WANT Apothecary store at 2579 Yonge St., Toronto. Photo: WANT Apothecary
The physical retail spaces for Montreal-based WANT Apothecary have shut down as the brand pivots to an ecommerce business while refocusing on its core brand. The tasteful, highly-curated retail concept launched 10 years ago and at one time had five stores in major cities in Canada and the United States.
WANT Apothecary was the brainchild of WANT Les Essentiels Co-Founders and brothers, Byron and Dexter Peart, along with business partners, Mark Wiltzer and Jacqueline Gelber. The brothers sold the business to Wiltzer and Gelber (who own Mark Edwards Apparel Inc.) in 2017, including the upscale WANT Les Essentials brand that they founded in 2007, and exited the company.
The WANT Apothecary concept was unique in how it mirrored the style of a classic apothecary while also mixing a selection of fashion items from some of the world’s leading designers. Products included women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, as well as accessories, leather goods, footwear, and various gift items, not to mention an assortment of beauty products, hence the apothecary name.
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WANT Apothecary store at 4960 Sherbrooke St. W. Westmount, Quebec. Photo: WANT Apothecary
WANT Apothecary store at 1070 Yonge St., Toronto. Photo: WANT Apothecary
The Peart brothers, along with their business partners, launched the first WANT Apothecary location in Montreal in 2011, in the city’s affluent Westmount area. The beautiful store located at 4960 Sherbrooke Street West was buoyed by the existing brand recognition of the WANT Les Essentiels lifestyle brand that had launched five years earlier. After testing and perfecting the Montreal store, the business partners set out to open a second location in Toronto’s upscale Rosedale retail area at 1070 Yonge Street in 2013, followed by a Vancouver store located in the South Granville shopping area at 2956 Granville Street which debuted in 2014. In 2017, WANT Apothecary opened a Toronto location at 2579 Yonge Street as well as a store in New York City at The NoMad Hotel at 1170 Broadway.
Co-founder, Dexter Peart, told Retail Insider in an interview in 2017 that rather than locating in malls or on popular retail streets such as Bloor Street West or Robson Street, WANT Apothecary’s locations sought to create a “curated experience within close proximity to the consumer” that was the “antithesis to a large shopping experience”. Collections in the stores were highly curated to reflect the retailer’s aesthetic, and each store was typically between 1,700 and 2,000 square feet to ensure a more intimate experience.
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Interior of WANT Apothecary store in NYC. Photo: WANT Apothecary
Interior of WANT Apothecary store in NYC. Photo: WANT Apothecary
Interior of WANT Apothecary store in Lawrence Park, Toronto. Photo: WANT Apothecary
Interior of WANT Apothecary store in Lawrence Park, Toronto. Photo: WANT Apothecary
Interior of WANT Apothecary store in Lawrence Park, Toronto. Photo: WANT Apothecary
The WANT brand has moved to an ecommerce model after shutting its physical stores. And as the multi-brand apothecary concept shuts stores, the WANT Les Essentials brand is being moved to the forefront.
“We are excited to announce that we will be focusing all efforts on our house brand, beginning with a new website launching in April and ready-to-wear collections releasing throughout the year,” stated the company. “As we pursue this vision, we’ve decided to close our WANT Apothecary locations and consolidate both WANT websites to wantlesessentiels.com. This new experience will be the digital home for WANT Les Essentiels and stock several of the skincare, beauty, and home brands you know and love.”
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We reported this spring that Australian beauty brand Aesop had opened a new store in the former WANT Apothecary location at 2579 Yonge Street in Toronto.
Retailers have been struggling amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are finding that the expense of having leases is too great and some have been closing locations as a result. At the same time, studies have shown that having a physical retail presence helps drive online web traffic, bringing WANT’s ecommerce-only strategy into question in terms of future growth for the brand.
Food affordability in Canada is becoming an increasing worry.
The two necessities in life are food and shelter. It looks like both are getting much more expensive these days. For a few years now, the cost of food has been the most important food affordability barrier. Not anymore. The cost of housing is now seen by Canadians as the most significant barrier.
