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Canadian Consumers Changing Shopping Patterns Due to Inflation: Report

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Summerhill Neighbourhood on Yonge Street (Image: Dustin Fuhs)

A new report by Salesforce, a global leader in Customer Relationship Management, indicates increasing inflationary pressures are impacting the shopping behaviour of Canadian consumers. 

Rob Garf

“Challenges that consumers experienced this holiday, including inflation and low inventory, haven’t dissipated in the new year,” said Rob Garf, VP and GM of Retail, Salesforce. “While digital commerce continues to prevail, it’s clear that inflation is having an impact on overall consumer spending. With these persistent headwinds, retailers must remove friction and enhance experiences by knitting together offline and online shopping.”

The company’s February Shopping Index Report, which analyzed data from over a billion shoppers globally, found that as inflation drove higher prices Canadian retailers experienced a dramatic drop in online revenue by 21 per cent year over year. Globally, retailers experienced only a five per cent decrease.

The report said prices for consumers in Canada rose 10.4 per cent year over year in February while global prices rose 4.4 per cent.

Garf said consumers took a break in some categories.

Harry Rosen on Bloor (Image: Dustin Fuhs)

“Inflation will be and has already been one of the key story lines of retail in general and digital specifically,” he said. “Consumers are paying more for a product which means they are shopping at fewer brands and retailers and they’re buying fewer items at brands and retailers because of the increases of prices due to inflation.”

In this environment, retailers are trying to find new and creative ways to attract new customers. They’re reaching out to new digital destinations, social media, messaging platforms, gaming consoles. 

“They’re finding new ways to retain loyal shoppers and a significant mechanism for that is the revitalization of loyalty programs – a way for retailers to better understand who the consumers are because they’re knowingly providing information about themselves with the caveat that they’re going to get value in exchange,” said Garf.

“Survey after survey after survey, the number one value of course is price and convenience but creeping up on the list continually but only accelerating in the last 12 months is things like access to product or special promotions and offers to them, a more personalized general connection.”

Royal Canin Supply Chain Notice at Pet Valu (Image: Dustin Fuhs)

The Salesforce report said inventory in February shrank by 22 per cent in Canada and five per cent globally as retailers and consumers continued to grapple with supply chain issues and rising costs brought on by inflation.

Product categories with the highest price growth globally in February include: Home, Furniture (21.8 per cent); Home, Appliances (17.9 per cent); and Home, Dining, Art & Decor (11 per cent).

Product categories with the least price growth globally in February include:

Active Footwear (1.3 per cent); General Footwear (0.8 per cent); and Electronics and Accessories (0.5 per cent).

Returns and Exchanges at Canadian Tire (Image: Dustin Fuhs)

“There’s something to be said about discount retailers, off-price retailers. Let’s not forget there was still a lot of product in Q4 and this Q1 that was stuck off the shore and waiting to be put into the inbound supply chain. Some of that stuff was so seasonal, it has to go. There’s only so many things you can do with it. Sell it at a steep discount, put it through a liquidation channel, save it for the next year,” said Garf.

“A lot of retailers’ motion is to ship it off to an off-price retailer for pennies on the dollar. So those categories will do really well.

“I also think the resale market is ripe for a surge. Part of it is sustainability and not trying to fill up landfills. Part of it is, the clothes that we bought we might not need but there are more platforms that allow us to find buyers for it at discount rates.”

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web For March 28th, 2022

By
Retail Insider
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Canadian Retail News From Around The Web

News at a Glance

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

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web For March 25th, 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.

Danish Fashion Brand GANNI Entering Canadian Market with 1st Standalone Store Location in Toronto

By
Craig Patterson
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Photo: Ganni

Copenhagen-based women’s fashion brand Ganni is expanding into the Canadian market this year with its first store set to open at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. More locations are expected in major markets after the brand established itself before the pandemic in retailers including Hudson’s Bay and Holt Renfrew. 

The Yorkdale Ganni location will be in a newly-formed ‘luxury wing’ made possibly when Louis Vuitton opened a large store in October of 2020. Thom Browne, Golden Goose and others have since opened nearby.  

Ganni was founded in the year 2000 by Copenhagen gallery owner Frans Truelsen. Husband-wife duo Ditte and Nicolaj Reffstrup now own nearly half of the company and lead the brand’s creative direction. Ganni’s website says that the brand is intended to “fill a gap in the advanced contemporary market for effortless, easy-to-wear pieces that women instinctively reach for day in, day out.” Pieces are meant to mix-and-match, including feminine pieces paired with denim and sneakers.

