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Disruption. It’s been one of the most frequently bantered buzzwords within the retail industry for close to a decade, often used by experts and analysts to describe the impacts of newly introduced technologies, store concepts or modes of service. The results of such disruptions are, in most cases, positive and lead to the development of even greater advances, innovations and enhancements to the retail experience. And, although the very negative effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic may yet yield a similarly favourable outcome for the industry, the destruction and havoc that the virus is currently wreaking on operations are creating comprehensive challenges for many, posing potentially grave consequences if these challenges are not overcome. One of the hardest hits taken by retailers, a repercussion of the pandemic that bears significantly on the future health of the industry, is the collective strain that’s been placed on staffing efforts across the country. If you ask the opinion of Suzanne Sears, President of Luxury Careers Canada and retail staffing expert, this fact on its own equates to what is perhaps the most disruptive time in the history of retail, requiring merchants and brands to leverage creativity and shift their organizational mindset in order to find and retain the right retail talent.
“Retailers are approaching the pinnacle of crisis with respect to the staffing of their stores and operations,” she asserts. “The biggest challenge they currently face is a lack of potential staff to recruit from. That might seem contradictory given the numbers of people who have been laid off in the past year, leading some people to think that there must be thousands of applicants responding to each job posting. But the reverse is actually happening. And there are a multitude of reasons that help explain why. One of the biggest influences effecting this trend is the mass exodus of people from urban centres who have left to live elsewhere, outside of the city. And as we all know most major retail is concentrated in these urban centres across the country. It’s taken away from the population-base that retailers draw from in each of these cities, depleting the pool of talent in those areas.”
Suzanne Sears
Draining Urban Population
According to recently released data from Statistics Canada, a record number of Canadians moved away from Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver — the country’s three largest cities. In fact, between July 2019 and July 2020, an estimated 87,444 city-dwellers gave up their urban digs for the slower and, presumably safer, settings of the suburbs, smaller towns, and rural areas. This compares to an average annual exodus of 72,686 people for the previous three years. These numbers alone are startling. But what’s more significant is the fact that much of the urban departure currently taking place is represented by youth and young families. Nearly a third of those who left Canada’s major urban centres were between the ages of 15 to 29, while a whopping 82 percent were under the age of 45. Considering the fact that individuals within these younger cohorts are those who retailers would like to attract, either for frontline positions or senior management, and the current drought in retail talent starts to make sense.
Sears describes it is a trend that’s influenced by a feeling of fear among prospective talent and underscored by a prevailing uncertainty within society concerning safety, health, and wellbeing. For those who haven’t left the city behind, she says, that fear and uncertainty are showing up in a reluctance to work frontline positions, whether in environments like shopping centres or street-side locations, due to their unwillingness to engage directly with the public during this time. Thinning the availability of talent even further is the fact that for those working entry level or intermediate jobs, this is a time in their lives when, generally speaking, they are starting to have children and raise families. And because of the resulting ambiguity and unpredictability around the availability of schooling and daycare, many are postponing their return to employment, preferring to wait until there’s some reassurance that their children will be looked after in a safe environment while they work.
A Thinning Pool of Talent
In addition, its widely estimated that there is a disproportionate number of women currently remaining outside of the workforce to that of men, resulting in an awkward demographic imbalance within the industry. It’s awkward in that it seems well-understood by most that there are certain jobs that don’t attract men, like those in beauty and cosmetics, lingerie and women’s apparel stores. And if this commonly accepted perception holds true, it could place even further strain on the restaffing efforts of retailers operating within these verticals and others of the like. And, as though these influencers and forcing functions weren’t causing enough turmoil and chaos, Sears adds that members of the workforce who are close to or nearing retirement have decided to end their careers early as a result of the pandemic and the difficult situation surrounding it. With their leave from the industry, they take with them their years of experience, understanding and know-how. Cumulatively, she explains that these challenges are presenting retailers with a real staffing conundrum that they must answer in order to conquer their current dilemma.
“As a result of these primary pain-points currently burdening staffing efforts within the industry, retailers are left with few people on the bottom end of their organizations while the people with the expertise are leaving,” she laments. “What this has resulted in is a very thin supply of talent between the ages of 45 and 55 who are all at intermediate level stages of their careers. It’s presenting retailers everywhere with a massive challenge when it comes to staffing. And it’s a challenge that is going to require them to become creative and reimagine talent acquisition with respect to the ways they’re currently finding people to fill positions within their organizations.”