A recent poll conducted by Grassroots Public Affairs, in partnership with Food Banks Canada, shows how things have changed in just twelve months. A total of 46% of Canadians, almost half, consider the cost of housing to be the largest obstacle to food affordability. Only 12 months ago, it was 21%. A total of 29% of Canadians see the cost of housing as a larger obstacle now compared to 12 months ago. Rising unemployment was the largest obstacle for 71% last year, for obvious reasons. The percentage dropped to 42% this year, which is the same percentage as the cost of food. Indeed, the cost of food is still seen as an important barrier, but concerns related to food prices have now been surpassed by lodging costs.
Seeing house prices go up is not necessarily undesirable. After all, most Canadians rely on the value of their property to increase their wealth and support their retirement. Taxing capital gains on primary residences would be aiming at the wrong problem and would make many Canadians poorer. But the rate at which prices are going up is alarming. The OCDE recently reported that over the last 20 years, Canadian house prices on average have gone up by more than 1680%, the highest rate amongst all OCDE countries. The second highest is not even close at 96%, which is the United Kingdom. So, this is a real issue in Canada.
Canadians are facing a perfect storm when looking at food affordability. The cost to put a roof over one’s head is going up while food prices are expected to go up by as much as 5% this year. Furthermore, the economy is slowly picking up the pace, but the number of jobs is still short by 500,000 from what the Canadian job market had before the pandemic. Naturally, many Canadians are concerned about the professional situation.
Given these macroeconomic shifts in recent years, Canada is now on the list of countries facing challenges of ensuring food security for many of its citizens. There are no problems with food availability in Canada, none, except perhaps for the greater north, however, the cost of essential elements in our lives coupled with the fact that salaries are barely moving to help Canadians deal with higher expenses is worrying.
Ottawa will need to get a better a sense of the real estate market conditions beyond the pandemic as interest rates may remain at historic lows for some time. When real estate prices go up, rents will eventually catch up to tenants who can only dream about owning a house one day. We are already seeing rental costs going up in Canada, from 3% to 5% in some markets.
Because of the pandemic, some markets are more affected than others. Interestingly, the work-from-home phenomena is impacting smaller markets, not just urban ones. Many do not have to live within commuting distance from their jobs. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, the greatest year-over-year percentage changes came from the Northwest Territories (48.1%), Nova Scotia (30.4%), Ontario (24.5%), Quebec (22.5%), and New Brunswick (20.9%). Many economists believe a supply-deprived real estate market is driving prices higher. Increasing supplies in markets where demand is higher than ever, urban, or not, should be our governments’ priority.
The pandemic has also rejuvenated our collective discussion of a guaranteed minimum income. The pandemic itself has given us data on how Canadians behave when receiving financial aid from governments. We still know very little about how a guaranteed minimum income would help families cope with changing real estate conditions and higher housing costs. The fabric of our workforce will also change due to the pandemic. Now, more than ever perhaps, is time to have that conversation. Committing to nationally-coordinated pilot projects to assess such a program is long overdue.
Exnterior of the Cornwall Centre in Regina. Photo: Tourism Saskatchewan
The restrictive nature by which everyone has been forced to live during the course of the past twelve months or so is, at least temporarily, changing the way we do things. For retailers, the repercussions have been monumental. Increased concerns related to health and safety combined with the ease and convenience offered by the online shopping experience has resulted in a massive spike in ecommerce sales and activity across the country. It’s also spawned a consumer who is more channel agnostic than ever before and who views the multitude of purchasing options at their disposal as one big marketplace. Retailers have responded through an acceleration of their digital strategies in efforts to meet this shift in preferences. It’s provided many within the industry with a massive task, challenging their agility, innovation and acumen. However, according to Matt Crowell, Founder and CEO of GetintheLoop, the current retail landscape is also presenting businesses with even bigger opportunities to create truly seamless omnichannel experiences, bridging the gaps between the online and physical worlds, and engaging local customers who want to shop with them.
“The pandemic has certainly impacted the retail experience and the way merchants across the country operate,” he recognizes. “That impact has been most obvious in the recent explosion of ecommerce. But with this increased and sustained activity comes new and increased customer expectations and demand. People want to shop with their favourite brands, whenever and wherever they want, whether in person, on their computer, or mobile phone. And, given the uncertainty of our current situation, proximity has also been an increasingly important factor in the purchase decisions being made by customers today. It’s resulted in providing retailers with a strong incentive to digitize their operations and connect with their local communities in order to drive awareness, engagement, traffic and sales.”
