Popular value-priced American footwear retailer DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse has revealed 4 new locations, all scheduled to open in the spring of 2016. After they open, DSW will operate 17 Canadian stores, well on its way to a goal of roughly 40 to 50 Canadian locations.
In April, we announced an additional six Canadian DSW locations in Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, and Ontario. We attended the opening of its Sherwood Park Mall (suburban Edmonton) location last month, where we interviewed DSW Canada CEO Bruce Dinnan to gain insight into his company’s continued plans to open Canadian stores.
The four new stores will average about 20,000 square feet and will be located in Ontario, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan:
-Oakville, ON: Oakville Town Centre 1
-Ottawa, ON: Train Yards Shopping Centre
-Halifax, NS: Chain Lake Drive Plaza
-Regina, SK: Grasslands Shopping Centre
The Ottawa, Halifax and Regina stores will be the first DSW location for each market.
On August 7, 2014, DSW opened its first Canadian locations in the Greater Toronto Area. In December of 2014, DSW announced a new Whitby, ON location as well as its first for Western Canada.
DSW also sells online, and it’s Canadian e-commerce site launched in the winter of 2014. DSW’s Canadian stores also operate as fulfillment centres, shipping ordered product either to customer’s homes or to local Town Shoes-owned locations for pickup. DSW’s new Western Canadian stores now also act as new e-commerce fulfillment centres, as the brand expands nationally.
DSW’s Canadian stores are about the same size as its U.S. locations. Mr. Dinan says that DSW is ideally seeking Canadian retail space in the 18,000 to 24,000 square foot range. Each Canadian DSW store will have over 22,000 pairs of shoes, as well as an extensive selection of handbags and accessories. About 80% of the brands in DSW’s American stores are carried in Canada, and Canada’s DSW stores also carry brands exclusive to Town Shoes.
DSW is hugely popular in the United States with over 430 locations in that country. Its name indicates its business model – it sells designer shoes at discounted prices. The company has hundreds of millions in cash and no debt.