Rethinking the Role of Human Resources
The traditional approach to filling positions, Sears explains, in which retailers post job opportunities and receive 100 or more applications to find the right person isn’t as effective as it once was. More often today, retailers are being made to work for their hires, to go out and find prospective employees rather than wait for the talent to come to them. It’s a trend that’s been taking shape in recent years, but is yet another example of a shift that’s been accelerated by the impacts of the pandemic. And, Sears believes that to properly address this shift, to enable their organizations to find the right talent rather than simply receive it, retailers need to rethink the role that human resources play in this pursuit.
“Human resources departments have, for the most part, served a functional role within retail organizations,” she says. “They’re responsible for paper processes related to people coming in and people going out of the organization. And they’ve also been very administrative in their approach toward their management of the people for the company. In light of all of the challenges effecting retail staffing efforts, they now have to start serving more of a marketing function, developing ways to attract talent to the organization. Further, their approach needs to be one-on-one, personalized and relationship-based. They need to reassess their role and purpose within their organizations, perhaps even reinventing themselves to a degree in order to attract and retain employees.”
Internal Growth and Development
Another critical shift that retailers are going to be required to make, says Sears, involves placing a greater emphasis on the internal development of talent within their own organizations. Though there are some within the industry that have already instituted internal programs and initiatives to nurture and foster their young and emerging skilled employees, it’s not a strategy that’s gained widespread adoption to date. However, Sears suggests that it’s something that could change very soon if retailers have any ambition to boost the reputation of the industry and increase the attractiveness of retail as a viable career option.
“Most of the skills that retailers are currently looking for are not abundant in Canada,” she explains. “And in light of the scarce number of retail post-secondary programs available within the country, retail organizations are going to need to offer educational opportunities to prospective employees in order to train and grow the talent that they need from within. These are initiatives that were once common throughout the country forty-plus years ago. In order for the industry in Canada to succeed and thrive going forward, and to address their need for talent that just isn’t available currently, they’ll need to consider revisiting their approach from decades ago and reintroduce the same kind of management training and development courses and programs that they once did.”
Offering Adequate Compensation
Beyond the pitfalls of the traditional retail approach to staffing and the improvements that need to be made in order to achieve greater effectiveness and success, the significant matter of compensation, and its power to entice or deter prospective talent, adds another layer of complexity to the already complicated mix of challenges influencing retailers’ efforts to fill positions. And although there is some disparity across the country with respect to provincial minimum wages, Sears suggests that it’s not enough and does nothing to enhance the appeal of a job in retail, and that organizations will need to offer a little more in order to achieve their staffing objectives.
“If retailers want great talent rather than okay talent, they have to provide an income for their employees that is enough to live on,” she states. “The figure that’s generally considered ‘enough’ to live on is somewhere between $36-46,000 a year. Minimum wage falls short of that no matter where you’re working in the country. The fact of the matter is that people will leave your organization for any company that’s willing to pay them a dollar or two more than you’re paying them. Compensation is that critical to them, and rightly so. As a result, retailers will need to adjust to the fact that the talent they seek is going to cost them three to five dollars more an hour than they’ve ever been accustomed to paying before. It’s going to hurt. But they’ll need to find ways to offset for this increase in payroll. It’ll force them to find greater efficiencies in inventory, shipping, and other areas of the business. It’s also going to require a new mentality on their part if they are to find the calibre of employee that they need to succeed.”
Challenges and Opportunities
All told, the challenges faced by retailers in their bid to staff their stores and organizations amid the pandemic are not in short supply. There are a number of different levers being pulled at once today that are impacting the industry and their quest to find the right talent. It’s requiring retailers to view the current situation through an equally vast number of lenses as they attempt to increase their appeal among a thinning pool of prospective employees. But, as Sears points out, along with the challenges, there are also opportunities available for organizations to capitalize on as we collectively move closer toward an end to the pandemic and social restrictions.
