A quiet Yonge Street in Toronto, taken on April 7 2021. Photo: Craig Patterson
Recent increased lockdown measures and COVID-19 restrictions across different provinces will have a devastating impact on Canadian businesses, according to many experts.
And there is growing anger and frustration as many businesses hang by a thread with the threat of closure becoming an increasing reality.
On Tuesday, the Alberta government announced new lockdown measures and restrictions and on Wednesday Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a province-wide stay-at-home order for the next four weeks.
“It’s going to be even greater because it will affect all retailers of all sizes. Throughout the pandemic we managed different restrictions and lockdowns and our focus was very much, and continues to be, on our smaller retailers, but as restrictions and lockdowns increase this is now having a major impact on mid-size retailers and large speciality chains because the bulk of their assets — the brick and mortar assets — are in those provinces where there are now much tougher restrictions,” said Brisebois, adding that for many mid size stores it’s more expensive to open than to close at such low capacity limits.
“This is in fact going to be affecting a larger number of retailers and we are also absolutely concerned now that the unemployment numbers will increase and that many retail employees will not be called back. In Ontario, if the lockdown is for another four weeks, there’s no runway left and the (support) programs that are currently in place unfortunately do not reflect the current reality. A lot of them have ceilings and they are not basically reflecting the impact this is having on retailers of different sizes.
“We’re going to be calling on the provincial governments and the federal government to seriously look at the expansion of a forgivable loan program at low interest and that is going to be key if they don’t want to see huge unemployment numbers in the service sector. Retail is so fundamental to the health of other sectors within the chain that if that breaks it won’t be a crack in the dam, the dam will go and the dam will take everybody with them. This is serious.”
Daniel Carman, VP of Over the Rainbow Jeans, a family-owned boutique clothing store in Toronto which has been operating now for 46 years, said the retailer is very disappointed and concerned by the government’s decision to invoke another retail-focused lockdown that continues to unjustly target small businesses.
Daniel Carman
“Over the Rainbow has been an important business to thousands of customers and employees over the past 46 years. The strength and resilience of our staff has allowed us to successfully maintain a safe, healthy, COVID-free shopping environment during all our open periods. We are prepared and will continue to pivot, innovate, and motivate for the sake of our community,” said Carman, who is also a board member with the Bloor-Yorkville Business Improvement Area.
“The government must continue to provide small business owners and workers with ongoing mental and financial support. The government needs to clearly communicate to us in a manner we can truly understand and properly prepare for the tremendous sacrifices they are asking us all to make again. We all agree on the problem; we don’t understand or agree with the solutions.”
Olivier Bourbeau, VP, Federal and Quebec, for Restaurants Canada, said provincial restrictions make it extremely difficult for restaurants to operate.
He said one out of 10 restaurants have already closed permanently in Canada with the exception of Atlantic Canada.
“But eight out of 10 restaurants are losing money or barely breaking even,” said Bourbeau.
Olivier Bourbeau
“What is extremely important for us is the federal government support — rent subsidy and wage subsidy. These two elements are the ones that will help us survive. They will stay in place until June and we are asking the federal government to extend that. Otherwise lots of restaurants will close. Actually, should the situation continue for the next six months as is, half of the restaurants will close because the support that we have helps us to survive but our restaurant operators have loans over loans over loans and it will take at least 12 months for the majority of our restaurants to get back to profitability because they’re barely breaking even and losing money as we speak.”
Bourbeau said the restaurant industry in Canada typically employs 1.2 million people. But today there are still 383,000 people who are not back at work due to the pandemic or who are currently not working any hours.
“That’s huge,” he said. “Something extremely important to highlight is labour shortage. Before COVID in Canada, we were already looking for 60,000 workers. We were missing 60,000 workers in our industry. After the first wave we reopened restaurants pretty much everywhere so our workers came back. But after the second closure, many of our workers found jobs elsewhere. With the third closure, more are looking elsewhere. So once we reopen it’s going to be extremely difficult to find enough workers.”
“We’re already expecting 180,000 businesses to close their doors forever but the upper echelon of that estimate was around 250,000 and we could be looking at those numbers because it doesn’t appear that these additional lockdowns are going to be met with additional economic supports to try to help businesses make it,” he said.
Dan Kelly
The irony of current lockdowns and restrictions in many places is that businesses such as restaurants and bars and fitness studios have had few people catch the virus but are facing these measures. Meanwhile, other places such as schools, warehouses, factories, meat plants, etc., where larger numbers of people congregate — and positive cases of COVID have been spread — remain fairly unscathed from restrictions.
“What I’m hearing from businesses in retail, restaurants, gyms, hair salons, is that when you look at where the cases are coming from the data shows that it’s coming from large congregate work settings not small, little businesses,” said Kelly. “So the question that many are asking me is are we not locking down the wrong things?
