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Canadian Gift Basket Retailer ‘Baskits’ Sees Explosive Growth with Multiple Sales Channels: Interview

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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TD Centre (Image: Baskits)

Baskits, the online retailer of gift baskets, has been in business since 1985 but in 2014 it was acquired by entrepreneur Robin Kovitz who has spearheaded explosive growth for the company in recent years. 

For two years in a row, it has been listed on the Globe and Mail’s ranking of Canada’s Top Growing Companies. And Kovitz, the company’s President and CEO, was a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2021.

“We’re Canada’s leading gift delivery service company,” she said. “We’re an omnichannel retailer so we operate through bricks and mortar stores, through e-commerce stores, and a call centre. In a nutshell, we design, manufacture and ship /deliver gifts all across Canada and the US on behalf of customers from all around the world.

St. Clair Baskits Location (Image: Baskits)

“One unique aspect of our business is we have both B2B and B2C parts of our business. I would say it’s pretty evenly split. We service both markets.

“We’ve taken a bit of a different approach to stores. Because my background is in investing, I see the stores a little bit differently than a traditional retailer would. We only have three locations and they’re very, very small. They’re micro stores, 200 square feet. And the purpose of the store is more as a delivery pickup point, as a showroom and a place for people to kind of confirm quality. But the goal is to sell not through the stores.”

Three locations are in Toronto.

Kovitz grew up in Calgary with a family business – Centennial Foods which was the largest privately-held meat manufacturing and distribution company in Canada with three plants in the city. She grew up evenings and weekends with her father and grandfather learning the business. After she graduated from high school, she went to Queen’s University for a Bachelor of Commerce. Kovitz then spent a few years in investment banking, advising people on buying and selling companies.

What followed was getting a Master’s from the Harvard Business School which was a dream come true for her. While she was there, she met many men in private equity. 

President & CEO Robin Kovitz (Image: Baskits)
St. Clair Baskits Location (Image: Baskits)

“I just thought private equity was the cat’s meow. The concept of raising money, buying a business, operating it and selling it. I just fell in love with this idea,” she said. “I came back to Canada because my husband’s a lawyer here. I was determined to work in private equity and I did that for a few years. Then I turned the ripe old age of 30, this was 11 years ago, and like many women started thinking of having a family. I looked over my career path and I thought yikes how am I going to have a kid, breastfeed, be accessible from home, do all these things, and also still do what made me successful, which is being at my desk 17 hours a day.

“I took a step back and thought about my strengths and skills and my family and husband encouraged me to buy a small business and see what I could do with it. I know I’m a workaholic but at least I knew I would have more flexibility over my schedule.”

That launched her on a path to study small businesses, trying to find one to acquire. She ‘lucked’ upon Baskits. At first she dismissed it. She didn’t think of it as a business for her. But over time she ended up acquiring the business.

TD Centre (Image: Baskits)
Image: Baskits

“I do believe in fate and now I see it like my third child,” said Kovitz. “It’s a lot of fun.

“When I bought the business it had a few million in sales in 2014 and we’ve grown more than 7x since I acquired it.”

Kovitz said it has been a fun business to be in, building a world-class team – the success behind the operation.

“I get calls all the time. I’m not interested in selling it. I want to build. I want to build something greater than myself and I think giving gifts is a really fun and interesting space to be in.

“I think we’ve kind of made the gift basket have a bit of a comeback – a resurgence – with the merger of that with e-commerce. The gift basket from the 80s is back again and Baskits is at the core of that.”

Interview with Canderel CEO Brett Miller on the Acquisition of Cominar REIT

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Champlain Mall (Image: DMA Architects)

Canderel Real Estate Property Inc., a privately held, Quebec-based owner, manager and developer of real estate, has become a major player in the  province’s shopping centre scene after its purchase of Cominar Real Estate Investment Trust and its assets.

The purchase included 12 key retail properties totalling just over 4.8 million square feet.

Brett Miller

Brett Miller, CEO of Canderel, said that over the last five years Quebec’s economy has been strong.

“There’s strong disposable income in Quebec because the allocation of household spend to mortgage payments and the home is proportionally a little lower than the rest of Canada,” he said. “Salaries are pretty much on a par. Rent or mortgages is lower. It’s because of a lower cost of real estate. Even though it’s climbed a lot in recent years it’s still lower than a Vancouver or a Toronto.