“The pandemic will at some point be behind us, when everyone is vaccinated and people become comfortable going out again and visiting their favourite retail locations. It may not be until sometime in 2022. But there will be an end to our current situation soon enough. And when retailers are able to open their doors to the public, they’re going to want to be properly staffed with the right talent that will offer the exceptional service and expertise that their customers have come to enjoy and expect from them. Those who make the necessary adjustments to their internal hiring and recruiting processes, their mindset with respect to the development of talent, and the compensation and benefits that they are willing to offer prospective employees, will place themselves a step ahead of their competitors, positioning their organizations for future growth and success.”
Exterior of Erin Mills Town Centre in Mississauga. Photo: Cushman Wakefield
By Perry Schawrtz
The race to help businesses big and small get online in a meaningful way is well underway. With wide-spread lockdowns and stay-at-home orders in place across the country, the pandemic has accelerated the need for shopping centres to digitize their offerings. This trend has seen the proliferation and increased adoption of digital platforms like Shopify, Lightspeed, and fellow Canadian company, GetintheLoop.
Recently, we’ve even started to see various levels of government take action on this front with local Chambers of Commerce, Business Improvement Areas (BIAs), and other grassroots associations driving the shop local movement with a variety of digital and mobile strategies.
Matt Crowell
This growth in mobile isn’t new. Mobile user numbers have been steadily growing at a rate of 50 percent per year for the last 15 years, getting us pretty close to the point where every human on earth is now ‘connected’ via smartphone. What did change significantly in 2020 was moved from a steady one percent of growth per year in e-commerce over the last 18 years to an astonishing 10 percent increase in online retail sales in just the first eight weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“2020 was an eye-opening year for our company. We quickly saw how the pandemic was making it more important than ever for businesses big and small to create a digital strategy. We have been working tirelessly to support the needs of thousands of local merchants as well as dozens of shopping centres and their tenants across Canada,” said Matt Crowell, Founder, and CEO of GetintheLoop. “With 63 percent of bricks and mortar shopping starting online, our platform is purposely built to help physical businesses attract and retain customers through an omnichannel digital approach that is focused on making it easy for consumers to find and support local businesses.”
Photo: Cornwall Centre
Shopping centres have long been the Mecca of local commerce, and despite recent challenges, Crowell and the GetintheLoop team don’t see that changing. In a recently published white paper titled, “Re-Imagining The Shopping Centre Experience,” he outlines how consumers are changing the way they interact with shopping mall retailers and how the services those shopping centres offer in the future are also adapting quite dramatically.
“It is important for us to support our tenants’ goals,” said Theresa Warnaar, Senior Vice President, Retail and Asset Resilience, KingSett Capital. “With the significant change in consumer consumption behaviour, we are investing in a digital strategy to help facilitate an enhanced shopping experience. In Cornwall Centre, for example, we have seen shopper engagement increase by over 200 percent with new consumer trends such as curbside pickup.
Transitioning long-standing retail strategies and evolving the marketing approach and the operational practices of shopping centres and their tenants won’t happen overnight. It takes time to develop and implement a fully-integrated and marketing strategy that seamlessly works between the online and physical retail environments.
“While it’s still early days of our partnership with GetintheLoop, we have seen significant success with up to 75% of tenants opting into the platform within the first 90 days,” said Molly Westbrook, Executive Managing Director for Canada, Cushman & Wakefield Asset Services. “The new tools allow us to provide our tenants with an extended reach on mobile and digital channels that drive awareness and engagement for their promotions, new product arrivals, and curbside services. We’re also helping consumers find relevant, local information on their smartphones that enhances their overall shopping experience in today’s omnichannel environment.”
So, what does all this mean for the future of traditional retail in Canada? If we’ve learned one thing over the past ten months, it’s that retailers who aren’t engaging with their customers digitally will struggle to survive. Those that were slow to integrate digital within their shopping experience before the pandemic have realized that they’re playing catch-up. In contrast, brands that were already active in the digital sandbox have undeniably given themselves a leg up on the competition when things begin to normalize again.
If you needed more proof that digital and mobile strategies are leading the way for traditional organizations in the wake of the pandemic, look no further than the 152-year-old H.J. Heinz Company, which became the unofficial condiment of the pandemic when it launched an impossibly time-consuming jigsaw puzzle on social media in the early days of lockdown, and later partnered with food delivery apps and Spotify to deliver a baseball stadium experience before the start of the fan-less 2020 season.