“We’re locking down the little flower shop that may have five customers in an entire day and yet the Amazon warehouse is left wide open and in fact more volume has shifted their way as we lock down independent retail . . . That’s been rage inducing for small businesses.
“This is devastating. How businesses can be expected to survive when lockdowns are a semi-permanent policy as they are in Ontario is anyone’s guess.”
According to the CFIB, Toronto is the lockdown capital of North America. As of Wednesday, businesses in several sectors have been locked down for more than 300 days since the pandemic began:
Indoor restaurant dining: 306 days
Gyms: 299 days
Hair/nail salons: 227 days
Retail : 161 days.
Alla Drigola, Director, Parliamentary Affairs and SME Policy for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said businesses have had to continuously be ready to react to constantly changing restrictions.
“This has been an added challenge, particularly for small businesses and especially those in the hardest hit sectors like restaurants. Businesses make plans and decisions based on the information that is provided to them — decisions like staffing, ordering goods, and services offered to customers. When governments suddenly change these plans, businesses and the entire economy suffers. This is particularly true in Ontario, where constantly-shifting restrictions are having a severe and costly impact particularly on the food service sector who are told you can open your patios one day, and be ordered to shift exclusively to take out and delivery the next,” said Drigola.
Alla Drigola
“Businesses are at a breaking point. In the most recent Canadian Survey on Business Conditions released in March 2021, 42 percent of businesses with less than 20 employees indicated that they cannot take on more debt and 29 percent of businesses with 20-99 employees indicated they cannot take on more debt. 50 percent of all businesses with less than 100 employees did not know how much longer they could continue to operate before closing their doors. These are serious numbers, and we need to ensure that we continue to support these businesses while COVID restrictions remain in place.”
She said the most important thing that the government can do today is to release a plan. Businesses need certainty, they need to know what metrics the government is using to make decisions, and they need to know what supports will be in place and for how long.
“To that end, the plan must include an extension of the wage and rent subsidy programs beyond their current expiry date of June 2021,” she said.
With the significant and sudden growth of COVID-19 variants of concern, governments around the country have begun to take more drastic measures to manage health care capacity, said Bruce Winder, author of RETAIL Before, During & After COVID-19 and President of Bruce Winder Retail.
“One can almost feel the panic and desperation in politicians’ voices as they reverse course on more moderate measures launched just days before. Health care professionals have made themselves heard and have essentially forced the hand of leaders to shut down the economy again,” he said.
“The impact to retail will be significant. Non-essential retail will feel the biggest impact as stay-at-home orders are administered. Even essential retailers may face more severe limits on the sale of non-essential items within their stores. E-commerce will again become a lifeline for many consumers and retailers as home delivery and curbside pickup become the main channel of distribution.
Bruce Winder
“The net effect is that cashflow will dry up for many retailers and those who are staying in business through government subsidies will slide further into debt. This will exacerbate the difficulty of remaining operational for these businesses once government assistance ends and loans must be repaid. One can argue that there have been permanent changes to retail as a result of the pandemic and that pre-COVID-19 financial performance may not reflect the new normal once this nightmare eventually ends. This will make repayment even more difficult and will undermine further investment to innovate as much-needed capital expenditure is used to pay interest. Government may be forced to increase the mix of grant versus loan in support packages as a result.”
Michael Kehoe, Broker/Owner of Fairfield Commercial Real Estate in Calgary, said Canada is a provincial patchwork of varying levels of dining restrictions but overall, the situation is serious for an industry that has faced significant headwinds over the past year.
“New government mandated restriction measures and in some cases outright closure of in-room dining are having a negative ripple effect across the supply chains that service restaurants right down to restaurant employees and their families,” he said. “The major question facing the restaurant industry is, ‘What happens to restaurants with the additional/continued lockdown measures combined with fewer percentage rent arrangements/landlord rent concessions and the end of government programs like the wage subsidy?’ The restaurant industry could be headed for an even bigger shake out later this year.
Michael Kehoe
“Restaurants are always changing and evolving, and we have seen 10 years of change in the past 12 months in this time of accelerated disruption. Many restaurateurs and their landlords are struggling to cope with these changes and an uncertain future that will be either terrifying or exciting for the foodservice industry in Canada. Restaurateurs are creative entrepreneurs and always evolving with new concepts and teams that inspire the industry with new ideas and innovative possibilities. 2021 will see restaurants continue to close and new ones will open. The transformation of the foodservice industry will continue as it enters a new era to better serve consumers in the markets where they are situated. This sector of the economy was built on relationships and the major adjustment in this intense time of change and unpredictability will be centred around the reorganization of relationships with restaurant suppliers and landlords and especially the relationship with the customer.”