Prices for Ganni fashions are in the ‘contemporary’ price-point for its ready-to-wear, bags, accessories, and footwear. 

Photo credit: Ganni

LVMH-affiliated private equity firm L Catterton acquired 51% of Ganni in 2017 and the brand has been growing rapidly since. Ganni launched its first stores in the United States in the fall of 2019 in New York City and Los Angeles and more have since opened.

Ganni is working with Jeff Berkowitz of Aurora Realty Consultants. Ganni is seeking retail spaces in the 1,000 to 1,500 square foot range for stores in major Canadian markets, with a focus on street-front spaces as well as within enclosed shopping centres.

Ganni’s direct-to-consumer expansion in Canada is on trend as brands are increasingly seeking to open standalone stores. Being a retailer means that Ganni is able to control store design, merchandising and staffing, while interacting directly with its consumer base through social media channels while also gaining access to data. Pastel-coloured walls, globe-like light fixtures and tile flooring characterizes Ganni stores which appear casual and feminine in design.

Jollibee President Discusses Canadian Store Expansion: Interview

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Vancouverites finally get to say, “It’s Our Turn!”, as global food chain, Jollibee, opens first restaurant in the city on February 25, 2022. (Photo credit: Jollibee)

International fast-food brand, Jollibee, famous for its ‘Jolly Crispy Chicken’ fried chicken, continues to expand its footprint in the Canadian market.

Recently, it opened a new location in Edmonton, its fourth in the city and seventh in Alberta, as well as launching the brand in its first BC location in Vancouver.

Maribeth Dela Cruz

Maribeth Dela Cruz, President for Jollibee in North America, said the brand now has 24 locations in Canada with more to come. The brand has 80 stores in North America.

“We have an overarching goal of eventually getting to 500 stores in North America by 2028 and Canada is going to be a big part of that expansion for our North American growth,” she said.

“We see a lot of potential for Canada. We’re very excited with the kind of reception that we have been getting as we open more stores across the country.”

The Vancouver location is on Granville Street, in the heart of the city’s downtown. The Edmonton location is at The Grove on 17 retail complex in southeast Edmonton.

Jollibee in Winnipeg (Image: Jollibee)

The first Canadian Jollibee was established in 2016 in Winnipeg. The brand is in five provinces – Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC.

Dela Cruz said the strategy to reach 500 locations in North America is a “big goal for us to achieve in the next seven years.”

She said the Canadian market is appealing because of its diversity.

“It’s really reaching out to more consumers. We know that taste is universal and has no boundaries. It actually cuts across ethnicity and even different cultures. Canada I think is really a great place to be at because of the diversity of the country,” added Dela Cruz. “We’ve had very successful openings across the country which shows the readiness of the market to welcome new tastes and new food experiences. 

The line of fans extended across three blocks excitedly waiting to be among the first to visit Jollibee’s first location on new Granville Street store in Downtown Vancouver, which officially opened its doors on Friday, February 25. (Photo credit: Jollibee)

“Jollibee talks about spreading the joy of eating and we’d like to be part of spreading the joy of eating to Canadians.”

Jollibee opened its first Edmonton location in 2019 at 3803 Calgary Trail NW. The brand then opened two more locations in the city, including: Jollibee-West Edmonton (17136 90th Avenue, Edmonton), and Jollibee-Edmonton Kingsway Mall (1 Kingsway Garden Mall Northwest).

“We’ve seen an amazing response to our three existing locations in the city of Edmonton and we have been long awaiting to expand our footprint in Alberta,” said Dela Cruz.

The newest Edmonton location is at 881 Tamarack Way NW.

The brand calls its Jolly Crispy Chicken the “holy grail menu item” – 

“bone-in fried chicken that is audibly crispy on the outside while remaining juicy and tender on the inside every single time. We suggest dipping every bite in a side of Jollibee’s silky, savory gravy.”

Jollibee has more than 1,500 restaurants established worldwide.

Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC, also known as Jollibee Group) is one of the fastest-growing restaurant companies in the world. It operates in 34 countries, with over 5,800 stores globally with branches in the Philippines, United States, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Panama, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, and India.

First-of- its kind Jollibee mobile kitchen rolls out in Ontario, Canada. The Jollibee mobile kitchen measures 15 meters long and was developed in collaboration with DoorDash, an online food ordering platform.

