The “showroom&store” provides an in-person experience in which customers can speak with an ergonomic seating specialist while trying a number of seating systems to fit their individual needs. ergoCentric has also launched an online chair fitting tool, which allows customers to input their body measurements from home and have a chair fitted without leaving their home.
Terry Cassaday
“As Ontario reopens its economy, people are gradually heading back to the office. We’ve learned from a recent Angus Reid survey that 66 per cent of Canadian workers want a hybrid model of work, giving them flexibility to choose whether they work at home or in the office. I believe this will increase the demand for ergonomic workstations as people continue to invest in their home offices,” said Terry Cassaday, Founder and CEO of ergoCentric.
“Our new showroom&store in Mississauga will serve and educate our customers west of Toronto. People can try and be fitted for an ergonomic office chair in person before making their purchase. Our unique, modular manufacturing system enables us to fit virtually 100% of the population with a properly fitted ergonomic task chair.”
Founded in 1990, the brand has since expanded its online and retail footprint to include showrooms in the King Edward Hotel on King Street and the Yorkdale Shopping Centre.
ergoCentric at Yorkdale – Photo by Dustin Fuhs
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ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
- Photo by Dustin Fuhs
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
- Photo by Dustin Fuhs
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
- Photo by Dustin Fuhs
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
- Photo by Dustin Fuhs
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
- Photo by Dustin Fuhs
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
ergoCentric at King Edward Hotel
- Photo by Dustin Fuhs
Vancouver-based fashion retailer Plenty has opened its tenth location in Willowbrook Centre in Langley, BC.
Since debuting in 1989 as an independent store in Vancouver, the company has grown steadily with clothing and accessories for women and men. The new Willowbrook store spans 4,000 square feet.
As with the nine locations before it, the new store’s interior design was created by Vancouver’s Roger Koodoo, reflecting Plenty’s Owner and Founder Murat Imren’s background growing up in Turkey. The space has pops of bold colour, custom designed wallpaper, touches of marble and wood, all paying homage to his heritage.
The Willowbrook location is also home to a custom wood carving by prominent Indigenous artist Corrine Hunt. Corrine Hunt is a member of the Raven ‘Gwa’wina’ Clan from Ts’akis, a Kwakwaka’wakw village on Vancouver Island. Plenty is privileged to display the carving inspired by Corrine’s great grandmother’s woven blankets and rich family history.
Plenty Willowbrook (Image: Plenty)
Plenty Willowbrook (Image: Plenty)
Plenty Willowbrook (Image: Plenty)
Plenty was founded in Vancouver in 1989 and each store tells a different story with stores mixing a selection of in-house labels with internationally renowned brands.
Plenty Willowbrook is the tenth store opening joining locations on Robson Street in Vancouver, Park Royal in West Vancouver, Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby, CF Richmond Centre in Richmond, Coquitlam Centre in Coquitlam, the flagship store in Kitsilano in Vancouver, CF Chinook Centre in Calgary, and two locations at Uptown Centre in Victoria.
A new study shows that businesses in Canada’s three largest ‘gay villages’ have struggled over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study found that the gay villages have seen a disproportionate number of closures, boarded up storefronts and high rents compared to the rest of the LGBTQ+ business community.
• To assess whether there has been a disproportionately negative or positive impact from the pandemic on LGBTQ+ businesses and entrepreneurs.
• To explore whether LGBTQ+ businesses, in responding to the COVID-19 crisis, have explicitly turned to or benefited from gay villages/neighbourhoods and/or similar community organizations.
• To explore the options for investment and support that respondents perceive as necessary or helpful for post-pandemic recovery.
Gay villages in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver were examined as part of the study. Toronto’s Gay Village is centred around the intersection of Church and Wellesley Streets in the downtown core. Montreal’s Gay Village is located on Ste-Catherine Street East between the Berri and Papineau subway stations. Vancouver’s Gay Village is centred on three blocks of Davie Street west of Burrard Street on the downtown peninsula in the West End.
The study found that the gay villages saw a disproportionate amount of closures, boarded up storefronts and high rents compared to the rest of the LGBTQ+ led business community. The types of businesses located in the villages include retail, restaurants, bars and entertainment — and according to Statistics Canada, these were hardest hit during the pandemic.
