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Rakuten Rewards Canada Partners with Scene+

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Image: Scene+

Rakuten Rewards Canada, the leading Cash Back and shopping rewards company in Canada, is partnering with Scene as part of its expanded Scene+ program as the e-commerce company continues to grow its business in Canada.

Claire Sweeney

Since launching in 2012, Rakuten.ca has helped Canadians earn over $70 million in Cash Back at over 750 retailers.

Claire Sweeney, Vice President of Marketing at Rakuten Rewards Canada, which is headquartered in North York, Ontario, said just over 6.5 million Canadians are currently earning Cash Back in points through the company for every eligible purchase at hundreds of retailers.

“In the last two years, for Rakuten specifically, we’ve grown over one million members. We’re definitely seeing a lot of consumers gravitating towards cash back or rewards platforms as they’re trying to supplement their daily spending but also help with bigger ticket items that they might be purchasing as well,” she said.

Rakuten is the name of the parent company in Japan and the name translates in Japanese to ‘optimism’.

“There’s definitely the growth of e-commerce and retailers being forced to accelerate their e-commerce strategy as well as consumers being forced to as well with the global lockdowns. That’s definitely a contributing factor. What we also have seen is the willingness of Canadians to try more brands that they wouldn’t have necessarily tried before,” said Sweeney.

Image: Rakuten

“It just gives people more opportunity to discover new brands and products.”

In a news release, officials said SCENE and Scotia Rewards have partnered up and expanded to create Scene+, giving Canadians an enhanced loyalty program with more ways than ever to earn and redeem points for entertainment, shopping, dining, cash-back rewards, and more. By partnering with Rakuten.ca, Scene+ members can earn up to 20 per cent more Cash Back on their everyday purchases from fashion & beauty, to home goods – and everything in between.

Matthew Seagrim

“Partnering with Rakuten is a natural fit. Our mutual goal to bring ease to the customer experience led us to a seamless partnership,” said Matthew Seagrim, Managing Director at Scene+. “There’s a real trend in the loyalty space toward everyday interactions. Members want to earn points in ways that are convenient for them, and this partnership helps our members do that.”

Jennifer LaForge

Jennifer LaForge, General Manager of Rakuten Rewards Canada, said member experience is at the forefront of everything the brand does, “and this first-ever partnership with Scene+, expands what we offer to be the most rewarding shopping experience in Canada.”

Sweeney said the partnership is a natural fit for Rakuten because it expands on the company’s goal to be the most rewarding shopping experience in Canada.

The partnership will lead to growth in the number of users on the Rakuten site but Sweeney is not able to share growth expectations.

Image: Scene+

Ebates Inc. was founded in San Francisco by two Deputy District Attorneys who specialized in online fraud and identity in 1999. Through international expansion, the Canadian version of the Cash Back site was launched, built by Canadians for Canadians from headquarters in Toronto in 2012.

In 2014, Ebates Inc. joined the Rakuten family of companies, a multi-national corporation with businesses in 29 countries.

In 2019, Ebates became Rakuten.ca in Canada expanding to a new headquarters in North York, Ontario.

Explosion in Canadian Retailers Integrating Digital Strategies into Core Businesses: Study

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Image: SAP Canada

The number of Canadian businesses that have fully integrated digital strategies into their core business has risen dramatically with almost three times more businesses following that path in 2020.

A new survey released by SAP Canada, in partnership with IDC Canada, said Canadian enterprises understand that digital transformation is both necessary and valuable for improved customer experience, employee productivity and the bottom line.  

The 2021 SAP-IDC Innovation Readiness (IR) Study found that nearly 40 per cent of Canadian enterprises surveyed indicated having a digital strategy that is fully integrated to their core business.

 ”The COVID-19 pandemic has been instrumental in driving major changes across Canadian enterprises, from the way they operate to the way they engage with customers, partners, and employees,” said the report. “Overnight, COVID-19 made organizations take direct action to put in place processes and solutions that would enable them to engage with employees and customers remotely, such as telehealth in the healthcare sector, e-commerce in retail, and cloud-based solutions to execute on business processes. 

