuit and timer as the window lighting so the unit is not left spinning in an empty store overnight or, more commonly, switched off during peak hours because nobody was told it was there.
Noise is the surprise. Spinning blades move air, and a unit mounted near a cash desk or a fitting room produces a hum that staff will notice long before any customer does. Windows and vestibules absorb it. Quiet interiors amplify it, and a display that irritates the team is a display that gets unplugged.
Safety is not negotiable. Blades turning at speed belong behind glass, inside an acrylic enclosure, or mounted high enough that nobody can reach into the rotation plane. Reputable units ship with proximity sensors that cut the motor when something enters that plane, and in any location accessible to children that feature should be treated as a requirement rather than a selling point.
Landlord approval is the step most often skipped and the most expensive to skip. Shopping centre operators maintain signage and display standards covering brightness, motion, projection into common areas and hours of operation. A display facing a concourse is a conversation with the centre’s operations team, and that conversation costs considerably less before the unit is mounted than after.
How to Tell Whether It Worked
Attribution for a window display is imperfect, which is not the same as impossible. Three measures are practical for almost any operator.
Door count against a control period is the bluntest and the most useful: traffic for the two weeks after install compared against the two weeks before, and against the same weeks at a comparable location without the display. Conversion on the specific item featured, tracked at the point of sale, separates whether the display moved that product or simply moved people through the door. Staff observation, gathered deliberately rather than anecdotally, catches what neither number can, including whether shoppers stop, whether they photograph the display, and whether they walk in asking about the item by name.
Social capture is worth tracking on its own. A display that shoppers film and post is producing distribution the retailer never paid for, and that effect concentrates heavily in the first few weeks before novelty wears down. Rotating content quarterly, instead of leaving a single loop running indefinitely, keeps a meaningful share of it alive.
The Window as a Standing Invitation
The argument for reinvesting in the storefront is not really about technology. It is about where the cheapest remaining attention sits. A retailer pays repeatedly, and at rising rates, for every impression on a platform it does not own. It pays once for the window, and the audience walks past it every day the doors are open.
What has changed is that the window can now do something a printed graphic and a pair of mannequins cannot. It can move. It can hold a product in the air at eye level. And it can do all of that without announcing itself as one more screen in a building already full of them. The retailers getting real value out of it are not the ones who bought the largest unit in the catalogue. They are the ones who treated the window as a channel, with a content calendar, a named owner and a number attached to it, in exactly the way they would treat any other line in the media plan.
The best window displays were never the most expensive ones. They were the ones somebody was responsible for.
Retail sustainability has moved past setting targets. The real test now is whether companies can hit those targets at scale and across supply chains that run through dozens of countries and regulatory systems.
Retail Council of Canada built this year’s Retail Sustainability Conference around this shift. The conference runs October 27-28 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and the agenda, posted at rccretailsustainability.ca, centers on execution: packaging, extended producer responsibility, textile circularity and fleet transitions, led by the retailers and manufacturers already doing the work.
Global Perspectives, Shared Challenges
The mainstage conference program combines global sustainability leadership with examples of implementation across the retail ecosystem.
Kathleen McLaughlin, Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Walmart, brings one of the world’s largest retail and supply-chain organizations to the mainstage, sharing the opportunities to influence change across suppliers, packaging, recyclability and circularity.
Canadian perspectives will also feature prominently. A discussion on textile circularity brings together Holt Renfrew, Canadian Tire and Goodwill Ontario Great Lakes, while Allen Langdon, CEO of Circular Materials, will examine the evolution of packaging and paper EPR with Restaurant Brands International.
The conference closes with a fireside chat between Ann Tracy, Chief Sustainability Officer at Colgate-Palmolive and Kim Furlong, President and CEO of RCC, on how a global manufacturer moves circularity, packaging and emissions reduction from strategy to execution.
Together, the conversations reflect the interconnected nature of today’s sustainability challenges. Packaging design affects recyclability; collection and recycling systems affect material availability; and policy can either support greater scale or add complexity across jurisdictions.
Moving Beyond the Main Stage
That need for collaboration is also behind the return of the conference’s interactive workshops, following strong response from attendees last year.
Two half-day workshops open the conference on October 27.
A Recycled Content Workshop, developed with Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Association of Plastic Recyclers, will bring together retailers, producers, recyclers, governments and other stakeholders to examine material supply and quality, standards, recycling infrastructure, end markets, EPR, policy approaches and the cost gap between new and recycled materials.