“There’s an historic, long-term propensity of Quebecers to put money towards entertainment, retail, going out, restaurants, leisure as opposed to putting all the money into housing.

Centre Laval (Image: Tourisme Laval)

“Overall it’s a healthy consumer.”

The major retail assets to be owned by Canderel will include: Champlain Mall, Brossard, 710,000 square feet; Centre Laval, Laval, 700,000 square feet; Alexis Nihon Commercial Center, Montreal, 410,000 square feet; Gare Centrale, Montreal, 90,000 square feet; Centropolis, Laval, 110,000 square feet; Galeries Rive-Nord, Repentigny, 550,000 square feet; Promenades Beauport, Quebec City, 600,000 square feet; Halles Fleur de Lys, Quebec City, 105,000 square feet; Centre Rockland, Montreal, 630,000 square feet; Montenach Mall, Beloeil, 370,000 square feet; Les Galeries de Hull, Hull, 285,000 square feet; and Quartier Laval, Laval, 265,000 square feet.

Miller said the retail assets are in key locations, connected to public transit and have potential for redevelopment.

“Those are longer term value impactors but at the most basic level Cominar has done a very good job in transforming the centres by bringing in groceries or new retailers from out of the country plus moving towards a higher balance of food and beverage by moving away from fashion,” said Miller. “In particular, I’d say Cominar has built a great relationship with a retailer out of France, Decathlon. The first Decathlon in Canada was built in Champlain Mall. That continued to grow in the relationship. They also built a Decathlon in Quebec City.

Image: Decathlon at Champlain Mall (Cominar)

“The second privileged relationship is with a local Quebec whole foods concept which is called Avril. It really understands the Quebec higher end grocery consumer . . . and is also doing exceptionally well. And now Cominar is home to three or four of those shopping centres. Those are big drivers in malls in terms of repositioning them.”

Miller said retail is going through a transformation these days with the increasing popularity of e-commerce and he said Cominar had started working on that transformation. 

“An example of such is that Cominar had a number of Sears big boxes that were converted into grocery, converted into sporting goods, and divided into smaller more service type retailers,” he said.

Miller said many major malls in Canada are looking to convert to mixed-use, higher density which in some cases is possible but in others it is not.

“The majority of all the Cominar malls due to their locations, which are very centred to their particular trading zones or neighbourhoods and their connectivity to public transport, they’re all highly, highly possible,” said Miller of the potential for redevelopment. 

Image: Gare Centrale, Montreal

“So I take an example like Champlain Mall. Montreal is opening shortly a light rail transit system that connects the South Shore to the town centre. A bus commute that was 25 minutes at the best of times and a car commute, which in traffic was 45 minutes, to eight minutes (by light rail transit) and Champlain Mall is right at the REM (Réseau express métropolitain) station as an example.

“All of these are opportunities to rework these malls and add, for the most part, residential, rental and condo, plus a component of other uses – seniors, office, flex. It was very attractive to us. That applies to Champlain, Centre Laval, Centropolis. It doesn’t apply to the two downtown retail centres which still can be densified but obviously a downtown property is not the same as a suburban mall.”

He called the Gare Centrale as the “jewel in the cake.”

“It’s the heart of Montreal. It’s the Grand Central Station and it hasn’t been touched in 30 years and it’s the confluence of every system coming into Montreal – subway, VIA rail, this new light rapid transit – and it also has development density of another 1.8 million square feet but that hub can transform Montreal. We’re incredibly excited about it,” said Miller. “It will be the heart of downtown from a consumer and pedestrian point of view. There’s all sorts of potential and opportunity.”

The Cominar deal is expected to close by the end of this month. At close the industrial portfolio will be sold to Blackstone and a portfolio of about 42 retail and office properties will be sold to Groupe Mach. Groupe Mach will take over about 10 retail centres in secondary and tertiary markets in Quebec.

The remaining assets of 82 properties that the Canderel Consortium will retain include retail and office properties, and development opportunities in Montreal, Ottawa and Québec City.

ROCKLAND CENTRE, PHOTO: COMINAR

“This transaction will provide significant benefits to key stakeholders, including tenants of Cominar, by leveraging the resources of the Canderel platform and a Québec-led group of investors with a long-term perspective to unlock opportunities for growth and development in the communities where Cominar operates,” said Miller.

At the time of the transaction, Cominar’s portfolio consisted of 310 office, retail and industrial properties, totalling 35.7 million square feet, located in the Montreal, Québec City and Ottawa areas.