Jollibee Group has eight wholly-owned brands (Jollibee, Chowking, Greenwich, Red Ribbon, Mang Inasal, Yonghe King, Hong Zhuang Yuan, Smashburger); six franchised brands (Burger King, Panda Express, PHO24, and Yoshinoya in the Philippines; Dunkin’ and Tim Ho Wan in certain territories in China); 80 per cent ownership of The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf; and 60 per cent ownership in the SuperFoods Group that owns Highlands Coffee and PHO24.

Jollibee Group, through its subsidiary Jollibee Worldwide Pte. Ltd. (JWPL) owns 90 per cent participating interest in Titan Dining LP, a private equity fund that ultimately owns the Tim Ho Wan brand. It also has a joint venture with the THW Group to open and operate THW restaurants in Mainland China. Jollibee Group also has a business venture with award-winning Chef Rick Bayless for Tortazo, a Mexican fast-casual restaurant business in the United States. Recently, the Jollibee Group announced that it will acquire 51 per cent ownership of Milksha, a popular Taiwanese bubble tea brand.

Jollibee Group was named the Philippines’ most admired company by the Asian Wall Street Journal for 10 years. It was also honored as one of Asia’s Fab 50 Companies and among the World’s Best Employers and World’s Top Female-Friendly Companies by Forbes. In 2020, Gallup awarded the Jollibee Group with the Exceptional Workplace Award, making it the first Philippine-based company to receive the distinction.

Mixed Trends in Canadian Retail Sales in Spring 2022: Strapagiel

By
Ed Strapagiel
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How good or how bad things are in Canadian retail depends on what you’re selling. At the total level, sales were up 8.5% year-over-year for the 3 months ending January 2022, a significant improvement over pre-pandemic growth trends. But this result is an overall average which doesn’t well describe any one retail sector or store type.

Another matter is that total Canadian retail sales are being shored up by unusually high gains in the Automotive & Related sector, mostly thanks to rapidly increasing gas prices. For Store Retail (Food & Drug plus Store Merchandise, excluding Automotive), the picture is more subdued.

In this case, sales were up a more modest 5.6% for the 3 months ending January 2022, and the underlying 12 month trend (green line in the chart) has been softening for about the last 9 months.

Food & Drug

The Food & Drug sector spent most of last year suffering from slowing sales growth, and this trend appears to be continuing. For the 3 months ending January 2022, retail sales were actually down 1.1% year-over-year. The underlying 12 month growth trend barely kept its head above water with a gain of just 0.3%.

Grocery stores are the largest subgroup in this sector, and their last 3 months retail sales declined 2.4% year-over-year in January 2022 despite high food price inflation. Convenience stores however suffered the most, with sales down 10.5% during the period.

Health & personal care stores had put up some good numbers in 2021, but now the bloom seems to be off this rose too. Their retail sales were up just 0.5% for the 3 months ending January 2022.

Store Merchandise

In sharp contrast to Food & Drug, the Store Merchandise sector appears to be doing quite well. Retail sales were up 11.4% year-over-year for the 3 months ending January 2022. The underlying 12 month trend gained 14.1%, a 5-year record high. Of course, much of this may be a rebound from the year before when sales were depressed by COVID.

A number of store types in this sector are enjoying significant sales increases. Clothing & clothing accessories stores’ retail sales were up a scorching 33.4% for the 3 months ending January 2022, while general merchandise stores gained 12.5%. Only electronics & appliance stores had a decline, with sales down 4.5% during the period.

Automotive & Related

The Automotive & Related sector had the highest year-over-year retail sales gain for the 3 months ending January 2022 at 15.2%. This was as a result of a strong gain in vehicle sales coupled with a huge increase in gasoline station sales.

New car dealers’ sales gained 8.5% during the period, an improvement over recent performance. There are supply issues so it’s difficult to know how long this will last. The big winner in vehicles however is used car dealers, whose sales increased by 16.4% for the 3 months ending January 2022.

Gasoline station sales have been rapidly increasing since the spring of 2021, usually by moderately high double-digits. Their sales were up 34.7% year-over-year for the 3 months ending January 2022. This is due to the runaway price of gas, as anyone filling their tank recently may have noticed.

By The Numbers

Note that the data and analysis in this report are always based on not seasonally adjusted (or unadjusted) retail sales statistics.

For definitions of store types, see Statistics Canada NAICS.

Canadian E-Commerce Sales

Canadian e-commerce retail sales made huge gains during the height of the COVID epidemic. Many consumers went online and stayed away from stores (and each other). This has now stalled with recent sales gain hovering around the 0% mark. For the 3 months ending January 2022, sales actually declined 7.3%.