A dedicated ZEV Workshop will explore the transition to zero-emission delivery, including fleet strategies, commercial charging infrastructure, incentives and funding. IKEA will also share lessons from its transition to zero-emission vehicles in last-mile delivery and the role collaboration with logistics partners is playing in that work.
The workshop format is designed to allow participants to compare experiences across organizations and jurisdictions, identify barriers and discuss potential solutions with those directly involved in implementation.
Recognizing Measurable Progress
New this year, the conference will conclude with the inaugural Retail Sustainability Excellence Awards Gala, recognizing 60 finalists across 10 categories and putting a spotlight on organizations demonstrating leadership, innovation and measurable results.
The evening will also introduce the Retail Sustainable Leader Awards, recognizing Kathleen McLaughlin and Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson, for their leadership in advancing sustainability within global retail and consumer products.
With more than 600 retailers, manufacturers, suppliers, sustainability professionals, government representatives and other industry stakeholders expected to participate, the conference brings together perspectives that don’t always sit at the same table, giving attendees ideas and relationships they can put to work right away.
Welcome to the Daily Synopsis by Retail Insider. We hope you enjoy the 11 articles we published covering key developments in Canadian retail. Here are a couple highlights with a full list of the day’s articles thereafter.
Harry Rosen has launched its largest single-store investment with a new 38,000-square-foot flagship in Toronto’s Yorkville, replacing its longtime Bloor Street location. Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto is experiencing significant tenant reshuffling, highlighted by Indigo downsizing by 31% and relocating, Zara expanding into the former Old Navy space, and luxury brands such as Gucci, Rolex, and Van Cleef & Arpels opening or relocating boutiques. Cineplex has appointed Bill Walker as its new CEO and initiated a strategic review that includes the potential sale of the company to maximize shareholder value.
Makers, a retail concept showcasing Canadian artisans’ handmade goods through a membership model allowing vendors to keep all their sales revenue, has expanded to Saskatoon’s Midtown Shopping Centre following success in Regina. DAVIDsTEA is planning further expansion of its Canadian store network in 2027 following a rebound in comparable-store sales and improved margins, with physical retail now driving growth more than digital or wholesale channels.
Healthy Planet is launching a $1-million media grant aimed at helping emerging Canadian health and wellness brands increase their exposure through the retailer’s stores and e-commerce channel.
The Homegrown Grant will provide selected brands with Healthy Planet media value through visibility and promotional programs, with the company saying the initiative is intended to help smaller Canadian businesses reach more consumers.
Grant targets emerging brands
The program is being announced ahead of CHFA NOW Toronto, an event that brings together health, wellness and organic brands from across Canada. The company says the grant is focused on brands that are Canadian-owned and headquartered, family-owned or founder-led, and new to its shelves.
Rather than accepting applications, Healthy Planet will use its own sales data and selection criteria to shortlist eligible brands. The company said shortlisted businesses will be contacted directly with information about the program and next steps.
“We have been a Canadian family business since 1995, and we remember what it took to get noticed,” said Muhammad Mohamedy, General Manager at Healthy Planet. “Today we meet founders with wonderful products who are up against global brands whose marketing budgets they will never match. Visibility is the one thing we can give them that they would otherwise have to buy. When a shopper discovers a homegrown brand and comes back for it, that brand gets to hire someone, add a product, and stay on the shelf. That is the impact we are after.”
The $1 million in media value will be divided among the selected brands and used to provide additional exposure through Healthy Planet’s retail locations and e-commerce operation.
Increased consumer interest in Buy Canadian
Healthy Planet says the initiative reflects its position as a Canadian-owned, family-run business and its experience working with local brands. The company said it sees increased interest among consumers in buying Canadian and supporting local businesses as an opportunity to help emerging brands gain visibility.
The grant is specifically aimed at companies early in their development that have not previously been carried by Healthy Planet. The retailer will determine which businesses receive support rather than using an open application process.
Healthy Planet says the selected brands will receive further information directly as the program moves forward.
Harry Rosen store at 153 Cumberland Street. Image via Harry Rosen
Harry Rosen has opened its new 38,000-square-foot flagship at 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood, marking what the company says is the largest single store investment in its more than 70-year history.
The three-storey flagship officially opened Wednesday morning, replacing Harry Rosen’s longtime location at 82 Bloor Street West, which closed earlier this month after nearly four decades at the address. The Cumberland store is the centrepiece of a previously announced $50-million, five-year investment program to transform the company’s Canadian retail network.
“This is the centrepiece or cornerstone of our $50-million spend,” Graham Rosen said during an opening-day tour with Retail Insider. “It’s the largest single investment in our company’s history.”