Cartier Shuts Bloor Street Flagship Temporarily for Renovation
French luxury jewellery brand Cartier has temporarily shut its store at 131 Bloor Street West (The Colonnade) in Toronto for renovations. The store opened at its current location in the fall of 2009. Prior to that it was located next to the Gucci store at 130 Bloor Street West, and prior to that, in the 1990s, a smaller boutique operated at 101 Bloor Street West.
Parent company Richemont’s investment in Cartier’s Bloor renovation signals confidence for the street which is lined with flagship stores for brands such as Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Dior, Prada, Tiffany & Co., Burberry, and others. Other retailers on the street including Montblanc, Peloton, and Max Mara recently renewed leases according to CBRE, while other vacancies are in discussion with potential tenants.
Exterior of the Cartier store at 131 Bloor Street West in Toronto. Photo: Craig Patterson
Prior to being occupied by Cartier, the space at The Colonnade on Bloor was occupied by a Mappins jewellery store as well as Lacoste. Cartier’s street level spans about 2,950 square feet according to lease plans, and the brand also leases 1,360 square feet upstairs that is not part of the public retail space. We’ll report back with updates on the store’s design as the renovation progresses.
Cartier will make further investments in Canada when it relocates its downtown Vancouver store from 456 Howe Street to 755 Burrard Street this year in a space formerly occupied by Hermes, which relocated to 717 Burrard Street in the fall of 2019.
BEAUTYCYCLE bins in the Nordstrom beauty department. Photo: Nordstrom
BEAUTYCYCLE Launches in Canada as Part of Nordstrom’s Commitment to Environmental Sustainability
Nordstrom has launched its BEAUTYCYCLE initiative in Canada, making it the country’s first beauty take-back and recycling program accepting all brands of beauty packaging at a major retailer.
The program, which has been in operation in the US since last year, aims to take back 100 tons of hard-to-recycle beauty packaging by 2025. Available now, customers can bring their empty beauty products to any Nordstrom Canada store to be recycled. This includes cosmetic, haircare, or skincare packaging regardless of brand or purchase location.
For a complete list of items that can and cannot be accepted, please visit BEAUTYCYCLE.
“We understand our customers care about sustainability, and we want to help them move toward a zero-waste beauty routine so they can look great and do good at the same time,” said Gemma Lionello, executive vice president, general merchandise manager, accessories and beauty, at Nordstrom. “We’re proud to expand access to a recycling program that will help our Canadian customers easily and conveniently recycle their beauty packaging.”
Customer disposing of empty beauty product packaging in the BEAUTYCYCLE bin in Nordstrom’s beauty department. Photo: Nordstrom
BEAUTYCYCLE boxes will be available in the beauty department and Nordstrom will send the content of these boxes to TerraCycle where they are cleaned and separated into metals, glass, and plastics. Those materials are then recycled based on the material composition.
Nordstrom leads with the fundamental belief that it has a responsibility to leave the world better than they found it, and with the knowledge that each year more than 120 billion units of plastic packaging are produced by the global beauty industry, with less than nine percent getting recycled, the brand is committed to playing an active role in changing this statistic.
In addition to this, by 2025 Nordstrom has also committed to reducing single-use plastic by 50 percent, to be using sustainably-sourced raw materials in 50 percent of Nordstrom-made products made of polyester, cotton, and cellulosic fibres, and to ensuring that 15 percent of all product is considered sustainable.
Lightspeed Payments
Lightspeed Launches Lightspeed Payments in United Kingdom & Europe in Expansion of Tailored Financial Solutions
Montreal-based Lightspeed, a leading provider of cloud-based, omnichannel commerce platforms, has announced the initial availability of Lightspeed Payments for hospitality merchants in the UK and Europe.
Lightspeed’s integrated payments experience gives small and medium-sized businesses in the hospitality industry access to key functionalities, including mobile and contactless payments. The demand for contactless transactions has been exacerbated and as economic re-openings loom, and businesses need to be prepared.
Lightspeed Payments will be rolled out first to hospitality merchants in the UK, followed by retail merchants shortly thereafter. This will continue for Lightspeed merchants throughout France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland.
A study Lightspeed conducted with London’s OnePoll and over 300 small business owners found that:
94% said having integrated POS payments saves money and 79% believe it saves time.
83% are using mobile payments.
78% manage their financials on their own.
34% said they need more support preventing fraudulent payments, while 42% said they need more overall support with financial management.
Lightspeed Payments proved to be essential for many North American businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Operating from a single system of record, merchants eliminate the inconvenience of a separate payments provider, gaining a globally-backed, secure platform.
