This year’s Excellence in Retailing Awards Gala on May 31, 2022 was a true testament to the innovation retailers in Canada are bringing to consumers. Retail Insider would like to join Retail Council of Canada in recognizing these winners as we celebrate the retail industry and where it’s going.
This is the first of a three-part series where we’ll showcase this year’s winners in the categories of e-Commerce Experience, Omni-Channel, Retail Marketing as well as the 2022 Canadian Retailer of the Year Award and the 2022 Independent Retail Ambassador of the Year Award recipients.
Here’s a breakdown of each of the Excellence in Retail Awards winners in these categories and some background on their outstanding achievements:
e-Commerce Experience: Sobeys Inc. launch of Voilà by Sobeys
In June of 2020, Nova Scotia-based grocery retailer Sobeys Inc. launched Voilà by Sobeys (Voilà). It’s a world-class e-commerce platform and first-of-its-kind cutting-edge online grocery delivery service which continues to expand into stores in Canada.
Voilà alleviates the common complaints shoppers had about other online services including out-of-stock items, unwanted product substitutions, and compromises on quality and freshness. The COVID-19 pandemic and rising demand for grocery delivery created an even further interest amongst Canadians for this unparalleled service. Shortly after launching, Voilà expanded to more markets in southern Ontario, and Voilà Curbside Pickup launched at 98 stores across the east coast and Alberta. The Voilà team is also building two additional CFCs, in Montreal and Calgary.
Sobeys says that launching Voilà is a win for its employees, partners, and suppliers, which indicates that the retailer is heading in the right direction. Sobeys says that it is most proud to offer its customers: freshness, order accuracy, and on-time delivery.
Omni-Channel: Ren’s Pets with its ‘Fetch Your Favourites’ Same Day Delivery
Toronto-based Ren’s Pets launched same-day delivery to home in all stores in late August 2021, to fetch its customers’ favourite pet food, treats, toys, and more to be delivered to their doorstep. The service is powered by DoorDash, and integrates the Ren’s website, bricks and mortar stores, and customer into one seamless omni-channel process.
Customers place their orders online at renspets.com, the store picks and packs the order from its inventory, and a Dasher fetches the order to deliver to the customer’s home, same day. The program has been a ‘tail-wagging big success’ for Ren’s, especially during COVID. It’s an innovative solution in pet retail for customer who desire quick, easy same-day home delivery on pet food and supplies, facilitated online and executed by Ren’s Pets’ incredible team members in store.
As a new member of RCC, this was the retailer’s first opportunity to compete against other talented Canadian retailers to see how Ren’s Omni-Channel programs compared. “We were very proud of our DoorDash initiative this year, especially executing it during the pandemic, and wanted to celebrate the work of our Ren’s teams,” the retailer said in a statement.
This win was a significant accomplishment for Ren’s Pets, as it’s been on a fast-paced growth plan building out stores and e-commerce capabilities over the past five years. Winning in the Omni-Channel category shows Ren’s Pets strengths as a Canadian powerhouse specialty pet retailer which continues to grow.
Omni-Channel: Showcase with a Unified Omni-Channel Strategy: Digitizing the Store Concept
Toronto-based variety retailer Showcase recently launched streaming shopping and other innovations that saw it win an award. With increasing pressures on retail traffic, Showcase brings its trend stores to life on your phone or on your computer – wherever you may be so that you can discover the latest, newest, hottest, greatest products.
That includes being able to see a demonstration and understand more about how a product works. Consumers can engage with the Showcase live chat team or in a live shopping show or interact with a social media post to ask questions and interact. Consumers then have the instant gratification of purchasing that product either online, running into a store, or even getting same day delivery. The initiative is about digitizing the store concept and modernizing it for a digital world.
Showcase will continue to build on its omni-channel capabilities as it looks to the future of a hybrid physical-digital world.