The move represents a significant transition for a retailer whose identity has been closely tied to Bloor Street for more than half a century. It also provides a look at how Harry Rosen is rethinking the role of a large physical store when customers can browse merchandise, check inventory and make purchases without leaving home.
For Ian Rosen, President and CEO of Harry Rosen, that reality made the move from Bloor onto Cumberland particularly consequential.
“When you move off of Bloor Street, you have to build something worth walking to,” Rosen said. The mandate given to Toronto-based dkstudio architects inc., which designed the flagship, was to create what he described as a “beacon” and a destination customers would actively seek out.
Rosen family members, dkstudio, and Kingsett Capital at the ribbon cutting for the new Harry Rosen at 153 Cumberland St. in Toronto on Wednesday morning. Photo: Harry Rosen
More Than 55 Years on Bloor Street
Harry Rosen’s presence on Bloor Street dates to 1970, when the company opened a roughly 4,000-square-foot store as the luxury shopping district was taking shape. In 1987, the retailer moved next door into 82 Bloor Street West, creating a roughly 32,000-square-foot flagship over three levels.
Two additional floors were added in 2008, ultimately taking the store beyond 50,000 square feet. The flagship closed September 12 as the property awaits eventual redevelopment, ending almost 39 years at 82 Bloor and more than 55 years of Harry Rosen operating directly on Bloor Street.
The new store is smaller than the five-level flagship it replaces, but the comparison illustrates how Harry Rosen’s priorities have changed. At Cumberland, considerably more space has been allocated to inventory, hospitality, private appointments and customer service, while the selling floors have been designed to feel more open.
Larry Rosen, who led the company for decades before Ian Rosen became President and CEO, toured the store with Retail Insider shortly before its opening. For him, the expectations for the replacement of 82 Bloor were straightforward.
“This is our flagship. It has to be spectacular,” Rosen said, crediting dkstudio with creating a store that was “designed to wow.”
The relocation also presented an unusual real estate opportunity. Harry Rosen occupies the Cumberland-facing ground-floor retail space at 153 Cumberland as well as former office space on the second and third levels of the 130 Bloor Street West complex. Landlord KingSett Capital says approximately 32,000 square feet of former office space was converted to retail as part of the project.
According to KingSett, the conversion increased high-street retail’s share of the property from 13 per cent to 31 per cent. The project is a notable office-to-retail conversion at a time when much of the discussion around downtown commercial real estate has focused on finding alternative uses for older office space.
Staircase at Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
Transforming Offices Into Luxury Retail
Creating the upper retail levels required substantial work. During the opening-day tour, the Rosens and Dmytriy Pereklita of dkstudio recalled standing in what was then raw office space filled with exposed electrical systems, pipes and mechanical infrastructure and considering whether it could realistically become a luxury retail environment.
The second floor had low ceilings in places, with mechanical systems dropping to roughly eight or nine feet. Ian Rosen said ceilings were ultimately raised while water pipes and mains had to be relocated.
The resulting store has an unconventional configuration. The ground floor addresses Cumberland Street, while the expansive second level stretches through the building toward Bloor Street. Portions of the upper store also have visibility toward Bloor.
Instead of attempting to disguise the unusual footprint, dkstudio used it as part of the architectural narrative connecting the three levels.
Patrick Assaraf collection near Hugo Boss on the main floor of Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
A More Flexible Harry Rosen
The Cumberland entrance opens into a contemporary sportswear environment featuring denim, casual clothing and brands including BOSS and Patrick Assaraf. A dedicated Zegna boutique occupies a prominent corner and was still receiving finishing touches when Retail Insider toured the flagship on opening morning. A sweeping central staircase immediately signals that much of the store lies upstairs.
The merchandising strategy is intentionally less rigid than at the former Bloor location. Ian Rosen said 82 Bloor contained roughly 16 defined branded areas, while Cumberland reduces the reliance on permanent shop-in-shop environments in favour of spaces Harry Rosen can continually refresh.
Rosen said some presentations could change every three or four weeks, giving repeat customers a greater chance of encountering something new.
Major international labels still maintain distinctive identities within the flagship, but the approach gives Harry Rosen greater control over how collections sit together and how the floor evolves over time.
Second floor footwear at Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
Drawing Customers Upstairs
One of the project’s defining architectural features is its sweeping staircase, positioned near the entrance within a large vertical opening connecting the principal retail levels.
It also addresses a practical problem faced by multi-level retailers: getting customers beyond the ground floor. Rosen said considerable attention was paid to opening sightlines and creating an immediate sense on arrival that there was more to discover above.