Cost-Effective Digital Solution
To help Canadian business owners achieve this outcome, GetintheLoop offers a cost-effective tool that complements their digital offering and supports their marketing and communications goals. The app, which is available for users to download via the App Store and Google Play, serves as a digital marketing platform for businesses, helping merchants tap into a flourishing local community, providing them with a highly-effective means by which to publish meaningful digital content and enticing offers. It helps facilitate connections for them, providing consumers with ever-expanding ways to explore, discover, and shop within their local communities, offering incentives and rewards via special promotions. Working with businesses in every province across the country since 2013, GetintheLoop has quickly become one of the leading offers platforms in Canada. And, according to Crowell, much of the tech company’s success is down to the simplicity of the innovation and ease of use by all parties.
“It’s really about leveraging technology to connect brands with customers while making the shopping experience fun and rewarding,” he says. “Because the platform allows businesses to provide real-time mobile offers and information to smartphones, email and web, they’re able to keep their customers engaged and up-to-date concerning store hours, new or changed service, as well as details about delivery and curbside pickup options. It could be described as a way of placing an entire local merchant community in the hands of the consumer, seamlessly connecting the online and offline experiences and enhancing a retailer’s omnichannel offering.”
Performance and Results
As an example of the power and influence of the GetintheLoop mobile marketing platform, the company partnered with Shopping centre developer, Cushman & Wakefield, in the summer of 2020, providing its technology to 1,500 retailers operating in 21 malls across the country. Results were impressive, seeing the activation of 60 percent of mall merchants within the first three months and significant growth for Cushman & Wakefield whose portfolio of tenants reached more than 20 million Canadians during the fourth quarter of 2020. Molly Westbrook, Executive Managing Director Asset Services at Cushman & Wakefield, recognizes the success of the partnership
“We have experienced very positive results in each of the centres where we leveraged GetintheLoop’s technology and platform,” she asserts. “During this challenging time for the industry, we looked for innovative opportunities to generate traffic to the stores’ physical locations. The engagement and connectivity that it facilitates and fosters within each local community allows us to communicate our offering, enabling the customer to engage with the centre and our tenants within a seamless omnichannel experience.”
Interior of the Cornwall Centre in Regina. Photo: Tourism Saskatchewan
In addition to serving as a compelling and dynamic digital marketing solution for businesses, the app also generates useful analytics for the users, informing current and future campaigns and offers. And to help support these vital efforts, GetintheLoop also offers a centralized support team that works with clients on a monthly basis in order to help execute campaigns and increase customer attraction and retention via digital means. Rooted in grassroots passion, the company is further changing the way businesses market to and communicate with their local communities while helping to create innovative strategies and campaigns to achieve maximum results.
One such display of marketing innovation is reflected well in the company’s most recent digital punch card campaign that it launched with Cushman & Wakefield property, Halifax Shopping Centre, in Nova Scotia. Running within the centre from March 17 to April 3, the campaign presented visitors to the centre with an Easter egg hunt, with Easter egg stickers placed in six locations throughout the mall. Each sticker was equipped with a pin number and QR code which, when scanned, revealed a page within the GetintheLoop app to enter the pin number to validate that the Easter Egg sticker had been found. Participants of the hunt who found all six Easter egg stickers were rewarded with a $10 gift card from Halifax Shopping Centre guest services. The campaign was extremely effective, resulting in a reach of 43,598, responses totalling 8,888, 1,580 actions taken and 217 gift card giveaways to those who engaged with the hunt. Stephanie Schnare, a representative of Halifax Shopping Centre, describes the virtual hunt as a “huge success”, lauding the ability of the app to serve as a conduit for interest and traffic.
“Due to the pandemic, many traditional Easter activities were paused in the market,” she says. “But the virtual egg hunt allowed Halifax Shopping Centre to drive traffic to the mall and connect with key customer targets, while offering some egg-cellent entertainment.”