The aggregate consideration to be paid implies an equity value and enterprise value for Cominar of approximately $2.2 billion and $5.7 billion, respectively.

“Other than certain non-strategic assets that may be sold, our investor consortium is taking a long-term view in acquiring the Cominar portfolio and expects to leverage the complementary development, operating and asset management expertise of our respective organizations to enhance the value of, and re-develop, these high-quality holdings, as we deploy additional capital into the Montreal, Québec City and Ottawa markets, where Cominar’s portfolio properties are located,” said Miller.

Canderel was founded over 46 years ago by Jonathan Wener and has since grown from its base in Montreal to seven offices across Canada. Canderel owns and manages a real estate portfolio of more than 27 million square feet in Canada’s seven major markets – Québec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Its 650 real estate professionals have executed more than $15 billion in acquisitions, developments and management projects.

Podcast [Interview] CEO of Porsche Canada Discusses Retail Future Including GTA Experience Centre

By
Retail Insider
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Podcast [Interview] CEO of Porsche Canada Discusses Retail Future Including GTA Experience Centre

Craig and Marc Ouayoun, President and CEO of Porsche Canada, discuss the brand’s future in this country that includes new retail showrooms as well as the unveiling of one of the world’s only Porsche ‘experience centres’ opening near Toronto next year.

The Interview Series podcast by Retail Insider Canada is available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Also check out our The Weekly podcast where Craig and Lee discuss popular content published on Retail Insider which is part of the The Retail Insider Podcast Network.

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Drop us a line at Craig@Retail-Insider.com. You can also rate us in Apple Podcasts or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

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/

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web For February 7th, 2022

By
Retail Insider
-
Canadian Retail News From Around The Web

News at a Glance

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

Herschel Supply Co. Opens Flagship Store on Robson Street in Downtown Vancouver: Photos/Interview

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Herschel Supply Robson Street Flagship (Image: Ema Peter)

Vancouver-based global travel lifestyle and accessories brand Herschel Supply Co. is opening its fourth North American retail store on Vancouver’s iconic shopping destination, Robson Street, and it is the retailer’s flagship location.

Lyndon Cormack

Lyndon Cormack, Managing Director and Co-Founder at Herschel Supply, said the store is 2,800 square feet.

Originally renowned for their contemporary renditions of classic backpack silhouettes, Herschel Supply’s range has since expanded to include luggage, travel accessories, wallets, apparel, and more. 

Herschel Supply, with headquarters in Vancouver, was founded in 2009 by brothers Jamie and Lyndon Cormack and is named after the small Canadian town in Saskatchewan where three generations of their family grew up.

Herschel Supply Robson Street Flagship (Image: Ema Peter)
Herschel Supply Robson Street Flagship (Image: Ema Peter)

“We thought the bag space was a little boring so as we say every business starts with a problem. Ours was simple. Bags are boring. So we decided to go after that category specifically and make it more interesting,” said Lyndon Cormack. 

“From there we have grown quite rapidly over the last decade and a bit and we now sell in about 113 different countries around the world.”

The retailer’s first store opened in Gastown in 2018. Other stores are located at Metropolis at Metrotown, and McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Vancouver Airport

“We are looking throughout North America to expand our retail footprint throughout our top selling cities throughout the US and Canada,” said Cormack.

Herschel Supply Robson Street Flagship (Image: Ema Peter)

The company said the new Robson Street store has a curated selection of vintage pieces, art, and well-traveled items from journeys all over the world.

“We designed it internally with our Herschel Supply Design Studio. We really wanted to celebrate the vibrant and eclectic nature of our end consumer and the creativity that we instill in them and they instill in us,” said Cormack. 

“It’s a very vibrant store mixing old and new, classic design but with modern colours and design . . . For a brand that’s predominantly transacted online or transacted through wholesale, it’s a real opportunity for the stores to act as community hubs to bring all our creative customers together in one place. We’re really looking forward to this being another one of our clubhouses around the world that allows people to gather together.”

Herschel Supply Robson will serve as the brand’s retail hub and platform for local artists, designers, musicians, and other creatives, hosting artist-in-residence programs, workshops, speaker series, and community events.

Herschel Supply Robson Street Flagship (Image: Ema Peter)

“(Robson) is the most important street for Vancouver retail . . . We wanted to find the best location we could on the street as it is a really important, prominent retail location in Vancouver,” said Cormack. “It brings in a consumer we certainly already engage with online or through wholesale but it allows us to really join the conversation on a really important street.”