The staircase has a white-steel exterior that gives way to a walnut lining and richly veined white granite treads. The contrast was conceived in much the same way as a tailored garment, where a relatively restrained exterior can reveal more intricate craftsmanship within.
The atrium creates a strong vertical perspective through the store. The design firm also draws a subtle connection to Turin, where views along historic streets can terminate against the rising Alps, pulling the eye toward the distance.
Arch leading the second floor tailoring dept. at Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
Luxury, Tailoring and Hospitality Upstairs
The second level contains the largest amount of selling space and brings together luxury designer collections, footwear, accessories, fragrance and tailoring.
Harry Rosen’s assortment includes names such as Brunello Cucinelli, Kiton, Tom Ford, Canali and Giorgio Armani. The brands retain distinct identities, but the overall environment is more open than the series of enclosed boutiques traditionally associated with multi-brand luxury retail.
Ian Rosen described the designer sequence as retaining some of the “high street” quality customers knew from 82 Bloor while allowing considerably longer sightlines through the new flagship.
Tailoring is integrated into the floor rather than treated simply as a department for conventional business suits. Suiting, sport jackets and related categories can be brought together across brands, while fitting salons provide more private environments for customers working with advisors.
One of the biggest differences between the old and new flagships, however, is largely invisible to customers.
Brunello Cucinelli shop-in-store at Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
More Inventory Behind the Walls
At 82 Bloor, Ian Rosen estimates that only about five per cent of the store was devoted to back-of-house inventory. At Cumberland, he estimates the figure is closer to 20 to 30 per cent.
The change allows Harry Rosen to maintain considerable inventory depth without filling the sales floor with duplicate merchandise and racks of sizes. Products can be presented more selectively while additional sizes and options remain available behind the scenes.
That model depends on employees being able to retrieve merchandise quickly.
Rosen said he and Graham had mystery-shopped retailers where customers could wait 15 or 20 minutes for an associate to return with another size. Harry Rosen has therefore put considerable emphasis on the organization of its Cumberland stock rooms and the tools available to associates, with the aim of retrieving another size or item within a few minutes.
Harry Rosen is placing greater value on deeper inventory, faster service and a cleaner selling floor instead of maximizing the amount of merchandise on display.
Third floor bar/hospitality area at Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
Hospitality Moves Into the Shopping Experience
A lounge and café area on the second floor incorporates an Illy coffee partnership and connects with an outdoor terrace overlooking the Village of Yorkville Park. The space is part of the everyday shopping environment but can also support brand activations and client gatherings.
Harry Rosen had outdoor space at its former Bloor flagship, but Ian Rosen said it was difficult to integrate into normal store operations. At Cumberland, the terrace has been positioned directly within the flow of the second floor.
Footwear, leather goods, accessories and fragrance are positioned nearby, putting the lounge and terrace alongside active retail categories instead of separating them from the selling environment.
The approach becomes more pronounced on the third level.
Second floor at Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
Private Clients, Events and Made-to-Measure
Harry Rosen considered using the top floor for additional conventional retail but ultimately decided to devote much of it to private selling, made-to-measure, events and client hosting.
The level includes private fitting areas, a welcome lounge and bar, along with space for trunk shows, talks, dinners and other gatherings. Technology has also been incorporated to facilitate virtual meetings, potentially allowing Toronto customers to connect with craftspeople or master tailors overseas.
“We want to be a venue,” Ian Rosen said.
Curtains and other spatial elements allow larger areas to be divided for private appointments and reopened for events, making the floor adaptable depending on how it is being used. Customers can spend time with an advisor, have garments fitted and bring a spouse or companion without the interaction feeling like a conventional fitting-room visit.
At the time of Retail Insider’s tour, Rosen said the company was applying for a liquor licence to support client hosting.
The decision to dedicate prime Yorkville square footage to uses beyond conventional product display reflects the broader thinking behind Cumberland. The third floor is designed around relationships and time spent with customers as much as it is around transactions.
Men’s beauty/fragrance on the second floor at Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
A Grand Tour Through Italy
The architecture ties the different environments together through a narrative developed by dkstudio around the historic Grand Tour of Italy.
According to the design firm, Harry Rosen’s longstanding relationship with Italian tailoring, fabrics and fashion houses provided the starting point. The size and unusual three-storey configuration then suggested the idea of a journey, loosely referencing the Grand Tours through Italy undertaken by European travellers from the 17th through 19th centuries.
The references are expressed through architecture and materials instead of a literal recreation of Italian environments.
At street level, stylized stone arches and handmade European brick draw on traditional architecture and craftsmanship. Above, perforated metal louvres fold across the façade in a form intended to evoke fabric before it is shaped into a tailored garment.