Interior of the Cornwall Centre in Regina. Photo: Tourism Saskatchewan
Marketing Evolution
During this time of disruption, it’s perhaps more important than ever for businesses to create and enhance their digital presences and to engage with their local communities through these types of creative omnichannel experiences. And, with the right support and strategic thinking, the challenges that businesses are facing today could very well result in increasingly adept shifts in their operations and a continued evolution with respect to the ways they attract and retain customers. It’s something that Crowell believes is currently happening and is set to ensure not only the survival, but the growth, of businesses during these difficult times.
“The industry’s been challenged significantly throughout the past year. It’s tested the strength of merchants across the country. But, as with all challenges, the climate of the past twelve months has provided everyone with some really valuable insights, one of the most critical being that the traditional ways of reaching and engaging local audiences are not as effective as they once used to be. Today, retailers need a digital advantage and a way to not only get in front of customers, but to provide them with an experience that’s easy and convenient, and one which serves the businesses omnichannel strategy and goals. With the right technologies and digital tools, the entire retail experience can be transformed and enhanced, providing customers with engagement that’s fun and informative, forming a true brand experience across all channels throughout the entire shopping journey.”
For more information concerning the ways GetintheLoop can help your business connect with shoppers and thrive within your local communities, visit getintheloop.ca/business
Lockdowns, Nordstrom, Cartier, Gucci and La Vie en Rose
This week, Craig and Lee discuss Ontario’s latest lockdowns, Nordstrom’s launching Dover Street Market in Canada, Toronto’s Cartier renovations on Bloor, West Edmonton Mall’s Gucci opening and the continued expansion of retailer La Vie en Rose.
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Background Music Credit: Hard Boiled Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Value-priced Japanese variety retailer Daiso has expanded into Canada with its first corporate store that has opened in downtown Vancouver. The retailer is testing the waters in Canada prior to launching a larger national expansion.
The 4,700-square-foot downtown Vancouver store is located at 810 Granville Street, which was formerly occupied by an Indigo Spirit bookstore. A wide range of products from stationery to cosmetics to home goods is carried in the new store. Origami paper and other traditional Japanese items can be found as well — the product assortment is known to be of a high quality for the price point which has resulted in Daiso’s success with more than 5,000 stores globally.
Almost all of the product in the new Vancouver store is imported from Japan, while some items were bought either in Canada or the US. A Canadian Daiso website is in the works and a US ecommerce site launched in December of last year.
Cash desks in Daiso store at 810 Granville Street. Photo: Daiso
Daiso Store at 810 Granville Street in Vancouver. Photo: Daiso
Interior of Daiso Store at 810 Granville Street in Vancouver. Photo: Daiso
JLL Canada represents Daiso in its further expansion into the Canadian market.
In 2003, the Fairchild Group opened a franchised Daiso store at the Aberdeen Centre in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond which operated for about 16 years. In August of 2019 Fairchild converted the 23,000-square-foot space to an Oomomo nameplate and the Vancouver-based Japanese-themed variety retailer continues with its own store expansion throughout Canada. Oomomo currently carries some Daiso products and the supply will be cut off as Daiso itself expands further in this country.
Daiso expanded into the United States in 2005 and the retailer now has over 80 stores there.
JLL is leading the Daiso expansion with a planned 10 stores in the Vancouver/Lower Mainland prior to a national expansion. Value shoppers in higher-income areas with a high Asian population will be initially targeted for stores that will include ‘daily needs’. Retail spaces between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet will be targeted initially with high foot traffic. Jack Voykin and Ryan McCarthy are points of contact at JLL for Daiso.
Home improvement retailer Lowe’s Canada is launching new contactless pick-up lockers where customers can grab items they have purchased online.
The new lockers will be in 48 select Lowe’s stores by the end of April, with the plan to expand the concept to more stores in the future.
Installed near the entrance of select stores, pick-up lockers will be equipped with Bluetooth technology and a touchscreen where customers will have access to instructions on how to retrieve their online orders, and where they will scan the barcode that they received in their confirmation email. Customers will have up to seven days following the reception of that email to retrieve their purchases at their convenience.
Tony Cioffi, Senior Vice-President, Stores at Lowe’s Canada, said consumers have embraced online shopping in a big way this past year and the retailer felt it was important to provide them with a quick and easy way to pick up their orders.