In addition to the brand’s diverse range of iconic backpacks, duffles, luggage, travel accessories, and updated apparel line, the new flagship store will be home to the Herschel Supply Book Fair, a curated reading area with books and magazines centered around Art, Architecture, Photography/Graphics, Music/Film, Travel, and Leisure, said the retailer.

“At Herschel Supply, we offer classic products with a modern twist, and that design ethos extends to the way we think about retail too,” said Cormack. “Retail is an opportunity to have fun and foster community, we wanted to make sure that our store reflected that by creating a space that inspires creativity and connection.”

Cross-Country Protests Politicizing Health and Safety as Retail Industry Impacted: Op-Ed

By
Sean Tarry
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Rideau Centre (Justin Tang/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Protests and demonstrations. They are a powerful and effective means by which to get a message heard en masse, often acting as useful sociopolitical tools that can be leveraged to shed light on important matters, giving voice to causes that have either been marginalized by government and other forces of influence or ignored by them altogether. In short, they are necessary, serving as critical cogs in the wheel of democracy. And our right to do so is secured under Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guaranteeing our freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the freedom of peaceful assembly. It’s exactly what organizers of the current ‘Freedom Convoy 2022’ are exercising in provinces across the country – a movement which began as a protest in opposition to the Canadian Federal Government’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements for truckers. However, in politicizing a health and safety issue that impacts everyone in every community across the country, they may find that their views are not simply in opposition to the Canadian government, but that they are also starkly contrasted by the views held among the general Canadian public.

Strong opposition

Downtown Ottawa (Image: ThatWalkingGuy/Facebook)

In fact, according to a recent Ipsos poll, a vast majority of Canadians support vaccine mandates and are open to further measures that will help curb the ongoing spread of the coronavirus and its variants, with an overwhelming 80 percent in support of the announcement made in 2021 requiring mandatory vaccinations for all federal public servants. That support increases to 82 percent when it comes to views concerning the requirement for proof of vaccination for air and train travel, either internationally or interprovincially. With respect to vaccinations within specific sectors and forms of employment, 84 percent are in favour of mandating healthcare workers to do so, followed closely by teachers at 81 percent. A further 72 percent of Canadians believe that vaccine passports should be required in order to enter restaurants, gyms and other indoor spaces.

Within the retail environment, the numbers bear out in a very similar fashion. Retail-Insider.com and retail staffing expert and President of Luxury Careers Canada, Suzanne Sears, teamed up to conduct a survey in 2021, finding that 68 percent of Canadians believe that vaccinations should be mandatory for retail store staff. A further 65 percent of retail employees stated that they were not willing to work with other unvaccinated team members. And, it might be suggested that these numbers have likely increased since the time the responses were generated, falling more in line with sentiment concerning mandatory vaccinations in other sectors and industries.

When considering the needs and wants of the ‘Freedom’ protestors against the backdrop of these statistics, which reflect the sentiment of Canadians across the country, their message and objective seem to lose a significant amount of gravitas. Afterall, their views and opinions on ‘freedom’ represent those held by just two out of every ten people that you’ll meet today. And although a percentage balance or measurement is not often what defines a meaningful protest, view or opinion (most bright ideas and insights are often outnumbered by the masses), the fact that people gathering in cities across the country are not voicing concerns regarding gender inequality or racial injustice, or fighting for greater diversity and inclusion within society, tends to diminish the value of their efforts further. In fact, it could easily be argued that their penchant to be heard on the issue of vaccinations is impeding the freedom of everyone around them.

Disruption and ignorance

The ‘Freedom Convoy 2022’ protests, which have been causing disruptions in cities across the country, have risen to their crescendo in Ottawa where its Mayor, Jim Watson, says that the city’s downtown core is “out of control” where somewhere in the region of 1,000 parked transport trailers and thousands more protestors on foot have essentially commandeered the area. City residents are being urged to avoid the downtown core and warned about the likelihood of certain road and interprovincial bridge closures in an attempt by city officials to stem the momentum that the so-called ‘Freedom’ protests are gaining. In addition, the CF Rideau Centre – one of Canada’s most successful malls, and located in downtown Ottawa – remains closed for an eighth consecutive day after a mob of unmasked protestors filled its corridors a little more than a week ago. It’s an occupation that seems to have unfortunately become emblematic of the movement’s lack of foresight and direction and, according to Retail Council of Canada, could cost the Centre and its tenants an estimated $19.7 million in lost revenue.