Exterior of new Costco Business Centre in Edmonton. Photo: Costco
Coscto Opens First Canadian Business Centre in Alberta & Adds Another Location Within Ontario
Costco Wholesale has officially opened its fourth Canadian Business Centre. Located at 10310 – 186 Street NW in Edmonton. The 127,000-square-foot facility has created 140 jobs in the area.
This new Business Centre is the fourth of its kind in Canada and follows the success of the Business Centres launched in Scarborough (Toronto) in March 2017, Saint-Hubert (Montreal) in September 2020, and Ottawa last month.
Interactive Google Map of 3 North Service Rd., St. Catharines and surrounding area.
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Costco Business Centre in St. Catharines. Photo: Costco
Costco Business Centre in St. Catharines. Photo: Costco
The store is part of a Costco national expansion plan, with additional Costco Business Centre locations planned to open across Canada in the coming years. On April 8, just days after the official opening of the Edmonton location, Costco will open its fifth Business Centre, located in St. Catharines, Ontario. Originally a traditional Costco store, this location closed its doors back in November to coincide with the opening of the Costco Wholesale store in Niagara. Now the store located at 3 North Service Rd. in St. Catharines has been renovated to suit the needs of a large-format Costco Business Centre. The 122,000-square-foot facility has created 140 local jobs.
Open to all Costco members, the Business Centre concept is different from the traditional Costco warehouse, with more than 70 percent of the product offerings unique to the Business Centre and targeted to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes. Designed to suit business hours, the Business Centre is open Monday to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Business Centre also offers next-business-day delivery to addresses inside of a delivery zone.
The new Edmonton Costco Business Centre offers more than 3,200 items targeted at restaurants, convenience/grocery stores, and offices – from bulk food items to commercial kitchen wares and cleaning supplies, to office furniture, coffee needs. Business owners will find the same items available both in store and online by visiting Costcobusinesscentre.ca.
“We are thrilled to open our doors and offer this new service, which will better respond to the needs of local business owners,” said Marc-André Bally, Vice President of Business Centres and Ancillary Businesses, Costco Wholesale Canada. “The Costco Business Centre concept is already a success in Ontario and Quebec, and we look forward to offering the same benefits to businesses in Alberta.”
Hot on the heels of Doug Ford’s most recent Ontario lockdown announcement, it is an uncertain time for the St. Catharines location to open in the province. Restaurants and bars have been closed once again, and as the hospitality industry is Costco’s predominant customer demographic, the company is sure to feel the effects of the current economic standstill in food and beverage realm.
Bath Feature ‘Beaumont Vanity’ as part of GlucksteinElements collection. Photo: The Home Depot
Brian Gluckstein
The Home Depot Canada Elevates its Offerings with New Brian Gluckstein Collab
Developed with The Home Depot Canada customer in mind and inspired by Brian Gluckstein’s trademark sophistication and edge, the collection will debut with an assortment of lighting, bathroom vanities, and mirrors. Designed with attention to quality and approachable style, the brand boasts fixtures and finishes created for design lovers seeking style, quality, and comfort, elevating The Home Depot’s current range of bathroom options.
“We’re spending more time in our homes than ever, and consumers are looking for functional solutions that will bring effortless style to any space,” said Kathy Marinic Walsh, brand manager, The Home Depot Canada. “Every step of the way, this collection was developed with our customers in mind. We know what our customers are looking for and we worked with Brian and his team to ensure every product is a balance of quality design and excellent value, which our customers have come to expect from our décor assortment.”
With architecture and design influences from around the world, the lighting collection boasts refined profiles in brushed brass, polished nickel, and modern matte black finishes. The easy-to-install vanity collections are designed to elevate a space with details such as fluting, reeding, and directional wood grains for a custom look, plus built-in organization to make daily routines easier than ever. Sophisticated mirrors round out the lineup with functional features like pivoting wall brackets and built-in shelving.
“It’s been an incredible experience working alongside The Home Depot Canada team on these designs, and I’m so excited to share them with Canadians looking to update their spaces and turn their homes into ones they truly love spending time in, said Brian Gluckstein, interior designer, Gluckstein Design. “I have a passion for designing interiors for my clients, and this collection allows me to share the elements I use throughout those projects to a much wider audience.”
GlucksteinElements will debut online and in store in April, with additional products coming soon.
Canadian cash is on the verge of being obliterated.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed many of the ways consumers shop and pay for goods these days.
A new report by FIS, a leading provider of technology solutions for merchants, banks, and capital markets firms globally, says there has been a decline in the use of cash in Canada, which halved in 2020 and is expected to drop to just four percent of in-store payments by 2024.
Dan Brames, Executive Vice-President of North America Merchant Solutions at FIS, said there has been a rise in the use of digital wallets as a means for online purchasing, growing faster than any other form of payment.