New contactless pick-up lockers at a Lowe’s location in Scarborough, Toronto. Photo: Lowe’s
“If they have a product that fits within the dimensions of the pick-up locker the customer could get the option of picking up that product in that locker without actually interfacing with anybody and in fact not really touching anything,” said Cioffi.
“We’re starting with rolling it out in 48 of our Lowe’s stores in April and then RONA is going to follow and Reno-Depot right after — 41 RONA’s and 15 Reno-Depot’s. In all it will be 104 stores which are going to have these lockers in the vestibule.
“That’s the first wave because we’re already having discussions about a next wave that’s going to come after. Our objective is we’re trying to create a consistent, seamless experience for our customers. So the more stores we can get this into the better it is obviously because it’s a great customer experience. It’s contactless and it’s efficient. Honestly, customers have been asking for this and with the ecomm business growing more and more obviously with everything that’s happened in the last year with COVID, it’s definitely something customers are excited about . . . Customers are looking for a seamless, omnichannel experience.”
Cioffi said another wave of 75 stores will take on the lockers, bringing the total in the future to 180 of the 236 corporate stores the retailer has in the country.
New contactless pick-up lockers at a Lowe’s location on Crowfoot Trail in Calgary. Photo: Lowe’s
New contactless pick-up lockers at a Lowe’s location on Crowfoot Trail in Calgary. Photo: Lowe’s
“We’re just going to continue to assess and the way we plan the rollout is it’s based on the volume of activity from weekly pickup activity in those stores,” he said. “We started with the Lowe’s 48 because they’re the ones that have the highest activity.”
Based in Boucherville, Quebec, Lowe’s Canadian business, together with its wholly-owned subsidiary RONA inc., operates or services some 470 corporate and independent affiliate dealer stores in a number of complementary formats under different banners, which include Lowe’s, RONA, Reno-Depot, and Dick’s Lumber. In Canada, they have more than 26,000 associates, in addition to approximately 5,000 employees in the stores of independent affiliate dealers operating under the RONA banner.
Early this year, Lowe’s Canada said it hopes to fill over 7,000 full-time and part-time positions in an extensive spring hiring campaign throughout its network of stores.
“Over the last year, we have seen a great deal of interest in home improvement among Canadians. More than ever, our customers are counting on us to help them make their home comfortable and safe, and our store associates play a key role in supporting them throughout their projects,” said Marc Macdonald, Senior Vice-President, Human Resources. “To meet the public’s increased demand and continue to offer the best service possible, we are looking for people who want to work for a top employer in a stimulating environment where they will be encouraged to harness their talents.”
Available positions range from Receiving Clerk and Sales Associate roles, to Sales Specialist, Administrative Support, and Merchandising roles.
Cioffi said the retailer is “super fortunate” to be an essential service in the current environment.
“We feel it’s a privilege. We take it very seriously. And yes we’ve been fortunate. Obviously people aren’t travelling. They’re staying home more and their home is becoming their office. It’s becoming everything to them. So people are investing in their home to expand the space that they’re living in by either building a home office or even spending time renovating their existing property because their disposable income is not being spent on travel and not as much in restaurants, etc,” he said.
“We’re fortunate in the home improvement industry that people are using some of that disposable income to spend on their home and obviously that benefits us because that’s obviously what we sell and the type of service that we provide. Business has been good.”
Cioffi said the retailer has already hired about 5,000 people in its spring hiring campaign.
“We continue to make sure that we get people, our associates, hired to help support us during these busy times,” he said.
(Interview) The Importance of Agility to the Future of Retail with Adam Sturrock of Amplience
An off-schedule podcast discussion with Adam Sturrock (VP of Product Marketing at Amplience). Craig and Adam discuss the importance of agility to the future of retail.
“Everyone says bricks and mortar is dying. I say it just has to evolve,” says Adam. Part of that evolution is the device sitting in everyone’s pockets – the smartphone. Everything is already in place, retailers just need to harness the right technology to really connect with their customers and enrich their experiences, whether they’re shopping online or walking into their physical stores.
A big part of the technology and infrastructure needed will be headless commerce. It provides the business agility retailers need to adapt quickly and proactivity implement change to gain a competitive edge.