Real gross domestic product (GDP) of food services and drinking places fell 39.5% in March 2020 and by another 40.8% in April 2020 as many of these businesses either closed completely or operated at a greatly reduced capacity, providing take-out or delivery services exclusively. About 56% of food service and drinking place operators reported being closed at some point last April, while 41% reported being closed for the entire month. And by the end of April 2020, sales at food services and drinking places fell 61.3% from pre-pandemic levels observed in February 2020.
The study showed that villages were not seen to be fostering business and entrepreneurship or providing a community or resources for businesses outside of retail and hospitality. The study noted that greater collaboration and partnership with Economic Development and the BIAs could bolster the opportunities in the gay villages. The study stated that there is an opportunity for gay villages to promote diversity within LGBTQ+ businesses in their services and outreach, and to become safe spaces and hubs of innovation while having the opportunity to reach out to and bring in young entrepreneurs and businesspeople to collaborate.
The study also showed that women entrepreneurs and business owners are significantly underrepresented in LGBTQ+ businesses and greater attention is needed to develop more opportunities and support for intersectionality amongst the community. Participants in the study were predominantly male (70%) reflecting nation-wide studies showing that 79% of businesses had majority male ownership in Canada (Statistics Canada).
Gay Village in Montreal, said to be the largest in North America. Photo: Montreall.comChurch Street Businesses – Photo by Craig Patterson A pocket park off Davie Street in Vancouver’s West End. Photo: Places That Matter
Canada is also lagging behind the US in recognizing LGBTQ+ businesses for preferential spending, procurement and relief funds according to the study. The Lightspeed survey also looked at gay villages in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Business leaders and leaders of organizations that represent, support or advocate for the LGBTQ+ business community were interviewed for the study.
“Lightspeed was founded in 2005, in Montreal’s gay village and its original members were all part of the LGBTQ+ community. The ethos of our business has always been about diversity and inclusion from the very start, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this research was particularly important to us,” said Dax Dasilva, Founder and CEO of Lightspeed. “Both in the US and in Canada, majority-owned LGBTQ+ businesses generate trillions of dollars of contributions to the total GDP. Given their importance and influence on our economies, we wanted to understand exactly how the pandemic has affected this community and start a conversation with businesses and chambers of commerce, to help us build even better tools for resiliency.”
The study is part of Lightspeed’s Community through Commerce initiative, which the company says serves as a tactical, data-driven approach to better understand the businesses Lightspeed powers with its one-stop commerce platform. Based on the findings of the study, Lightspeed said that it will engage with local North American LGBTQ+ Chambers of Commerce to identify ways of helping merchants continue to build thriving businesses.
Lightspeed’s inaugural Global Diversity and Inclusion survey found that 16.81% of its global employees identify as LGBTQ+ and 90% report that they feel comfortable talking about their culture and background with their colleagues. A total of 83% of survey respondents said that they feel that they can be their ‘authentic selves’ in the workplace.
“Imagine Together” will transform nine billboards along the outside of CF Toronto Eaton Centre that typically saw advertising into a collection of designs that focuses on the power of collaboration and interconnectedness.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated online shopping trends in Canada and a new survey by PayPal Canada indicates just how much consumers shifted their spending patterns.
The survey, titled Trends & Spends: PayPal Canada’s 2021 Consumer Shopping Study, found that Canadians overall increased their monthly online shopping spend by more than $2 billion compared to pre-pandemic.
Survey respondents said they are spending $178 per month shopping online, an increase of $69 compared to pre-pandemic. Across the country, this translates to almost $5.5B in current monthly online spending, said PayPal.
The survey found that 59 per cent of Canadians have boosted their online shopping habits compared to before the pandemic and the grocery sector in particular has seen a significant increase.
“An initial survey of Canadian consumers in March 2020 found that only 19 per cent engaged in online grocery shopping. In a second survey conducted in April 2020, only 30 per cent of Canadians purchased groceries online. Today, our most recent survey shows that number has jumped to 49 per cent,” said PayPal.