Dan Brames
Also, buy now, pay later services are rising by 78 percent, accounting for 1.6 percent of e-commerce spending.
Part of the decline in cash is due to COVID-19 pandemic.
“But setting that aside, even without COVID, obviously we were starting to see less use of cash whether that’s in the U.S., Canada, the UK — pick your geography. And some of those like the UK are further ahead than even North America. It’s predominantly due to a population now that is becoming more of the buyers of goods that are more comfortable with currencies other than cash — in other words contactless and mobile payments,” said Brames.
“If you look at the acceptance whether that’s online or whether that’s at point of sale, the acceptance of the technology is finally catching up. So it’s not that probably consumers haven’t always wanted to use something other than cash but now it’s so darn convenient, it’s so widely accepted that I think we’re starting to see the catch up effect, if you will, of the acceptance of technology.”
COVID’s impact on the use of cash is due to some people not wanting to handle physical money for fear of perhaps being exposed to the virus. Also, some stores were not accepting cash during the past year for health and safety reasons.
In a few years of the pandemic, everyone started using dozens of payment systems at once. Sometimes it becomes difficult to control your expenses separately from each other. The company Corefy has developed a service that combines hundreds of payment systems in a single application. The integrated payment systems are set up in a few clicks.
The increase of the money limit that could be used for contactless payment has also had an impact on the growth in that use.
“COVID was good in the respect that it accelerated a lot of the use of the technology that had always been there, it’s just maybe there wasn’t a strong of a use case now coming out of COVID,” explained Brames.
The increasing use of technology in paying for goods is also good news for retailers and restaurants as people tend to spend more money than they would if they were using cash.
“Psychologically the idea of laying down cash versus using credit or debit is different. So you’ve got a lot more of what we would call ticket lift where people have the ability and probably will spend more than they would if they were laying down the hard cash,” said Brames.
The annual Global Payments Report by Worldpay from FIS examined current and future payment trends across 41 countries. Findings from the 2021 report show that lockdowns, shelter-in-place orders, and personal safety measures during the global health crisis accelerated the shift toward digital payment methods in every area of consumer spending.
Some key findings from the report include:
Use of mobile wallets exceeded cash for in-store payments for the first time. Globally, cash usage dropped 10 percentage points in 2020 to account for just one-fifth of all in-store payments, behind credit cards (22 percent of in-store payments), debit cards (22 percent) and mobile wallets (26 percent);
Use of cash for in-store payments fell by half or more in Canada, the U.K., France, Norway, Sweden, and Australia;
The report projects that by 2024, cash will account for less than 10 percent of in-store payments in the U.S. and just 13 percent of payments worldwide. Over that same time period, the report projects digital wallet payments to account for more than a third (33 percent) of all in-store payments (16 percent in the U.S.);
Total e-commerce spending grew globally 19 percent last year to $4.6 trillion in value. That growth was the highest in the past five years and represented two-to-three years of typical acceleration in a single year. Analysis shows global e-commerce spending could grow to $7.3 trillion by 2024; and
Usage of digital wallets (45 percent) eclipsed credit cards (23 percent) for the largest share of e-commerce transactions. The growth of digital wallet-based transactions for e-commerce transactions in 2020 equated to three years’ worth of growth in a single year.
Jim Johnson
“Our new research shows that the world is entering a new phase of adoption of digital payment methods,” said Jim Johnson, Head of Merchant Solutions at FIS. “The global pandemic has brought a cashless future closer on the horizon. The implications for merchants are profound. They must be building technology-centric strategies to meet the diverse preferences of consumers’ rapidly changing habits and do so in a way that drives financial inclusion for underserved communities around the world.
“For those businesses that are savvy enough to embrace smarter commerce and invest, the growth opportunities will be huge and potentially game-changing.”
Exterior of Gucci at West Edmonton Mall. Photo: Gucci
Italian luxury brand Gucci has opened its third standalone Canadian location at West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton. The store is part of a continued Canadian investment for Gucci which has included new stores and renovations.
The West Edmonton Mall Gucci store spans 5,040 square feet on one level and is located in what is becoming a ‘luxury run’ in the mall. Gucci is strategically positioned between a Louis Vuitton store that opened in the summer of 2019 and a Saint Laurent storefront that opened in December of 2020. Tiffany & Co., which opened in 2013, is located across the way.
Gucci opened at the the end of March at West Edmonton Mall and the store has been busy from day one. On Saturday March 27, a reader informed us that a lineup to get into the store was more than a three hour wait, and sales were being made.