“Many organizations experienced disruptions in their supply chains and had to source new suppliers and build resiliency into their supply chains. The pandemic pushed organizations to reconsider their digital transformation (DX) strategy road maps, and for many it provided the impetus to put a DX strategy in place. Often organizations had to undergo several years’ worth of transformation in a matter of months, accelerating their journey to becoming an ‘intelligent enterprise’.”

SAP is a market leader in enterprise application software.

Marcelo Souhami
Marcelo Souhami

Marcelo Souhami, VP of Sales for Customer Experience at SAP Canada, said when the pandemic hit, and shut down stores, retailers realized they had to accelerate their online business.

“Some of them were ready and they just had to make sure they had supply and some of them were playing catchup where they had to accelerate their transformation and everyone has a different maturity curve and its level of advancement,” he said. “That was something everyone responded to. 

“Fast forward about a year into the pandemic, it was all about okay what’s the new normal. Now we have vaccination action going on. Stores are reopening and there was this whole re-shift in how do people interact with retailers.

“The transformation for them isn’t about being better online or being better at connecting the front office to the back office. It’s about being able to pivot to whatever we’re going to get next because every three months something else is different.”

Online shopping

Souhami said businesses who are not in the digital space are being left behind and a key is to remain relevant in the marketplace.

“The buzz word is personalization in the industry. So personalization is out there. Everyone is saying that they’re doing it. How well they’re doing and how data driven it is versus what marketing wants it to be is also something that not everyone’s at the same level,” he said. 

“I think there will be a change on how fast retailers need to really step up their game to stay relevant in that regard. Just having a good website that converts well, it’s kind of like table stakes now.” 

Souhami said the trend towards digitization will continue to grow.

The survey also found:

  • 54 per cent of Canadian organizations implemented new digital and line-of-business initiatives to navigate pandemic-based challenges such as remote work, customer engagement and employee accessibility; 
  • 84 per cent of respondents  highlighted that investment into digital technologies either met or exceeded their expectations this year; 
  •  81 per cent of the Canadian organizations surveyed reported that CX had a positive impact on their financial performance — an increase of nearly 20 per cent over 2020;
  • 75 per cent of Canadian enterprises planned on migrating all or some of their applications and data to the cloud in 2021;
  • 84 per cent of leaders in the digital transformation space are using technologies to make incremental and continuous improvements to their core business; and
  • Customer experience was also at the heart of the survey with most organizations surveyed (81 per cent) indicating a positive impact on financial performance because of strong client experience. This is an increase of 20 per cent over last year’s survey.
Brian Moore

“Digital transformation has been on the radar of Canadian businesses for years, but the last year has shown us that interest and value for it has soared,” said Brian Moore, Chief Operating Officer, SAP Canada. “We are seeing that organizations will need to continue to fully integrate their operations in the coming year to remain competitive. 

“Simply put, a digital transformation strategy is no longer a ‘nice to have’ – it’s a necessity for organizations to thrive. In 2022, we will see Canadian businesses step away from tactical, reactive enhancements in exchange for developing digital transformation strategies that will enable them to achieve new levels of success.”

Read the full report here.

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web For December 15th, 2021

By
Retail Insider
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Canadian Retail News From Around The Web

News at a Glance

Retail Insider is streamlining its Canadian retail news from around the web to include a handful of top news stories that can be viewed quickly during the day. Here are the top stories from the past 24 hours.

  • Title (Source)

‘The Cashman’ Russell Oliver Opens Two-Level Luxury Brand Storefront on Yorkville Avenue in Toronto

By
Craig Patterson
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Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)

Television commercial personality Russell Oliver, known as ‘The Cashman’ as well as for his on-air tagline ‘Oh Yeah’, has opened a plush new luxury-focused storefront on Yorkville Avenue in Toronto. The store stocks gently-used and refurbished items from some of the world’s biggest luxury brands and it replaces an Oliver’s Jewellery location that opened several blocks away in 2016. 

The new store spans two levels at 88 Yorkville Avenue. The main floor includes a showroom housing a range of bags, accessories, watches and jewellery from some of the world’s biggest luxury brands. Brushed metal display cases showcase unique jewellery and watches and bags can be found on shelves on several walls, including in a dedicated back area with more bags and designer watches. Brands such as Chanel and Hermes are well represented, as are brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, Tiffany & Co and others with jewellery by David Yurman and watches by brands such as Rolex and Louis Vuitton. 