Image: PayPal
Jill Cress, PayPal Vice-President, Consumer Marketing, said only 44 per cent of consumers last year said they anticipated shopping online more than they were already. That has now jumped to 59 per cent.
Jill Cress
“Looking back at how overwhelmed we were at the challenges of finding toilet paper and hand sanitizers in store last year it’s great to see that just one year later, we are turning to e-commerce for all of our needs and the data shows this shift is here to stay,” said Cress.
“I think what happened during COVID was accelerating the relationship that consumers had with online commerce and the relationship with convenience, and being able to secure the goods in particular that they needed became so prevalent during COVID and now what’s playing out is the reality of just how convenient it is to shop online. If we look at that from a vertical standpoint, something like grocery shopping. We see that consumers still expect to shop online.
“While they may want to go into a grocery store to experience the produce department they don’t want to go into a grocery store and have to lug home heavy things like water or laundry detergent. So there’s the convenience that online delivery will continue to play as consumers emerge out of COVID.”
Some key findings from the PayPal survey:
Canadian women surveyed are more likely than men to have increased how often they’re shopping online groceries (36 per cent versus men at 26 per cent);
Ontarians are the ones who are more likely than others to have increased how often they’re shopping for groceries online (36 per cent compared to 24-30 per cent in other provinces.);
Home office furnishings and equipment (56 per cent), up from 42 per cent in April 2020;
Fitness equipment, apps, or programs (41 per cent), up from 25 per cent in April 2020;
School supplies (38 per cent), up from 23 per cent in April 2020;
Three in five Canadians (61 per cent) surveyed say they believe that cashless transactions will be part of their typical shopping experience and one in four (28 per cent) say they don’t expect to use cash five years from now at all;
Canadian consumers expect retailers to be innovative in their approach to keeping up with digital demand including offering drone deliveries (29 per cent), facial recognition for payment (25 per cent), virtual reality fitting rooms (17 per cent) and holographic representation of products (11 per cent);
For half of Canadians, the main deterrents to online shopping are the shipping cost (53 per cent) and the delivery time (51 per cent), as well as a preference to pick out their own products in person (50 per cent); and
One in five Canadians (19 per cent) say they are held back from online shopping because they are worried about safely transacting online.
Cress said Canadians spent more time at home and the desire to make their homes more comfortable for both the way they work and live was a key driver of the massive growth in home office furnishings and equipment.
“We were at home and we were looking for new hobbies, new ways to keep ourselves healthy, new ways to keep ourselves motivated. I think it was both the need for functional comfort as well as for ways to keep ourselves motivated and embracing some of those new hobbies and new ways of using that time at home in ways that felt rewarding to us as consumers,” she said.
Cress said consumers are going to raise the level of expectations around the retailers that they engage with to be innovative and to provide them with new offerings and new solutions that meet that consumer demand for convenience and for safety.
“We see that more Canadian consumers expect to use less cash in the future . . . What does that mean in the way that retailers show up with digital payment solutions? How do we provide those solutions in a way that are seamless for the consumer? Things like facial recognition coming into play to facilitate commerce. What does it mean to be able to see products in virtual ways and holographic ways? Meeting that consumer demand for convenience across different touch points is an opportunity that retailers will have to continue to build a stronger relationship with that consumer,” she added.
Canadians have started to notice that grocers are starting to sell plants in miniature greenhouses. Gardens on rooftops, vertical farms close to stores, some are even selling gardening equipment to gardeners shopping for food. The farm is essentially merging with the food retail spaces we roam as consumers. Quite interesting.
We are slowly witnessing the rise of the “grow”cer if you will. For years, customers just believed in the myth that food just magically shows up at the grocery store. COVID got many to think differently about supply chains. Food is grown, produced, transported, packaged, and retailed. With the addition of new “farmgate” features, for city dwellers, grocery stores are slowly becoming the gateway to an entire world most of us rarely see: farming.