In addition, many of the Main Street retailers in disrupted cities and towns across the country have been forced to temporarily shutter their store operations, adding to the cost of the ‘Freedom’ demonstrations – costs that are being incurred by their neighbours and fellow Canadian citizens. These are, of course, costs that are added to the fallout of a strained Canadian supply chain, resulting in further delays, increased food prices and a general sense of aggravation among much of the country’s population. And, as Ottawa’s Watson declares a state of emergency, preparing to boost police enforcement to quell the disturbances occurring within his city, it’s safe to say that the kind of action required to remove the protestors from the area, and other areas across the country, will be supported by the majority of Canadians.

Getting back to ‘normal’

Rideau Centre (Justin Tang/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

It’s not often that a protest or demonstration of this size and magnitude, when its mandate and objective is broken down, resonates so poorly with onlookers and passersby. But, then again, the onlookers and passersby of this situation, generally speaking, are the majority whose rights and freedoms are being most dramatically impacted by so few. In fact, it’s rather poetic, perhaps pathetically so, when realizing that the fraction of Canadian society that supports the ‘Freedom Convoy’ are more than likely the fraction of unvaccinated citizens responsible for the exacerbation and perpetuation of the global pandemic that we find ourselves, collectively, wading through. And, it seems as though the longer these protests drag on, the longer people refuse to get vaccinated and contribute meaningfully toward returning society back to some kind of ‘normal’, the less effective the dissenting voices will become, rendering them eventually as pointless as the blast of a truck horn into an abyss.

Related Retail Insider Articles

Canadian-Developed Artificial Intelligence-Based Wardrobe Assistant App Seeks Retail Partners: Interview

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Image: Pronti AI

Pronti AI has created a unique app that serves as a personal wardrobe assistant for people and helps consumers discover shoppable items that go with their clothes.

Mila Banerjee, CEO and Founder of the company, said the app gives people suggestions on what to wear based on closet items, choices and mood.

Mila Banerjee

The app also has the Shop-with Closet feature where people can browse for new items seeing how they match with the clothing they already own and buy items that they know they are going to wear.

The company was incorporated in February 2021 and a beta version was launched in late summer but “the real face version” came in September, said Banerjee.

“Over (a recent weekend), we completely blew up and we are now number two on the App store in Lifestyle and we’ve just been having such amazing, amazing traction on the app downloads. We unfortunately had to switch it to a wait list because it was so many that it was overwhelming our system but it’s incredible. It’s very exciting,” she said.

Image: Pronti AI

“We have a mobile for consumers that helps them with what to wear and what to buy. Our machine learning is really a wardrobe assistant so they can figure out daily outfits but they can also shop with clothing that they already have. So our machine learning takes items from their closet and mixes it with something new.

“Users upload images to their closet and they can do that in either of two ways. They can either take a photo of the item or they can find a similar item through Google images or other sites where they just recently purchased.”

Banerjee was a retailer with a furniture e-commerce business in Europe but she said it was such a hurdle to break through the noise and find the right consumer.

“And as a consumer myself or the people we talked to or tested with, it was just really hard to find items that are personal to you. The world e-commerce is an ocean and we are drowning in that choice and we can’t find what we’re looking for. All we do is scroll and scroll and scroll trying to find stuff that’s suited to us,” she said.

Image: Pronti AI

“And really things should be a lot more personal. The reason we have for Pronti is that no one understands your tastes and the way you wear clothes in such a way that we present you with items that you would have wanted to discover yourself and maybe never realized exactly what you were looking for.

“We have some really interesting things on the retailer side. Right now, we’re focused on Shopify retailers but we’re really open to other retail partnerships as well. And essentially there’s two ways that they can engage with the Pronti community or benefit from the machine learning that we’ve developed. The first way is through sending their items to our machine learning which then gets recommended to the users on our app. And the second way is through what we call smart outfits. It’s a retail integration on their website and right now it allows them to merchandise their items so users come onto the site and they get to see the item that they’re looking at in a number of different outfits.”

Banerjee said shoppers search for how to wear an item at least six million times a month. For retailers, it’s helping expand the potential for the users to understand how to wear it and it doesn’t require the retailer to take a ton of other photographs with different models or with clothing that they don’t necessarily have in their store.