The second floor, accessed by a stairway next to the main entrance, features an area where customers can meet with representatives to trade items for money. A room sealed off to the public houses an authenticator for designer items such as bags as well as technology to determine the material makeup of jewellery — a Rolex Mr. Oliver was wearing during a tour showed to contain 18.08k gold. 

Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Window displays at Oliver Jewellery, 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)

Window displays for the holiday season feature prominently facing Yorkville Avenue both on the main level as well as upstairs. Black awnings on the windows spell ‘Oliver’s’ with branding that is decidedly more upscale than the Oliver Jewellery storefront that opened several blocks south at 620 Yonge Street in the fall of 2016. The Yonge Street store, which was his first foray into retail since 1991, has since closed with the new Yorkville location replacing it. 

Oliver’s is located in a prime location, being steps away from the recently opened Gucci x Balenciaga pop-up as well as big-name storefronts such as Chanel, Isaia, Christian Louboutin and Versace. Since opening recently, Mr. Oliver said that customers are coming to the store from the full-priced stores nearby to see what’s in stock. 

Youtube video

It’s not the first time that Russell Oliver has had a store in Yorkville. After founding his business in 1971 near the Simpson’s flagship store in downtown Toronto, Oliver relocated his retail storefront to Yorkville. Customers included actor John Candy and Mr. T from TV program ‘The A-Team’ among others. In April of 1984, the then 36-year-old Russell Oliver was shot by two robbers and he sustained an injury to his right foot. Oliver Jewellers operated in Yorkville until 1991 when his business morphed into buying jewelry and gold. 

Besides the Yorkville retail store, Oliver’s has storefronts where people can sell goods or use Oliver’s loan services in Toronto, Woodbridge, Oakville and Pickering. 

Russell Oliver is known to many for his often over-the-top television commercials promoting his business. He has spent tens of millions of dollars on adverting over the course of 25 years which has resulted in his becoming a household name. One of his commercials was featured on the Ellen Show in February of 2021, and it’s worth a watch. 

See below for several more images of the new Yorkville store.

Additional Images from Oliver’s Jewellery in Yorkville

Second floor assessment area at Oliver Jewellery, 88 Yorkville Ave in Toronto (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Customer meeting area on the second floor of Oliver Jewellery at 888 Yorkville Avenue in Toronto (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)
Oliver Jewellery 88 Yorkville Ave (Photo: Craig Patterson)

Kettlemans Bagel Opens New Location in Ottawa as Brand Continues Expansion

By
Dustin Fuhs
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Kettlemans Bagel at 710 Eagleson Road in Kanata (Image: Kettlemans Bagel)

Ottawa-based bagel and sandwich quick service concept Kettlemans Bagel has opened a new location in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata.

Daniel Reyes Cocka

Located at 710 Eagleson Road, the shop will feature Montreal style bagels made in a wood burning oven, in addition to sandwiches, salads and baked treats.

“Like all our other locations, it will be open 24/7, 365 days a year which will be an incredible addition to this neighbourhood,” said Daniel Reyes Cocka, Director of Marketing & Communications.  “Kettlemans Bagels is synonymous for quality made products, made with only the freshest of ingredients. We are thrilled to be able to bring a new location to this area.”

The storefront is adapting to the changing business models of the current marketplace, with the addition of a pick-up window.

“The new Pick-up window allows guests to pre-order their favourite menu items via the Kettlemans mobile device, select the Pick-up window at their preferred location, and the geo-fencing technology will send the order to be fulfilled once the guest has crossed that threshold,” shared the brand. “No more waiting, and idling, at a conventional drive-thru. Quick, convenient, and easier to enjoy our delicious sandwiches and bagel.”

Kettlemans Bagel at 710 Eagleson Road in Kanata (Image: Kettlemans Bagel)
Kettlemans Bagel

Retail Insider covered the expansion plans for Kettlemans and will be following the brand as it continues to grow into 2022 and beyond.