The store carries a standard selection of Gucci bags, footwear, accessories, jewellery, silks, watches, fragrances, and eyewear. Given the vast space in the new store, sections have been created including footwear boutique spaces for men’s and women’s shoes. One reader noted that some of the ‘new’ collections found in Gucci stores in markets such as Vancouver and Toronto are not yet carried in secondary market stores such as Edmonton.
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Interior of new WEM Gucci store showcasing men's shoe boutique. Photo: Gucci
Interior of new WEM Gucci store showcasing men's shoe and accessory boutique. Photo: Gucci
Interior of new WEM Gucci store showcasing women's bag and accessory boutique. Photo: Gucci
Interior of new WEM Gucci store showcasing women's shoe and accessory boutique. Photo: Gucci
Interior of new WEM Gucci store showcasing women's bag and accessory boutique. Photo: Gucci
Some shoppers recently interviewed by Retail Insider noted with some disappointment that the West Edmonton Mall store does not carry Gucci’s ready-to-wear clothing as many had expected given the size of the space. We’re told that Gucci will look to do trunk shows with ready-to-wear items to test the market and that the fashion collections may be brought in at a later date if there is demand. The store currently lacks dressing rooms to try items on which means that modifications to the space would be needed.
The store’s interior is attractive and similar to other updated Gucci stores in Canada. Velvet armchairs contrast with hard surfaces and industrial elements such as rivets. Artisan painted floors were handcrafted in Italy with optical patterns that are integrated with herringbone wood flooring. Other design elements include sage green velvet upholstery, and vintage oriental rugs. Toronto-based dkstudio Architects Inc. designed the West Edmonton Mall space.
Gucci was one of the top brands at the former Holt Renfrew store in downtown Edmonton which closed in January of 2020. Gucci handbags and shoes are said to have sold more than $3 million annually at Holts in Edmonton, prompting Gucci to maintain a presence in Edmonton after Holts shut. The manager of Gucci’s Edmonton concession, Kyle Goodwin, is now running the West Edmonton Mall Gucci store after a brief stint at Hugo Boss.
West Edmonton Mall is securing several of the top brands that were once available at Holt Renfrew in Edmonton, prompting them to open standalone stores. In the summer of 2019, Canada Goose opened a large standalone store at West Edmonton Mall, and Tiffany & Co., formerly only available at Holts, opened its West Edmonton Mall store in 2013.
Other brands carried at the former Edmonton Holt Renfrew store could look to West Edmonton Mall as well, including the likes of Burberry and Max Mara.
The West Edmonton Mall Gucci store is the brand’s only standalone location in Alberta. In Calgary, Gucci operates three concession spaces within the downtown Holt Renfrew store which includes an accessory boutique on the street level, a women’s ready-to-wear boutique on the second level, and a men’s Gucci area on the third floor.
In Canada, Gucci operates two standalone stores as well as several concessions. The first standalone Gucci store in Canada opened in the year 2000 at 130 Bloor Street West in Toronto in a 6,500-square-foot space that recently saw a full renovation. A second Gucci store opened in 2006 in Vancouver at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, spanning 3,875 square feet — the store will be renovated next year. Gucci’s other locations in Canada are located within Holt Renfrew and Nordstrom stores. In Vancouver, Gucci operates concessions at Holt Renfrew, including separate shops for bags/accessories as well as women’s and men’s apparel. Holt Renfrew’s Calgary store, as mentioned above, features the brand in concession spaces.
Interactive WEM map with red arrow pointing to the new Gucci location.
In Toronto, Gucci operates its large concession at Holt Renfrew in Yorkdale as well as separate bag/accessory and apparel boutiques at Holt Renfrew on Bloor Street. Nordstrom’s CF Toronto Eaton Centre store features a main floor Gucci bag and accessory concession. In Mississauga, Gucci operates a bag/accessory concession at Holt Renfrew. In Montreal, Gucci operates concession spaces at Holt Renfrew Ogilvy for bags/accessories, women’s apparel, and men’s apparel. The store also features Gucci boutiques for men and women. Gucci shoes and belts are also carried at Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue stores in Canada.
In years past, Gucci’s Canadian distribution was primarily in Holt Renfrew stores. In the early 1990’s, Holt Renfrew in Edmonton housed a Gucci boutique space (most recently occupied by women’s shoes) with a mall-facing entrance carrying bags and accessories. Holt Renfrew also operated Gucci bag/accessory boutiques in its other stores including a particularly large selection in Toronto and Montreal.
Gucci is marking 100 years this year — the brand was founded by Guccio Gucci in 1921 and the brand now has over 500 stores and concessions globally with revenues in excess of USD $10 billion annually. The brand is now under the creative direction of Alessandro Michele, and Marco Bizzarri is currently President and CEO of the company. Gucci is owned by global luxury group Kering. In the United States, Gucci operates a network of standalone stores as well as boutique spaces in stores such as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, and Macy’s in Manhattan.