Image: Pronti AI

“I think the potential is enormous. Certainly one of the reasons we had such an influx of people downloading the app  . . . is we have reached two million views on a TikTok featuring our app and the number of people downloading just completely slowed down the app. We had to put people on a waitlist so we could fix the app. It’s just showing how much it resonates with people to have a wardrobe assistant, a personal stylist, that can both help with what to wear and what to buy,” she said.

For a retailer, Pronti is available in the Shopify App store and if you are a consumer then it’s available both on iOS and on Android on the App store.

“We’re really excited to help the retailers out. I think so many amazing small brands and really unique stores have popped up because Shopify enables them to get their storefront up but then they have such difficulty getting share of voice and getting out there. This is sort of our mission to help really unique retailers get out there and reach customers and find a new, more exciting way to shop than just scroll,” said Banerjee.

Snapchat Announces AR Commerce ‘ Catalog-Powered Shopping Lenses’ For Brands and Retailers

By
Craig Patterson
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Snap Inc., parent company to Snapchat, has rolled out Catalog-powered Shopping Lenses which it says is a significant upgrade to artificial reality shopping by making it simpler and more engaging for consumers. 

The company also says that its Lenses offering is easier to build, scale, and optimize. It’s a technology that can benefit retailers in Canada and beyond as innovations continue to be integrated into the consumer experience. Consumer preferences have been changing rapidly with new tech and the pandemic has only accelerated the adoption and growth of digital channels, and Snap appears to be addressing this.  

Snap’s new Catalog-powered Shopping Lenses provides for what the company describes is a simplified, more useful AR try-on shopping interface for Snapchatters. With that, users can quickly see product info such as prices, descriptions, and unique URLs to purchase with new Lens Product Cards as you try on products. 

As a result, important product information and SKU-specific purchase capability can be determined including real-time dynamically updated price and colour details. The platform provides Snapchatters with the required product information rapidly as they simply tap on the Lens Product Card to purchase each individual product.

Real-time results for brands is another benefit that includes instant feedback on which Snap’s Gen Z and Millennial audience is said to be drawn to. Snap says that this is good for research and development purposes and it also can help brands track consumer trends and product engagement by offering marketers immediate insights to help educate their research and development plans. 

Marketers can now leverage Snapchat’s AR try-on as an early indication on which products Snapchatters are engaging with, while utilizing these signals when ideating on targeting strategies and early-on decision making for product development. That can be done down to the SKU level according to Snap.

The real-time results feature also allows Snapchat to optimize delivery of a businesses’ Shopping Lens to the Snapchatters most likely to purchase each item. In combination with its newly released auction optimization towards purchases for AR Lenses, brands are seeing meaningful increases in purchases and efficiency through Snapchat. 

One example is Toronto-founded MAC Cosmetics which has seen 1.3 million try-on experiences at a cost of 0.31 cents per product trial and has secured 17 times higher lift in purchases among females, 2.4x higher lift in brand awareness and 9x higher lift in purchase intent. That no doubt led to an increase in sales and profitability at a remarkably low cost.

The new platform also expands on Snap’s simple Lens Web Builder which allows beauty brands to create Shopping Lenses in as fast as two minutes. At launch, the quick click accessibility in Lens Web Builder will be available to Beauty brands and will roll out to other product verticals in the coming months. Snap notes that all product brands can leverage catalog-powered Shopping Lenses with Lens Studio. 

“Augmented reality is changing the way we shop, play, and learn, and transforming how businesses tell their stories and sell their products,” said Jeremi Gorman, Chief Business Officer, Snap Inc. “Our revamped AR Shopping Lenses will mean a more engaging experience for our Snapchat community, and enable a faster, easier way to build Lenses for businesses — directly linking Lenses to existing product catalogs for real-time analytics and R&D about which products resonate with Gen Z and Millennial audiences.”

Snap has become hugely popular — over 200 million people are said to be engaging with AR on its platform daily across a variety of personal and often useful experiences that span commerce, entertainment, education, and the arts. 

Since 2020, Snap Inc. says that it has focused on AR shopping as a primary company initiative by offering brands real-time AR try-on experiences that reach millions of its ‘Snapchatters’. That ranges from trying on makeup to shoes, watches, glasses and other items with AR shopping being a key emerging part of how Snap’s community engages with its  app. Incredibly, Snapchatters are said to engage with AR more than 6 billion times per day globally.