Kettlemans Bagel at 710 Eagleson Road in Kanata (Image: Kettlemans Bagel)

Innovative Jewellery Brand Mejuri Opens 2nd Canadian Storefront as it Grows its Direct-to-Consumer Operations: Interview

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Mejuri on West 4th (Image: Mejuri)

Fine jewelry store Mejuri has opened its second location in Canada, in Kitsilano, with plans for continued expansion.

It is the retailers’ eighth location overall.

Majed Masad
Majed Masad

Co-founder and President Majed Masad said the company knew it  wanted to be among some of the top retailers in Vancouver – in Kitsilano specifically, there are many fashion and lifestyle shops and yet it still has a neighbourhood feel.

“We know that our customers – and tourists too – tend to flock to Kitsilano for its down-to-earth vibe, its proximity to the beach, and plethora of emerging and established brands. We really look forward to building and connecting with our West Coast community in real life through our in store experiences and events,” said Masad.

Mejuri on West 4th (Image: Mejuri)

“Vancouver is one of our top cities in Canada, and our customers have been messaging us on social media to come. We did a pop up in Vancouver in 2019 that also validated the need to have a retail presence. The pop up drove strong customer acquisition where 75 per cent of the customers were new to the brand and we saw a lift in online sales in the city.”

Other stores include Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Austin, and London UK.

“While we started as a digital-first brand, physical retail is a natural fit for our brand and category. We definitely plan to expand more in Canada and the US in the years to come and are excited to share more details as we finalize our plans,” explained Masad.

“My partner in work and life, Noura, is a third generation jeweller and saw how traditional fine jewelry can be – typically gifted and marketed for men to buy for women. We also saw how archaic the industry is with outdated supply chains and inflated markups. We wanted to create the next generation brand and flip the narrative to self-purchase or as we say at Mejuri, ‘buy yourself the damn diamond’.

Mejuri on West 4th (Image: Mejuri)

“In 2015, we started Mejuri to provide fine jewelry for every day. Though we are digital first, we wanted to create a space where our community could not only interact with our products but with each other. We opened our first store in July 2018, in our hometown of Toronto – we followed up with opening our New York store later that year. We found that bringing our brand to life in the form of retail has been a strong customer acquisition channel for us and great for loyalty, leading us to expand our retail footprint. In addition to opening eight stores, we have shipped over two million pieces of jewelry and have reached over one million customers since inception.”

He said the jewelry industry is quite large, however, the retailer believes there is room for various businesses to co-exist and grow. Mejuri was created to put a modern spin on an old industry through high-quality craftsmanship and the best materials, timeless yet fresh designs, fair pricing, meaningful stories and an authentic sense of community.

“We were one of the first brands to launch as a direct to consumer fine jewelry platform and we pioneered the weekly drop model in fine jewelry. We also created a  strong in-house team who oversee everything from creative to product design, marketing and technology, customer service and even distribution. This allows us to own the customer experience from start to finish, and cultivate strong engagement with our customers across all channels,” he said.

“Most importantly, our brand ethos – of empowering individuals and celebrating ourselves and one another – hasn’t changed since day one and continues to empower our customers every time they shop with us, visit us in store, attend a community event  or give back via our Empowerment Fund. We introduced the Empowerment Fund in June 2020 to support women and non-binary individuals with the tools to empower themselves, and the feedback has been incredible.”

Masad said the past year during the pandemic has challenged everyone since it’s a situation that we haven’t experienced before on any level.

“We were one of the first brands to close our retail stores, and as a team, we had to be creative and resilient. We recognized that this was an opportunity to innovate and adapt, and offer our customers a valuable shopping experience. We did this by doubling down on our online experience, creating a better omnichannel experience (i.e. Buy Online and Pickup in Store), and focusing on adding value through giving back to the community,” he said.

“The shift towards e-commerce encouraged us to focus on our online experience even further so that we could sustain a meaningful relationship with our customers during this time. For example, we focused heavily on our Style Edit, a platform where we feature creatives and industry people that share styling advice so that we could continue to inspire our customers and show them the many ways to wear and stack our jewelry. We also offered even more digital styling appointments, so that our customers could have real-time interactions with our team during the pandemic and get styling advice to help them shop.