As we look ahead to the coming months, it’s clear that we’re in the early days of a digital transformation taking place at shopping centres as retailers begin to adapt to new consumer expectations and market demands posed by the pandemic in 2021. It will be interesting to see how retailers leverage the digital toolbox to look for new ways to attract customers to their brands in creative and engaging ways.
Crowell sat down with Retail Insider’s Editor-In-Chief Craig Patterson right before Christmas to share some insights about the shopping centre’s digitization on our December 22 episode of the Retail Insider Podcast.
Some of Ren's loyal customers sitting outside a Ren's Pets store. Photo: Ren's Pets
There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on certain segments of the retail industry.
But in some sectors, such as sporting goods and home decor, sales are growing.
One sector of retail also experiencing that positive trend is the pet industry.
As more people spend more time at home with Fido and Felix, they’re also spending more money for their pets and the expectation is that they’ll also be buying more pets to keep them company at home.
Scott Arsenault
“There’s two things that have happened. There’s been an increase in pet ownership and then people now having the time — the interactions have been heavier or more concentrated or more involved,” said Scott Arsenault, President of Ren’s Pets, a Canadian specialty retailer with its head office in Guelph, Ontario.
“It’s been intentional because people are home. So they’re walking. They’re training more. Treats more. For current pet ownership, they seem to be really invested in their pets because it’s something you can do. You can walk them. You can play with them. Growth within the industry has been outstanding. The year for pets has been fantastic.”
Interior images of Ren's Pets. Photos: Ren's Pets
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The company was founded in 1975 in Oakville. Currently it has 32 locations and it will be opening seven more locations this year. The company has 29 locations in Ontario, from Sudbury to Windsor, and three in the Maritimes (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia). Of the new locations to be opened this year, one will be in the Maritimes and six in Ontario.
The pet retailer is primarily focused on dogs and cats and they don’t have any live animals in their stores, which have a typical footprint of about 7,500 square feet.
“The fact that we’re solely dog and cat with some small animals really makes us kind of a powerhouse within the dog and cat category. We would have as much as a PetSmart would have in a sense,” said Arsenault. “And we don’t do the services. We don’t groom in store. We don’t train. We don’t board. We don’t sell live animals. From that standpoint, we’re very fixated on dogs and cats.”
Arsenault said two categories have really grown in the pet industry. The raw food category is one of them.
“More than 75 percent of our stores have walk-in freezers and a lot of people haven’t really understood the transition to raw pet food and how big it is. That category has really boomed,” he said.
“And then grooming. Grooming has been fantastic. Ren’s is the number one supplier of pet products to groomers in Canada. So to the professional. We don’t groom. That’s intentional. We don’t compete with the people we sell to. Also grooming for the retail consumer has been off the charts. Our retail business in grooming, in selling the products, has been probably the biggest surprise.
“That’s a good thing to do with your pets. Spend time with them in grooming them because they really like it. It’s a form of bonding with them. People are educating themselves and they’re grooming their pets. And that was one category that we didn’t see would boom the way it did.”
Arsenault said he sees the trend in pet ownership and people spending money on their pets to continue for a number of reasons. More people are working from home now and will continue to work from home even when the pandemic is gone. Also less people are travelling.
Delivery options have been widely availed of during the pandemic. Photos: Ren's Pets
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“I’ve seen people who I never thought would have gotten a pet because it might compromise their lifestyle and they’re now just flooding social media with the love this pet is giving them and they’re getting,” said Arsenault.
“It’s just a great connection that people are getting to have now. And pausing in their life. People have changed. They’re going to walk a little bit more. They’re going to spend more time with their pets. It’s an interesting vertical.”
Sales of fish tanks and other small pet enclosures have also seen a rise since the start of the pandemic.
Arsenault said the company has had record numbers both online and in-store for sales. With the online component, sales are across Canada.
“It’s phenomenal the growth that’s happened within our online but our stores are just as robust. From the retail standpoint, this is a good story because bricks and mortar is relevant as well as the online that is growing like crazy. We’re still going to expand stores when a lot of people are thinking contraction,” he added.