Retail Marketing: Mastermind Toys Let’s Play: A Brand Campaign
Toronto-based Mastermind Toys is Canada’s largest specialty toy and children’s book retailer, with 68 stores coast-to-coast and a wonder-filled website. In 2021, Mastermind Toys partnered with The Local Collective to create its first-ever advertisement campaign to drive awareness of its brand and purpose by highlighting differentiators, like its expert curation, inclusiveness, and sense of wonder.
The campaign focused on addressing a play deficit that has been building for decades, despite play being a critical component of child development. The value of play and its impact on supporting important life skills in children have always underpinned Mastermind Toys’ curation and brand purpose since opening its doors in 1984—uniquely positioning the retailer to ignite Canadians’ desire to play more.
As Canada’s Authority on Play, Mastermind Toys released its brand advertisement, titled ‘Let’s Play,’ as a call-to-action to spark curiosity, learning, discovery, and wonder through play.
Retail Marketing: Pet Valu Canada: Love Lives Here
Markham Ontario-based Pet Valu’s ‘Love Lives Here’ campaign was a full funnel campaign with the purpose to drive brand awareness and familiarity of the brand through forging a strong emotional connection with Devoted Pet Lovers.
The premise of the campaign is that life with a pet has its ups and down including being filled with laughs, tears, and deep breaths. But at the end of the day, it’s always rewarding. Pet Valu and its Animal Care Experts are said to always happy to help support pet owners for all the good times, and the rest.
“We’re really proud of ‘Love Lives Here’ and we wanted to share our story with the retail community”, says the company. ‘Love Lives Here’ is an exceptional 360-degree marketing campaign that shows exactly what Pet Valu is about – its committed to nurturing the unconditional relationship between devoted pet lovers and their pets, offering animal care expertise, compassionate service and high-quality products and services, and that it’s there to help whenever needed. The campaign resonated with both devoted pet lovers and Pet Valu’s Animal Care Experts and the retailer says that it is confident it will continue to help Pet Valu grow in months and years to come.
‘Love Lives Here’ showcases authentic, memorable moments that happen in our stores every day. The entire company says that it is celebrating this award as it could not have achieved this success without the ongoing dedication of every staff member, franchise owner and Animal Care Expert.
Also at this year’s Excellence in Retailing Awards Gala, two outstanding individuals were honoured with the Award of Distinction.
Paul Wood, President & CEO of Giant Tiger – 2022 Canadian Retailer of the Year Recipient
Paul Wood says that he is honoured to have been selected as recipient of the 2022 Distinguished Retailer of the Year award and shares this prestigious recognition with the over 10,000 members of Team Tiger across the country.
He acknowledges the award is a testament to the dedication, resilience and passion of the team and positive reinforcement of their efforts. It is also a special recognition for Giant Tiger’s commitment to the over 264 communities it calls home and a service to its customers who are at the heart of every decision it makes.
Together with its franchise partners across the country, Giant Tiger continues to give back to local communities and supports them in practical ways which has been a constant part of the Canadian retailer’s DNA over the course of its 61-year history. Wood, and the rest of Team Tiger, says that they feel privileged to be recognized as they seek to make a difference by providing all Canadians, either online or in-store, the opportunity to shop smart and save smart on fashion, home and grocery products everyday.
Shashi Behl, Founder and CEO of Joydrop – 2022 Independent Retail Ambassador of the Year Recipient
Behl says that recognition of the award was the best ‘spark of light’ that the team could have received this year. “We celebrated this win with our team with a big team party and brought everyone into the celebration. It is a great feeling going into our busiest quarter with this boost of internal and external recognition”. Behl went on to say that RCC’s recognition gave the company some extra energy when we needed it most and most importantly it was an opportunity to make some very good connections in the Retail industry.
With so many amazing retailers in Canada, to be awarded this prestigious recognition by industry peers is a huge achievement. Congratulations everyone. Stay tuned for part two of this series where we profile more winners from this year’s Excellence in Retailing Awards.