“We noticed an increase in people buying themselves jewelry during this time, and buying jewelry as gifts. In fact, we saw a 66 per cent increase in gifting during the pandemic. Since people couldn’t be with one another, they turned to jewelry to make remote and more personalized connections.”

Masad added that customers really relied on Mejuri to create positive changes as its platform grew.

“We have always felt a responsibility to do so, whether it’s through the content we create, the voices we amplify, or where we are investing back into our community,” he said.

Montreal Developer Lands Ciele Athletics’ 1st Retail Store: Interview

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Montreal Developer Lands Ciele Athletics' 1st Retail Store: Interview (Image: Zhiyao Chen)

Montreal boutique developer MTRPL has landed Ciele Athletics, with its first retail location, at the real estate company’s key site at 1620 Notre Dame Ouest.

Bryan Spatzner, co-founder of MTRPL, said the location was one of the company’s largest and most recent projects at 50,000 square feet. The building was owned by the Salvation Army which sold the building to MTRPL about two and a half years ago. 

Bryan Spatzner

“They had owned it since 1945. They bought it from Northern Electric . . . which built this property in 1915. And so the Salvation Army had owned it and when we bought it they had their retail operation on the ground floor but the rest of the building, essentially 40,000 square feet, was being used as a storage space and just as a repository for everything they hadn’t sold,” said Spatzner. 

“So we repositioned the asset as commercial loft office upstairs where we’re 100 per cent leased and the last piece of the puzzle was the ground floor space. The Salvation Army left because they felt the area no longer had enough capacity for their product, for their offering. We were unable to re-sign them. They decided they wanted to get out of the neighbourhood as it gentrified and we were left with 10,000 square feet on the ground floor of retail to lease.

“The stars really aligned on this one. It’s a great deal. They’re a great brand to be associated with both at MTRPL and at the property 1620 NDO.”

Click for Interactive Google Map
Image: Ciele Athletics

He said 10,000 square feet of urban streetfront isn’t the easiest nut to crack these days and not the most popular size space even before COVID for urban retail.

“And going into COVID we entered a bit of a leasing winter so to speak for retail as everybody was really forced to be closed. Admittingly, this is the longest we’ve sat on any empty space on the ground floor. It was vacant for about two years but we finally struck gold with Ciele Athletics who in my mind is almost like lululemon is to yoga, Ciele is to running in so far as their lifestyle brand. It’s high-performance product. Originally I think their marquee product was their headwear. They’ve branched since into all different types of running attire,” said Spatzner.

“You only have to go on the Lachine Canal, which is a stone’s throw from our site, to see just about every single jogger, biker, everybody wearing a Ciele Athletics hat. Even in my travels I’ve seen them all over the place – in kitchens, anywhere where people are being active you can find a Ciele hat.

“So with a little bit of luck and a hell of a lot of persistence we managed to strike a deal with Ciele for their flagship retail, office HQ and experiential retail with a running room to take the full 10,000 square feet on the ground floor. We’re very excited. They’re a great Montreal brand and success story. It really is a Cinderella fit in so far as it’s going to be a multi-use space. They’re a fast growing company and it’s just a great image for them and the building to be on Notre Dame in the heart of Montreal but at the same time less than a minute’s walk from the Lachine Canal for an athletic brand.”

Overall, Spatzner said MTRPL has been very lucky with no retail tenants going under over the last year or so of the pandemic, except for one tenant that was on thin ice before COVID started. It closed unrelated to the retail crisis started by the pandemic.

“As landlords we were of the conviction that we are in all of this together. It is a global issue so any tenant that qualified for the (federal rent subsidies) we gladly participated in that government program . . . That being said, I would say March 2020 when it started certainly retail leasing froze up but we’ve since over the last quarter or two have seen a real uptick in leasing velocity and we’ve been signing leases and continuing to acquire new projects,” he said.

The company had also purchased a ‘white elephant’ building along the busy Saint Denis Street in Montreal with plans to revitalize it into unique retail and housing space to go along with the renewal of a street which had fallen into decay in recent years.

The building at the southwest corner of Rachel and Saint Denis was originally a bank in the 1920s and Mexx’s flagship store for 17 years before its demise. The building had been vacant and vandalized for about five years before MTRPL bought it.