Montreal-based A2Z, which is known as a footwear company and parent company of Shumaker Shoes, has launched a new medical division as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The initiative was launched in 2020 as the pandemic took hold in Canada from mid-March to today.
“When the pandemic really hit in North America and everything was shut down, we used and leveraged a lot of the network that we have internationally, the contacts we built over decades, and we diversified,” said Ishan Singh, Chief Operating Officer of A2Z Wholesale.
“Almost a year later I will tell you that A2Z has several divisions, footwear and consumer goods is one of those divisions, the medical division is another very strong component of what our business is now.”
A2Z has been a family business for several decades. The company traditionally has been in the footwear business for three generations beginning with Singh’s grandfather in India since 1948.
“The A2Z company has always been in the sourcing and the distribution of footwear mainly and other accessories. The shift that took place in 2020 is we really diversified.”
The company started its retail division with Shumaker Shoes in 2015 and today has 13 locations all in Ontario.
Singh said the medical division, which is named Moki, is a response to the pandemic.
“Our usual business came to a halt because everything was locked down. We put on our thinking hats and said what can we do and how can we keep busy because we’ve never really been sitting idle,” said Singh. “We worked and made connections and developed a medical division and through that we were able to develop or create a few personal protective technologies.
“Two main ideas that came out of it that served to help in light of the COVID pandemic but also realistically it’s what we can envision using post COVID so that we can kind of return to what may be the new normal.”
The company is using its same importing networks to bring Personal Protective Equipment to Canada and has also created innovative PPE technology that can be used in retail spaces as well as just about anywhere else.
One product it launched is called POSTsilver, a nanosilver film that inconspicuously covers surfaces and continually breaks down harmful germs. The other is auto sanitizing gates.
“POSTsilver is a transparent film which uses silver ion particles to prevent germ transmission in public spaces,” said Singh. “The idea is to cover high touch surfaces, and this transparent film doesn’t change the look or the colour of the surface on which it’s applied but because of the technology behind it, it essentially destroys all microbes or viruses on a continuous 24/7 basis.”
Singh said the product’s use can be used practically anywhere that has high touch areas. He added that the film itself has a lifespan of five years and the proprietary technology behind it is such that it’s imbedded within the film itself and works at suppressing microbes and viruses for that time span.
“On a daily basis, we’re touching so many different things and in light of the COVID situation people’s awareness has been heightened in terms of germs and how they spread and the need to be careful and the use of hand sanitizers. It’s really widespread. It really is,” he said.
“POSTsilver is a technology that can allow retail to open up safely. You could put it on escalators in shopping centres. You can put it on those directories, the touch screen maps that shopping centres have. Anything that people would touch and realistically despite our best efforts we’re not going to be able to disinfect those areas whenever someone touches it. This is where POSTsilver comes into play because it’s a transparent film that is continuously working and you eliminate the human factor where typically they’re going in with a Windex bottle or something and you can miss a spot.
“The auto sanitizing gates are essential portals that you can place at entrances of all public spaces. This is something notably for high traffic areas where people in passing through the gates would walk through a vaporized, dry disinfectant liquid and the goal is to eliminate whatever bacteria or viruses that may be on the individual externally. So on their clothes, on their carry on bags and so on. It allows you to create a safer environment once you pass through the gates itself.”
The supermarket will be located in Humaniti Montreal, a multi-purpose building located in the heart of the Quartier international, where the Quartier des spectacles meets Old Montreal. The merchandise in this 7,500-square-foot chain store will be similar to that found in other Avril supermarkets, namely a wide range of organic fruits and vegetables, grocery items, food supplements, and cosmetics. It will also feature a food service section and takeout.
“Our current locations are between 20,000 and 44,000 square feet. We will find the same categories of products there but with a smaller offering. We will have a large selection of fresh products, ready-to-eat meals, and a bistro with a dining room and a terrace. Our storefront will also have 10 underground parking spaces for customers,” said owners Sylvie Senay and Rolland Tanguay.
“For a long time, we have received requests to open an Avril in Montreal. We turned down several proposals until we were presented with the Humaniti project. The timing was good for us and the quality of the project, a LEED and WELL certified construction, corresponds to our values. In addition, it is very well located in the heart of the Quartier international in front of the Place Riopelle, between the Old Port and the Quartier des spectacles.