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web For February 4th, 2022

By
Retail Insider
-
Canadian Retail News From Around The Web

News at a Glance

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

Walmart Unveils Impressive Multi-Million Dollar Renovation to its Supercentre Store at Dufferin Mall in Toronto [Photos]

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Dufferin Mall Walmart Supercentre in Toronto (Image: Dustin Fuhs)

Walmart Canada has completed a $14.5 million renovation to its Toronto Dufferin Mall Supercentre which expands its Grocery Pickup service, launches its Express Pickup service and provides a wider assortment and other new services for customers.

“Our customers have been waiting for this and there’s been tremendous feedback so far,” said Store Manager Maksim Bozic. “They can’t believe what they’re seeing with the new upgrades and changes to improve the shopping experience. The store looks bright, organized, and refreshed. We have ready-to-eat rotisserie chickens and samosas, a new sushi bar and a fresh in-store bakery for all to enjoy. The response from our customers has been very positive.”

Walmart has expanded its Grocery Pickup service with 150 slots available daily with plans to expand to about 900 slots. The renovated store is also one of 28 Walmart locations that launched a time-saving Express Pickup service, a new premium option that provides customers with online grocery orders for pickup in two hours or less.

Walmart Canada at Dufferin Mall in Toronto (Image: Dustin Fuhs)

Key features of the renovated store include:

  • A new fresh bakery, sushi bar, and other ready-to-eat food options such as rotisserie chickens and samosas;
  • The international food aisle is now larger with an expanded assortment available;
  • Fresh food has been moved to the side of the store under new signage and lighting;
  • Newly upgraded front entrance, self-checkout area, and dairy and frozen sections.

“Walmart has been here serving the community for 28 years when Walmart came to Canada and we’re the closest Walmart store to downtown Toronto. There’s nobody else but us pretty much in the heart of the city,” said Bozic.

He said the retailer has turned its focus on the online side of the business.

Dufferin Mall Walmart Supercentre in Toronto (Image: FieldAgent Canada)

“We’re looking to go to 500 (online) orders in the next four months by end of May and then we have a capacity of 900 to 1,200 orders per day,” added Bozic. “It’s part of the grocery pickup but the good thing with Walmart Canada is we offer also general merchandise.”

Over the past year, Walmart Canada has made approximately 70,000 items available for customers to pick up.

“Express Pickup, we launched at this location (recently). It’s in-store pickup but you can order your order an hour ahead and pretty much the same hour, two hours you’ll get your order,” he said. “If you need something right away, you place your order, you get one personalized shopper, Walmart associate, that does your full order for you, they pick it up, they get it ready, you come to the store, you use our apps we have, and in a matter of two to five minutes the order will be delivered to your car. It can be general merchandise items as well.”

The two level store at Dufferin Mall is a two-level location with 143,000 square feet. It has 420 staff currently with expansion possibly to 500 as it progresses with online orders, said Bozic.

Dufferin Mall Walmart Supercentre in Toronto (Image: Dustin Fuhs)
Dufferin Mall Walmart Supercentre in Toronto (Image: FieldAgent Canada)

“At this moment we have about 28 open positions to hire different areas of the building – the front end, the fresh, overnight, online associates to help us pick those orders. We’re creating quite a few careers.”

Walmart Canada came to the country in 1994 and operates a chain of more than 400 stores nationwide serving 1.5 million customers each day with more than 100,000 staff. The Dufferin store was one of its first locations in Canada.

The Dufferin Mall Supercentre is the closest Walmart Canada store to downtown Toronto and it’s designed to be a delivery hub. The store has its own delivery vehicles, which includes a new van that was recently added to the fleet.

The renovation is part of the company’s $3.5-billion investment aimed to generate significant growth and to make the online and in-store shopping experience simpler, faster and more convenient for Walmart customers. That includes renovating more than 150 stores – more than one-third of Walmart Canada’s store network, said the retailer.

Dufferin Mall Walmart Supercentre in Toronto (Image: Dustin Fuhs)

Vendors in the Dufferin location includes a minutekey, Western Union, Naoki Sushi, Walmart Pharmacy, Walmart Photo Centre, Walmart Vision Centre, Walmart Wireless and Walmart Financial ATM. A new McDonald’s will be located inside the store, which is expected to open in the Spring.

Bozic said the company’s philosophy is to take care of its customers.

“Because this is the closest to the downtown, we felt it was important that we make this store is 100 per cent what the customer is looking for,” he said. “The focus is on the online business but also we cannot forget that we have folks who come into our store and they want to feel, they want to see what we have.”

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