Overall, e-commerce represented about 6.2% of retail sales over the past 12 months, according to Statistics Canada, including both pure plays as well as bricks & clicks stores. Note that Canadian consumers may also buy online from foreign websites which is not captured in these numbers.

Location based retail is the same as that in the preceding “By The Numbers” table. It’s what’s normally reported as Canadian retail sales. Except that it isn’t. Location based retail excludes another section called Non-Store Retailers (NAICS code 454), which includes electronic shopping and mail-order houses, which in turn is where (mostly) pure play e-commerce businesses are. For the 12 months ending anuary 2022, electronic shopping and mail-order houses had an estimated $26.8 billion in e-commerce sales.

But that’s not the only source of e-commerce, as (mostly) bricks & mortar location-based retailers also sell online. This group had an estimated $16.7 billion in e-commerce sales during the period. With electronic shopping and mail-order houses, there’s a grand total of $43.5 billion in e-commerce sales by Canadian operators. Note that this does not include foreign e-commerce purchases made by Canadian consumers, but it does include e-commerce purchases made by foreigners at Canadian operations.

For electronic shopping and mail-order houses, an estimated 96.0% of their sales are currently allocated to e-commerce. For (mostly) bricks & mortar retailers, it can be estimated that 2.5% of their total sales are attributable to e-commerce.

In the final section of the above table, (mostly) pure play operators (namely, under electronic shopping and mail-order houses) generated an estimated 61.6% of all e-commerce sales in Canada, while (mostly) bricks & mortar location-based retailers’ share of e-commerce was 38.4%.

For more explanation on the e-commerce numbers, see Statistics Canada: Retail E-commerce in Canada.

Monthly Update Notification

This analysis is updated monthly as new numbers are published by Statistics Canada. If you would like notification from Linkedin of when an update becomes available (and you’ve read this far), please connect with Ed Strapagiel on LinkedIn.

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web For March 24th, 2022

By
Retail Insider
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Canadian Retail News From Around The Web

News at a Glance

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

Melissa Newton, Chair of Consumer Real Estate Canada, Discusses COVID’s Impact 2 Years In: Video Interview

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Melissa Newton, Chair of Consumer Real Estate Canada, Discusses COVID's Impact 2 Years In: Video Interview

Melissa Newton, Chair, Consumer Real Estate Canada, discusses how the retail sector has displayed resilience even in these tough economic times. That includes fewer businesses shutting down than expected, fewer physical retail vacancies and robust consumer spending predicted as we head into the spring.

Newton also discusses the founding of Consumer Real Estate Canada which came about as a communications source in early 2020.

The Video Interview Series by Retail Insider is available on YouTube.

Connect with Mario Toneguzzi, a veteran of the media industry for more than 40 years and named in 2021 a Top Ten Business Journalist in the world and the only Canadian – to learn how you can tell your story, share your message and amplify it to a wide audience. He is Senior National Business Journalist with Retail Insider and owner of Mario Toneguzzi Communications Inc. and can be reached at mdtoneguzzi@gmail.com

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Shoppers World in Brampton ON to be Transformed into Mixed-Use Community: Interview

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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The master plan includes the conveyance of private land to public use, including dedicated land for a new urban community hub in Brampton. (Image Courtesy of BDP Quadrangle / SvN Architects + Planners)

Real estate developer and owner RioCan has a vision to transform Shoppers World Brampton into a sustainable, transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly community and revitalize the retail offerings to create a model mixed-used community for the 21st century.

John Ballantyne, Chief Operating Officer at RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, said the project is a 20-year development.

John Ballantyne

“We’re contemplating the first step of it right now. We’ve got approvals to build quite a lot but it’s going to depend on how each respective phase performs,” he said.

“RioCan’s model is we’ve always been a retail landlord. We’ve always owned unenclosed centres located across Canada. About five years ago we made a concerted effort to be more in the primary markets of Canada. So we sold most of our secondary market assets because we know the growth is in the primary markets.

Shopper’s World Brampton was first redeveloped from a farmer’s field into a shopping destination and Brampton’s first enclosed mall in the 1960s. Today, Shoppers World Brampton is home to over 140 stores, 3,000 parking spots and approximately 700,000 square feet of retail space. (Image Credit: SkyGuys)

“This site is a great example of that where there’s an LRT coming to this site. It’s going to be the terminus station of the LRT. It’s going to end at the shopping centre and we understand there’s a need for new homes in Canada. This is an ideal opportunity to combine the two – our retail prowess along with our residential banner RioCan Living to add residential intensification to the site.”