Image: Ciele athletics

“It’s fully finished. The SAQ (liquor store) is on the corner. It’s in my opinion the most beautiful SAQ in the city. We did 10 AirBnB apartments upstairs that are fully net leased to an AirBnB operator who is doing very, very well as revenge tourism has been coming back with a vengeance in a positive sense,” said Spatzner.

“And we have one small restaurant called La Petite Dinette that took the last little piece of retail on the ground floor there. They did a beautiful build out kind of Miami Vice retro hot pinks and teals and like an Asian fusion product.”

MTRPL was founded in 2016 as a real estate company concentrating on retail centric mixed-use urban development. It specializes in the investment, development, and management of mixed-use assets.

“Our investment philosophy begins with transit-oriented development along retail corridors in urban areas. We search for assets in high density neighbourhoods, with abundant foot traffic and an authentic sense of place,” says MTRPL on its website.

Celebrity-Favourite Canadian Fashion Brand Sentaler Opens New Store in Toronto and Launches Menswear

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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SENTALER Yorkville (Image: George Pimentel)

While living in Peru, Bojana Sentaler discovered the beautiful alpaca fibre and fell in love with its lightweight and warm features.

From that experience, in 2009 she launched the luxury outerwear brand, SENTALER.

Recently, the brand opened a flagship store in Yorkville Village in Toronto and expanded into menswear with international growth plans for the future.

SENTALER Yorkville (Image: George Pimentel)

Many well-known celebrities such as Megan Markle, Kate Middleton and Halle Berry have been seen wearing the brand.

Sentaler graduated from the Schulich School of Business with a degree in Marketing and Finance and initially worked in the corporate world after university where she found out that her entrepreneurial spirit was constrained by the corporate structure.

“I ended up leaving my job and leaving Canada and in 2008 I moved to Dubai to explore new opportunities and while I was living in Dubai I was working in media. So I was putting together economic investment reports on emerging markets with a specialization in the Middle East North Africa region and at the time Karl Lagerfield was designing villas in Dubai. I had the pleasure of interviewing him for one of the reports we were working on and it was quite an interesting interview for me because I have very high respect for him and he was somebody I really looked up to as a fashion genius,” said Sentaler, who was born in Belgrade and moved to Toronto at the age of eight.

Bojana Sentaler
Youtube video

It was that meeting that sparked her journey into the world of fashion. It was her first source of inspiration in launching her own collection one day. At the end of 2008, the global economic downturn took place. She returned to Canada.

“I remember it was winter. It was December. It was cold. I think I was very used to living in a warm climate for a year while I was living in Dubai. So I picked up my bags and I travelled to South America at the beginning of 2009 and I ended up staying and living in Lima, Peru for six months while I was there. While I was living in Lima it was actually quite interesting. I always think everything happens for a reason,” said Sentaler. “I was working on a media project and I was meeting with everybody while I was there.

“It was interesting because at all the meetings Peruvians showed me their pride in their fabric which is alpaca and this is something that is part of their culture. They’re very proud of the alpaca animals in the Andes mountains as well as the product that comes from shearing the alpaca animals. After studying this fabric, I really fell in love with its features and its attributes which at the time I found quite intriguing considering I come from Canada where winters are very long and cold. So the fabric is extremely warm. It’s extremely lightweight. It’s very soft to the touch. It’s extremely high quality and it’s hypoallergenic and it’s sourced ethically. The animals are sacred animals in Peru . . . They’re protected and cared for.”

From there, she decided to make a collection of alpaca coats and launched SENTALER in 2009. She made her first collection of seven coats that included every coat she ever dreamed of owning. She moved back to Toronto to launch the brand.

Bojana Sentaler
Youtube video

“The very first collection was available in Toronto only and it was by order. This is when I built my network of clients in Toronto and throughout the years we launched sentaler.com a few years later and that’s when we made the collection available online internationally,” said Sentaler.

In 2010, she opened up the first SENTALER showroom at 555 Richmond Street West in Toronto. The collections were available to customers at the showroom exclusively and this was the company’s first location. It then developed a retail partnership with Holt Renfrew – its first retail partner, which was followed by Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Andrews and many other independent retail boutiques.