Images of Humaniti Montreal in downtown Montreal. Interactive Google Map of Humaniti Montreal and the surrounding neighbourhood
“With this project, which will see the light of day in June and the opening in May of a new 44,000-square-foot location at Promenades Saint-Bruno, we will have a total of 10 locations. We will continue to expand, but we cannot confirm at this stage the cities where we will set up new locations. Two more locations are expected to open in 2022.”
Humaniti Montreal is a building constructed and managed by Cogir Real Estate. It features 152 condos, 314 apartments, a 193-room hotel, office space, and some commercial space.
Avril was founded in Granby, in 1995, by Senay and Tanguay. With its head office in Granby, the company employs nearly 1,000 people and owns eight chain stores, an online shop and a logistics and distribution centre in Quebec.
Tanguay and Senay bought an existing 1,500-square-foot store in 1995 specializing in natural and organic products.
“Today all of our locations offer fruit and vegetables, ready-to-eat, groceries, supplements, cosmetics and a bistro under one roof. In 2018, at our Laval location, we developed an automated vertical farming platform for growing microgreens. We grow these microgreens every day to supply our stores and make them available to our customers and in our bistros,” said the owners.
Avril Supermarché Santé Owners Rolland Tanguay and Sylvie Senay
“It was in 2007 that we started our expansion. Avril is established in these cities: Granby (1995), Longueuil (2007), Brossard (2010), Lévis (2015), Québec (2016), Magog (2015), Sherbrooke (2017), and Laval (2018). We built and opened our Logistics and Distribution Centre in Granby in 2018 to accelerate our expansion. Our head office is located in Granby. With the opening of Montreal and Saint-Bruno, Avril will exceed 1,000 employees.
“We differentiate ourselves from traditional supermarkets by offering 100 percent natural and organic products. For example, 100 percent of our fruits and vegetables are organic and that department is Ecocert certified. Our stores are built in an eco-responsible way. The layout is designed to provide a bold customer experience with wider aisles.”
The owners said the ready-to-eat section is experiencing strong growth. In addition to an offering from different suppliers, the company adds to its offering from its team of in-house chefs working out of a central kitchen. It also has a large selection of products from its private label which are high-end, quality products at competitive prices.
With COVID-19 and restrictions in place with the hospitality industry, more consumers are cooking at home which is driving them to visit supermarkets more frequently.
“For some time, we had been looking for a site in downtown Montreal where we could open an Avril store. Humaniti was a natural choice.
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Interior image of wellness aisles in Avril Supermarché Santé. Photo: Avril Supermarché Santé
Interior image of grocery aisles in Avril Supermarché Santé. Photo: Avril Supermarché Santé
mage of seating area within Avril Supermarché Santé. Photo: Avril Supermarché Santé
Interior image of wellness aisles in Avril Supermarché Santé. Photo: Avril Supermarché Santé
Interior image of wellness aisles in Avril Supermarché Santé. Photo: Avril Supermarché Santé
This real estate project’s human approach is an ideal match to our philosophy which aims to provide a unique shopping experience that is aligned with the new consumer habits of Quebeckers,” said Senay.
“We are quite proud to welcome Avril in our building. Like Humaniti, where the rental portion aims to receive the WELL certification, Avril’s merchandise is designed to enhance human well-being,” said Jean-Marc Bélanger, Vice-President of Operations, Multi-residential division of Cogir.
“Humaniti defines itself as an Advanced Vertical Community in which its occupants live, work and play. We needed to have a grocer on site, but we wanted one which would be consistent with the spirit embodied by the project. Avril certainly meets that criterion,” added Joseph Telio, Vice-President Leasing at Cogir Real Estate’s commercial division.
Cogir Immobilier, a Quebec company founded in 1995, oversees the management of over 250 properties in Quebec, Ontario, and the U.S. It administers over seven million square feet of commercial, industrial and office real estate property and over 25,000 residential housing units, including a network of over 50 private retirement residences. The company also has extensive experience in the hotel industry.
This week, Craig & Lee discuss the closures underway with Kiehl’s and Godiva chocolate as well as expansions for L.L.Bean and APM Monaco.
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