Interview Details:
Adam Sturrock (VP of Product Marketing at Amplience)
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A recent survey by Angus Reid, commissioned by EMERGE Commerce, has found that COVID-19 pandemic habits developed when it comes to online shopping will persist even when the current health crisis is long over.
Consumers are increasingly getting used to the convenience and ease of shopping from home and avoiding other people in stores. That will become the new normal, post-pandemic for many of them.
In fact, the recent release of Deloitte’s Global State of the Consumer Tracker indicated that about 50 percent of consumers said they will be doing more shopping online compared to 2019.
The Angus Reid survey found that only 51 percent of people in Ontario plan to return to in-person shopping post-pandemic, with just eight percent of them shopping primarily in-person during the pandemic, compared to a massive 82 percent of Ontarians that shopped primarily in-person pre-pandemic.
Ghassan Halazon
Ghassan Halazon, CEO of EMERGE, a diversified, rapidly-growing acquirer and operator of e-commerce assets, said the results of the survey doesn’t surprise him.
“It just solidifies what we’ve been seeing across our ecosystem of EMERGE Commerce properties,” said Halazon. “There was a pause. But when this pandemic struck, there was this macro acceleration of online shopping behaviour. I suppose the million-dollar question was, what’s next? How will this curve look like a year or two out? And I think we’re starting to now get early glimpses of the new world which is online first. There’s no such thing as offline commerce or ecommerce. It’s really now just commerce and where consumers are at it happens to be online — increasingly.
“With the numbers, if I had to guess, I would have probably guessed around there. So nothing shocking to me. But I’m a practitioner here with our ecommerce portfolio. We get to see how consumers are voting with their wallets online.”
EMERGE was named one of the fastest growing companies in Canada by the Startup 50, and the Globe and Mail’s 2020 Canada’s Top Growing Companies.
Halazon said the trend to online will continue to grow the longer the pandemic sticks around and lockdowns are in place.
“Every additional quarter or year that this drags on I think just more and more people build these habits of doing shopping the easier, more convenient, cheaper way,” he said.
“I think user experience and optimizing the site, whether that’s desktop or mobile first, has a lot to do with how consumers ultimately convert online. So conversion rates are that much higher for optimized sites and simplified user-friendly sites. People are looking for an authentic voice these days. So transparency and authenticity are themes that consumers increasingly reward online shopping portals for when they see it.
“Of course, front and centre is ultimately the pricing, the shipping cost, and the logistics, effectively what is perceived as cost-effective shopping is also definitely at the top of consumer preferences or focus.”
Halazon offered some examples of EMERGE’s key portfolio companies to illustrate the growth in online shopping.
The company acquired truLOCAL on December 31, 2020 and Halazon described it as the market leader in premium meat subscriptions. It connects local farmers and grass-fed meat with a health-conscious, digitally-savvy audience online. That was a $20 million revenue business last year. The prior year it was only a $8.9 million revenue business.
“That’s an example of how the pandemic supercharged shopping for groceries,” said Halazon. “Grocery has been a huge category that was propelled by the pandemic and truLOCAL is Exhibit A.
“The other segment we can speak to and share some phenomenal results is golf, golf products. We have a website that’s powered by Shopify called JustGolfStuff.ca. It grew tremendously during the pandemic. You’re talking about a couple of thousand percentage points of growth that it has seen. We saw golf equipment, apparel, and golf balls grow. Obviously the pandemic made golf the envy of all other experiences. At a time when everything was locked down one of the only things that were allowed was to play golf. It brought together all these new demographics into the sport which resulted in people not only buying vouchers to play golf but also golf equipment.”
The golf website in February of this year grew by 4,000 percent from a year ago. The truLOCAL site grew 116 percent year over year.
“Golf and grocery are our two biggest categories. Both saw huge growth. And we believe they’re here to stay. People shopping for meat online has changed forever. If you tried it and it works, you’re very likely to stick around,” said Halazon.
He said truLOCAL is the company’s fifth overall acquisition and the largest revenue business, doubling every year. It’s also EMERGE’s first foray into subscriptions.
“We’re looking to build out our food tech platform through truLOCAL and through other acquisitions in grocery and food tech. We think that’s a big vertical for us and of course we continue to focus on the golf business,” added Halazon.