Sobeys is just one recent example of what is going on. The no.2 grocer in Canada recently signed a partnership agreement with German-based Infarm to get greenhouses into many outlets across the country. Infarm units were installed last year in BC but can now be found in many locations across the country. Infarm units enable Sobeys to offer fresh herbs and produce which is grown hydroponically which requires 95% less water, 90% less transportation and 75% less fertilizer than industrial agriculture. No pesticides are used either.
Available produce grown inside the store includes leafy greens, lettuce, kale and herbs such as basil, cilantro, mint and parsley. Expansion plans include chillies, mushrooms, and tomatoes. The growing cycle for most of these averages five weeks.
Image: Sobeys
While Sobeys does not have to worry about infrastructure and extra capital to change the allure of a store, it can get rid of these miniature vertical farms if proven unpopular or unnecessary. Works well for both Sobeys and the consumer. But it is not just Sobeys. Other grocers now have decent-sized vertical farms inside the store or close to them.
The gardening rate in Canada has gone up by more than 20% since the start of the pandemic last year. For consumers, growing their own food was about pride and taking control of their supply chain in some way. For many others though, gardening remains a luxury due to the lack of space or time. Since a trip to the grocery story is inevitable for most of us, grocers are bringing the farm to the store so consumers can have both the farming and the retail experience all at once.
Before COVID, farmers desperately tried to get closer to city dwellers, so their work can be appreciated. Campaigns over the years brought mixed results. Farming is still largely misunderstood by most. Debates on GMOs and the use of chemicals have also divided both urban and rural communities. City dwellers have always respected farmers and the hard work they do. But many consumers who are/were looking for natural and organically produced goods have grown leery of farming in general. This has attracted the attention of environmental groups opposed to many farming practices.
Grocers are starting to realize that bridging two worlds under one roof can help elevate their roles as ambassadors to an entire supply chain. Farmers cannot be replaced, of course, but they cannot be in stores either. Seeing pictures of farmers on packages and posters is what we saw for years. It was nice, but it was not real. The hard work, and everything else which comes with farming, can only be properly conveyed when visiting a farm or working on one for a while. Pictures likely will not disappear in grocery stores, but it does not really tell the whole story.
But the new “grow”cer brings the imagery of farming in retail to an all-new level. Grabbing a living plant, or produce off a living plant is certainly real and increasingly valuable for Canadians longing for local and for freshness. It just cannot get more local than when you grow it inside the grocery store.
For grocers, COVID eliminated many rules. Every business played a part. While grocers sold food, processors manufactured the food, and restaurants provided us with ready-to-eat solutions. Lines between sectors were already becoming blurred before COVID as crossing concepts and eliminating lines between different sectors was happening. Some of us have heard of the “grocerant” concept, for example, embedding food service into a grocery store. Consumers can relax, enjoy food before, during or after their grocery shopping. But COVID just blew “blurring lines” completely up.
Grocers are now becoming brokers, connecting different functions of the supply chain. Farming now connects with retail by way of new initiatives being present which is what we are seeing everywhere now. Restaurants are selling meal kits through grocers’ apps. Few saw that coming. Food brokering for grocers is the next frontier for growth. No doubt about it.
Whether it will last is unknown, but grocers are embracing the fact that they have the privilege to interact with consumers every single day. That privilege, now more than ever, comes with the responsibility of showing them the true value of food by becoming knowledge brokers. If it means growing more food in stores, so be it.
Craig and Lee talk about Vancouver’s Alberni Street and provide commentary about its current state and history on the recently published retail tour by Retail Insider.
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Gap-owned Banana Republic is liquidating its stunning flagship store in downtown Montreal at 777 Ste-Catherine Street west. The store closes on July 24th.
The building, owned by Thor Equities, spans 26,463 square feet with a ground floor of 5,453 square feet, a mezzanine of 3,946 square feet, a third floor spanning 6,014 square feet, a lower level of 5,206 square feet and a basement level spanning 5,844 square feet. Ceiling heights on the ground floor soar 30 feet. Savills and Aurora Realty Consultants are listing the space for lease [see leasing website]
The closure follows Banana Republic’s shuttering a flagship store at 80 Bloor Street West in Toronto last year. The Gap has said that it will be shutting many stores in Canada and the United States including many Gap stores in enclosed shopping centres.