Inside, walnut, bronze, marble and crafted plaster recur throughout the flagship. The elongated second floor takes inspiration from Rome’s Piazza Navona, with softened ends and sculptural elements breaking up the long floorplate. Walnut walls create separation between collections without interrupting views across the space.
The third level shifts toward references to Venice and historic palazzo interiors through darker ceilings, substantial wood elements and marble finishes.
The Italian connection also has a longstanding place in Harry Rosen’s history. The retailer was an early Canadian proponent of Italian luxury menswear and developed relationships with fashion houses that remain important to the business today. Harry Rosen has previously said founder Harry Rosen encountered Zegna ready-to-wear during a trip to Italy in the mid-1970s and subsequently became the first retailer to introduce Ermenegildo Zegna to North America.
Bar area on the second floor of Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
A New Face on Cumberland Street
dkstudio also approached the project in relation to Cumberland Street and the surrounding Yorkville neighbourhood.
The ground floor had previously been divided among several storefronts, with a service entrance interrupting the frontage. Those spaces have now been consolidated behind a unified architectural treatment.
Because the entrance is slightly recessed and elevated, the design team viewed the space immediately outside as having the potential to function almost like a small urban piazza. The relationship with the neighbourhood continues upstairs through the café and terrace overlooking Village of Yorkville Park.
The geography creates an interesting result. Harry Rosen has left its Bloor Street storefront, but the flagship itself extends through the property toward Bloor.
“We’re right above Gucci,” Ian Rosen said during the tour.
Third floor client space at Harry Rosen, 153 Cumberland Street in Toronto. Photo: Harry Rosen
Is the Customer Going to Come at All?
The architecture, merchandising, inventory strategy and additional amenities ultimately address a larger challenge facing Harry Rosen and other retailers making substantial investments in stores.
For Ian Rosen, the company’s principal competition isn’t necessarily another menswear retailer.
“What is our biggest competition these days?” he said. “It’s not whether the client comes to us or goes to a competitor. It’s whether they come at all.”
Customers can already browse Harry Rosen’s assortment online and determine whether merchandise is available at individual stores. That changes what a store has to accomplish.
“Every trip to the store has to be worth it,” Rosen said.
That thinking runs through Cumberland. Flexible merchandising increases the likelihood of discovering something new, while more back-room inventory allows a cleaner environment without sacrificing selection. The lounge and terrace encourage customers to spend more time in the store, and private rooms and third-floor gathering spaces give Harry Rosen ways to build client relationships beyond a conventional transaction.
Despite Cumberland’s size and broad collection of international labels, Rosen is also deliberate about how Harry Rosen defines itself.
“We’re not a department store,” he said. “We’re a specialty store for men.”
The distinction is rooted in the service model. The company expects customers to engage with advisors who understand the merchandise and can help assemble wardrobes and outfits, rather than simply navigate a large assortment independently.
Part of a $50-Million Canadian Transformation
Cumberland is the most significant project yet in Harry Rosen’s broader physical retail investment program.
The company announced in 2024 that it would invest $50 million over five years in its Canadian store network following a period of substantial investment in e-commerce and digital technology. The company said at the time that e-commerce had become its largest storefront, underscoring why the subsequent investment in physical stores was being centred on experiences and services that are difficult to reproduce online.
Since then, Harry Rosen has unveiled an updated store at West Edmonton Mall, reimagined its First Canadian Place location in downtown Toronto and opened a new flagship at Oakridge Park in Vancouver.
Cumberland builds on ideas visible in those locations while taking them further. Oakridge, for example, introduced a more open approach to merchandising, enhanced tailoring facilities and a greater emphasis on hospitality. The Toronto flagship applies many of those principles on a larger scale and adds substantial private-client and event space.
The transformation is far from finished. Ian Rosen told Retail Insider that the company is close to signing another project and has two additional major projects in development. He did not disclose the locations.
“There isn’t a Harry Rosen store that’s going to read in the old experience and aesthetic in the next five years,” Rosen said.
The statement points to a broader evolution underway across the chain. Harry Rosen is moving away from a store model heavily defined by selling space and fixed branded environments and giving greater weight to flexibility, inventory, service and customer relationships.
Cumberland is the clearest expression of that strategy so far.
The new flagship is smaller than the five-level Bloor Street store it replaces, yet considerably more of its footprint has been allocated to functions intended to make an in-person visit worthwhile. After more than five decades on Bloor Street, Harry Rosen’s move around the corner provides a look at what the company believes a Canadian luxury flagship now needs to be, and where its national store network is heading next.