This week, Nordstrom opened a Dover Street Market concept store at its flagship location at CF Pacific Centre in downtown Vancouver. The pop-up will remain open for six weeks. The Dover Street Market concept, located in Nordstrom’s second floor SPACE department, features all seven individual brands under the Brand Development Branch of the Dover Street Market Paris. Pieces from collections are also available now on Nordstrom.ca.
Vancouver is one of only three Nordstrom stores to see the Dover Street Market partnership, with the other two being at Nordstrom’s Manhattan flagship and at the Grove Nordstrom store in Los Angeles. Artist and furniture designer, Marc Hundley, designed the spaces.
Brands at Nordstrom’s Dover Street Market pop-up include Vaquera, Rassvet, Weinsanto, ERL, Liberal Youth Ministry, Honey Fucking Dijon, and Youths in Balaclava. Fashions for both women and men are included as well as gender-neutral styles priced from $30 up to $2,285.
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Inside the Dover Street Market pop-up in Nordstrom Paris' SPACE department. Photo: Melissa Hom
Inside the Dover Street Market pop-up in Nordstrom Paris' SPACE department. Photo: Melissa Hom
Inside the Dover Street Market pop-up in Nordstrom Paris' SPACE department. Photo: Melissa Hom
Inside the Dover Street Market pop-up in Nordstrom Paris' SPACE department. Photo: Melissa Hom
Inside the Dover Street Market pop-up in Nordstrom Paris' SPACE department. Photo: Melissa Hom
Inside the Dover Street Market pop-up in Nordstrom Paris' SPACE department. Photo: Melissa Hom
Nordstrom operates two edgy unisex SPACE departments in its Canadian stores including the Vancouver location as well as Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. Nordstrom also launched SPACE at its CF Toronto Eaton Centre store when it opened in September of 2016 but it has since shut.
The partnership is a first of its kind for Dover Street Market, which is wholly owned by Comme des Garçons and created with the goal of bringing emerging brands to market. Dover Street Market was founded in London in 2004 by Rei Kawakubo and the retailer has stores in London, New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, and Beijing. A smaller store and perfume boutique are located in Paris. A full-line store was recently announced for Paris as the retailer expands its operations. Dover Street Market’s standalone stores typically span in the 15,000-square-foot to 30,000-square-foot range.
It is unclear if Dover Street Market would consider opening a standalone store in Canada. The multi-brand concept has been wildly popular since being founded 16 years ago and is considered to be one of the ‘cool’ multi-brand retail chains sometimes spoken of in the same sentence as Milan’s 10 Corso Como, Dallas’ Forty Five Ten, the former Colette in Paris, as well as Miami-based ‘The Webster’ which will open its first Canadian store on Scollard Street in Toronto’s Yorkville area this year.
For years, retailers, mall owners, and business improvement areas have been turning to the same types of data from the same sources to make the same types of sales predictions. But 2021 turned the life of retailers and mall owners upside down and inside out. If ever there was a time to look for new awareness, it’s now.
The usual way of understanding a place has become as formulaic as ordering a pizza. Stats Can census data are your base. Mobility data are the sauce. Daytime population estimates are the cheese. From data providers, you can pay a lot more for extra toppings like insights from surveys. But you can never be sure how fresh those insights are, how well sourced, or whether they are organic or extrapolated from a can.
The problem is that grasping the health, interconnectedness, and poetry of city life has zero in common with making a pizza. After all, what does census data from before COVID times tell us about life today? What do surveys on consumption from 2020 tell us about how, where, why, who, and when people currently are shopping and spending time? How do such stale tools assist Main Street Davids compete with Goliath’s like Amazon?
If we are going to help our great Canadian public spaces such as malls and main streets recover, we have to be frank that analytics we’ve been ordering – while comprehensive and intermittently easy to apply – don’t tell us a great deal about inflection moments like these when cities and consumer behaviours are being reshuffled.
Happily, big advances in data innovation and digital technology are revealing new evidence-based means to make investment decisions based on what matters to people. If we look at hard data from across Canada and Europe, the most successful places turn out to be those which are safe, engaging, and have a magnetic diversity of uses and attractions.
Using geo-social data, Citiscope measures how diverse, exciting, safe, and engaging spaces actually are. We use machine learning to create esoteric tools that capture what people actually like about the places that they visit.
In essence, we’ve turned billions of social media posts about settings and places into an analytic tool that can help you improve visitor experiences and so promote communities that are more sustainable and liveable.
We identify the quantitative and qualitative strengths of your address by focusing on what people love about them. With that deep dive into community lifestyles, you’re able to compare property dynamics of malls or main streets across the same city or region.