The Yorkville location was opened in the fall and its first flagship retail store outside of the showroom she has operated since 2010.

“The women’s collection has been doing extremely well since its launch and throughout the years we have had an enormous demand for men’s coats. Also our women clients were always interested in coats for their husbands and their significant others and in general we’ve seen a very large demand for men’s coats. So I decided two years ago to launch a men’s collection and I made this announcement at SENTALER’S 10th anniversary party which took place at the EY Tower on top of the 40th floor in 2019,” she said.

“I’ve been working on the men’s collection since and I finally launched the first ever SENTALER men’s collection in October.”

Sentaler said the retailer has developed as a home-grown brand in Canada as well as internationally.

“The plan really for SENTALER is to continue to grow internationally. We definitely want to reach our clients in all the major fashion cities in the world and then just to continue to also expand our product offering,” she said.

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web For December 14th, 2021

By
Retail Insider
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Canadian Retail News From Around The Web

News at a Glance

Retail Insider is streamlining its Canadian retail news from around the web to include a handful of top news stories that can be viewed quickly during the day. Here are the top stories from the past 24 hours.

  • Title (Source)

Upscale Mark McEwan Grocery Store Shutters in Toronto’s Bloor-Yorkville Area 

By
Craig Patterson
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McEwan Yonge & Bloor Closed (Image: Dustin Fuhs)

The McEwan grocery store near the corner of Yonge & Bloor Streets in downtown Toronto has closed after chef Mark McEwan’s business empire filed for bankruptcy protection at the end of September. Landlord First Capital REIT had reportedly contested the store’s closure. 

The 17,000 square foot store opened in January of 2019 on the concourse level of 1 Bloor East complex. It included a mix of grocery items as well as grab-and-go and sit-down dining options. 

The store was one of several in the area which has the highest concentration of grocery retailers in Canada. Prices at McEwan were generally higher than most of the competitors nearby and its location on busy Yonge Street was removed from many of the wealthier households who live West of Bay Street in the Yorkville area. 

In court filings, McEwan noted challenges with the Yonge and Bloor grocery store. “This location has created significant strain on the Company’s liquidity,” said the Application Record of McEwan Enterprises Inc. “With an extensive footprint and significant lease and operational costs, combined with disappointing sales results, McEwan Yonge & Bloor has had the most detrimental impact on the Company’s overall financial performance. With the benefit of hindsight, the Company would not have entered into operations at this location based on the existing lease terms. McEwan Yonge & Bloor has been a significant challenge since its opening and currently remains a material issue for the Company.” 

After we announced in October that the grocery store would be closing, the Globe & Mail reported that landlord First Capital REIT was contesting McEwan’s application under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) to restructure its operations by transferring most of the business to a new company held by the same owners. A subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. owned 55 per cent of McEwan Enterprises, and the rest was owned by Mr. McEwan’s holding company, McEwan Holdco Inc.

McEwan Yonge & Bloor Closed (Image: Craig Patterson)

First Capital argued that McEwan Enterprises should be required to test the market by undergoing a sale process for the business and in a factum from October, the landlord’s lawyer argued that the the proposed transaction would be an “abuse” of the CCAA process.

McEwan Enterprises had been losing money even before the COVID-19 pandemic according to court filings. That includes several restaurants as well as another large-format grocery store at CF Shops at Don Mills in Toronto as well as a smaller grocery concept store in Toronto’s Financial District. 

It remains to be seen what tenant will occupy the basement space that McEwan has vacated in downtown Toronto. It includes an entrance foyer at the street level facing Yonge Street which is flanked by a Chick-fil-A restaurant to the south and a Nordstrom Rack store to the north. 

Toronto’s Bloor-Yorkville continues to boast a high density of grocery retailers. That includes Italian concept Eataly that opened nearby at the Manulife Centre in November of 2019, joining a Loblaw City Market grocery store in the basement, Whole Foods at Yorkville Village, Pusateri’s on Bay Street, Longo’s at the Hudson’s Bay Centre, and three Rabba stores nearby. Shoppers Drug Mart has also expanded grocery offerings at its two-level storefront at Yonge and Charles Streets. 

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