Ballantyne said the site has been planned and the owner has rights to build four million square feet of mixed-use density. That could be up to 4,500 residential units – both rental and condominium. It would also mean about 860,000 square feet of commercial with retail a strong component but it  would include office space and perhaps educational, medical, and a wide gamut of uses.

The site is 53 acres and the shopping centre is currently about 690,000 square feet – a combination of a mall which is grocery anchored but including box stores around the site. RioCan has owned the property for more than 20 years.

“Brampton is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada,” said Ballantyne. 

Looking beyond the boundaries of the site, the designers took inspiration from Brampton’s natural ecology to guide the identity of the new mixed-use development, restitching it to two watersheds that surround the site (From Etobicoke Creek to Fletchers Creek, and Oak Ridge Moraine to Lake Ontario. (Image Courtesy of BDP Quadrangle / SvN Architects + Planners)

“This one will be phased over the next 20 some odd years. The first component of the development that we’re considering is building a couple of towers on Steeles Avenue. There’s actually an old bus station . . . The former bus station is now in a vacant corner in the southwest portion of the site. We’re considering putting two towers up on that. They would be in the range of about 30 storeys each. We could do that without touching the existing mall. So Shoppers World Brampton would remain as is while we build out those two multi-family buildings.”

Ballantyne said residential is a huge amenity to the sites RioCan owns. It’s basically building in a consumer base to the existing retail.

“The country is trying to solve an issue of not enough homes for Canadians. We’re going to have 1.2 million new Canadians in this country over the next three years. We’ve already had a third of those come in this year. So we’ve had about 400,000 new immigrants come to Canada. We need space for them,” he said.

“It’s especially sites like this that are transit-oriented, urban high population areas with existing infrastructure built all around them, schools, parks, shopping centres, community, extremely important. What we’re doing through RioCan is obviously we’re adding this residential component but we’re also making our site more community friendly.

“Part of what RioCan Living does is we accommodate the communities that we put these residential towers into. Not only for the retail that accompanies it but we’ll do not-for-profit daycare, we’ll do green space, we’ll do community centres in certain mixed-use complexes. We want this to be an active part of the community that they’re going in. We don’t want to just plop towers in the middle of a shopping centre parking lot. That’s not the intent. The intent is to build a true mixed-use community.”

Lined with publicly accessible, diverse open space and a bosque of trees, the pedestrian promenade is a unique landscape feature which creates a connection between Etobicoke Creek and the new urban centre. (Image Courtesy of BDP Quadrangle / SvN Architects + Planners)

Shonda Wang, Principal at SvN who is working with RioCan on designing the new Shoppers World Brampton site alongside lead architect BDP Quadrangle, said the company’s work focuses on solving the critical urban issues of our time.

Shonda Wang

“Today, and for some time now and for some time to come, that focus has been on housing and mobility, and also really designing and developing the supportive communities that are needed in the context of a rapidly growing region – one of the fastest growing regions in North America,” she said. 

The company started working with RioCan in 2017 on the Brampton site to look at what the redevelopment site’s potential would be. The mall is surrounded by high traffic roadways.

“It’s a really important commercial hub today. The community since the 1960s has really been going there as their mall site for various amenities and activities but it’s challenged because it’s hard to access except within a car-dominated environment,” she said. 

But with the coming LRT line, this is a tremendous opportunity to leverage the investments in transit and introduce different types of housing and amenities.

SvN has supported RioCan by bringing the site through a master-plan process. 

A series of new streets, parks and open spaces will form the foundation to introduce a mix of types and tenure of housing. The streets will be new walkable and bikeable streets and community services and facilities will be introduced in a dynamic mix.

“We’re seeing a lot of malls and shopping plazas across the GTA and other jurisdictions being replaced by mixed-use communities,” said Wang. “We’re one of the fastest growing regions in North America. That’s a big driver for growth and development and large-scale sites like Shoppers World tend to transform more readily than fragmented, multi-owner sites that need to be assembled.

“There’s a recognition and realization that building for singular use in this context is rarely a good approach for redevelopment when you have very precious land assets. I mean that not only from an environmental perspective but also an economic perspective. RioCan’s been fantastic at acknowledging and recognizing that and therefore proactively planning for their sites.”