For instance, visitors to a neighbourhood often have a hard time experiencing the optimal ambience just by checking a map or using a trip rating site. Citiscope can help visitors improve their shopping experiences by measuring the intensity of social activities that happen in a mall or on a main street. We also score streets based on certain old-timey geo-spatial points of interest data like footfall to shops with newer insights derived from, say, robustness of digital footprints of businesses, numbers of events, accesses to public space, even quality of air.
We see shops, main streets, and malls as existing within a super-local ecosystem that integrates destinations where the attractions of all boost or rub off on each other.
We can also help you create a baseline for retail strategizing so that you can view impacts over time. That can make positive differences as our long COVID winter finally begins turning into something more hopeful, roaring, and exciting.
*Retail Insider partnered with Citiscope for this article.
Dorn Townsend
Citiscope was founded by Dorn Townsend, a Toronto native whose interest in learning how people engage with cities began after university when he spent a year as a bike messenger in Toronto and Vancouver. He spent years working on urban issues around the world with the UN while he was also contributing to media like The Economist, Foreign Affairs, and The New York Times. The software’s back-end was built by a team of PhDs in math and telecommunications engineering. The platform is uniquely built to take and seamlessly integrate information from different sources including in-house data, Internet of Things, smart-city sensors, and social media.
Voilà has expanded its e-commerce offering to Alberta, with the launch of “Voilà by Safeway Curbside Pickup” setting the stage for its online grocery home delivery service in the province in 2023.
A Customer Fulfilment Centre is currently being built in Rocky View County, just outside of Calgary city limits, to facilitate the future growth. The new facility will create about 1,500 jobs in the province.
“We’re excited to continue investing in Alberta, bringing our cutting-edge technology to Albertans,” said Sarah Joyce, SVP E-commerce, Empire Company Limited. “These new online options will complement the exceptional in-store experience and assortment customers have come to expect of our Safeway, Sobeys, IGA, and FreshCo stores in Alberta.”
Julie Filion, Head of Marketing, ECommerce at Sobeys, said the Voilà concept was launched June 22 in the Toronto market with its delivery business being the first launch in the country.
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Voilà by Sobeys delivery truck. Photo: Sobeys
Voilà by Sobeys delivery truck. Photo: Sobeys
“That business model we’re delivering out of the CFC. The Toronto CFC was the first CFC for the delivery-based model. This September we launched curbside pickup as a way to extend our e-commerce offering to more Canadians. We launched in curbside pickup in Nova Scotia as our first market.”
Currently Voilà covers the entire Greater Toronto Area and Greater Hamilton Area for delivery.
“We’re in the process of rolling out curbside pickup for hundreds of stores across the country,” said Filion. “We just launched four (Safeway) stores in Alberta — three in Calgary and one in Edmonton. And we have an additional eight stores in Nova Scotia and you can expect a future rollout of stores across the country in the coming year.”
Safeway curbside pickup locations in Alberta include:
● Safeway Shawnessy – 70 Shawville Boulevard SE, Calgary;
Orders are assembled by Voilà staff and delivered directly to customers’ cars to provide a contactless experience. Local customers can order online at Voilà.ca or by downloading the Voilà mobile app.
At the CFCs, robots assemble orders in an automated warehouse, resulting in minimal product handling, while Voilà staff use enhanced COVID-19 sanitization protocols to deliver orders safely to customers’ homes.
The first centre was established in Vaughan, Ontario. The company’s plan is to have four centres across the country. Another centre is coming in Pointe Claire, Quebec. A previous news release said that facility will be ready to deliver to customers in early 2022. The location of the fourth facility has not been announced. The first centre is 255,000 square feet and each facility’s size will depend on the market they are serving. They will be able to fulfil very large orders very rapidly. They are also huge opportunities for job creation.
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Voilà by Sobeys website. Photo: Sobeys
Voilà by Sobeys app. Photo: Sobeys
“Our four fulfiment centres will allow us to serve 75 percent of Canadian households. Our curbside pickup model will be an alternative option where the market density doesn’t justify a fulfilment centre or like in the case of Alberta while we wait for the fulfilment centre to be built,” said Filion.
“This is allowing us to really bring an industry-leading online shopping experience to Canadians. Before the pandemic, and even more so with the pandemic, we have seen an acceleration of grocery e-commerce and this is a solution that Canadian families are looking to have to have increased convenience, a great shopping experience and we partner specifically with Ocado. Ocado is our technology partner.”
In Toronto, the concept is called Voilà by Sobeys. When it is launched in Quebec, it will be called Voilà par IGA and in Alberta it is Voilà by Safeway.
All the brands fall under the Empire Company Limited umbrella which is based in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, with about $28.4 billion in annual sales, $15 billion in assets, and employing about 127,000 people.