Wang said the interesting thing about the Shoppers World Brampton site is that it is dominated by asphalt today. The master plan ended up showing how the asphalt could be lifted and peeled away to uncover what was there originally.

“Because this site is going to be transformed over so many years, it was really important for us to develop a strong landscape narrative as part of the vision,” she said.

Canada’s Biggest Franchise Exhibition, The Franchise Canada Show, Returns In-Person This Weekend

By
Mario Toneguzzi
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Franchise Canada Show - Toronto

The franchise industry in Canada has seen explosive growth in recent  years as more Canadians look to become entrepreneurs and more brands seek a proven way of expanding their business presence across the country.

The upcoming Franchise Canada Show Toronto, put on by the Canadian Franchise Association (CFA), is intended to help both realize their dreams through the successful franchising model, which contributes over $100 billion per year to the Canadian economy and creates jobs for over 1.9 million Canadians.

Kenny Chan

Kenny Chan, Vice President, Content & Marketing, Canadian Franchise Association, said the Show answers the call of aspiring entrepreneurs by providing attendees with the opportunities to speak with more than 50 brands and learn from industry experts to gain the knowledge needed to take the first step towards becoming their own boss through franchising.

“It’s the place to go to learn everything you need to know in order to open a franchise successfully,” said Chan.

He said topics covered this year include: How to Select the Right Franchise For You; Fundamentals of Franchise Financing; What Makes a Good Franchise; How to be a Rockstar Woman in a Leadership Position; and, Move Over Millennials – Reaching the Next Generation of Franchisees.

“It’s a one-stop shop for anybody who wants to own their own business,” added Chan.

The Franchise Canada Show is taking place March 26-27 at The International Centre in Toronto. More information can be found here.

Attendees will have the opportunity to meet with franchising professionals, hear success stories from successful franchisees, and attend a variety of free panel discussions to help them on their next career path.

Franchising has garnered the attention of entrepreneurs looking to become their own boss while still maintaining the support of a proven franchise model to take away a lot of the uncertainty. 

“Franchising continues to remain strong. As of our last economic impact report, franchising is the 12th largest industry in Canada and contributes over $100 billion to the Canadian economy each year,” said Chan. “Franchising, because it’s a business model, can be found in every sector and industry of business. It’s not just restaurants. It’s also retail. It’s business services. It’s education. It’s automotive. If you can think of an industry, there’s a franchise within it,” said Chan.

“Franchisees are small business owners in their local communities. Altogether, franchising creates jobs for almost two million Canadians. There are over 13,000 franchise brands operating right now in Canada and they range in terms of investment from under $5,000 to over $5 million. It all depends on what kind of franchise it is. With the breadth and depths of diversity in concepts and price points, there really is a franchise for everyone.”

The Franchise Canada Show is the official show of the CFA, a national, not-for-profit association of more than 600 corporate members representing over 40,000 franchise business owners. It began in 1996.

Canadian franchises enable over 76,000 Canadians to be their own boss as the owner of their own small business franchise location.

“With the pandemic and COVID, franchising like every sector in business, was impacted. However, franchising historically booms during times of economic downturns or recessions,” said Chan.

“If you look at the Great Recession of the late 2000s, in Canada we saw a growth in franchising with the number of locations within franchising of 6.5 per cent between 2008 and 2010. And on top of that, historically we see a growth in the number of non-franchised businesses adopting the franchise business model, with a growth of 23 per cent of new brands operating in franchising from 2008 – 2010. Today, we are seeing continued interest from Canadians to own a business. We know that, through the pandemic, interest in self-employment was up 700 per cent with online searches.” 

Franchise Canada Show – Toronto
Franchise Canada Show – Toronto

Franchise Canada Shows will also take place this year in Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver with a second Show in Toronto in the fall. More information can be found here. 

Sherry McNeil

Throughout the year, the CFA also holds virtual trade shows that are open to all of Canada.

“Since 1996, the Franchise Canada Show has helped thousands of Canadians realize their dreams of building their own successful business through franchising,” said Sherry McNeil, President & CEO at the CFA. “The franchise business model is uniquely positioned to help you get in business for yourself but not by yourself. The upcoming, in-person show is the perfect opportunity to see if franchising is right for you.

“As Canada’s ultimate franchise exhibition and the official show of the Canadian Franchise Association, this is the place to meet face-to-face with leading franchisors, connect with industry experts, attend free seminars, and explore franchise opportunities in every industry and at all investment levels.”

*Franchise Canada Show sponsored this post. To attend it this weekend, register here.

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