After experiencing some tough financial times through COVID which included a bankruptcy, Calgary-based retailer Swimco is back in the retail game and expanding its presence in the Canadian market.
It recently opened its third store in a former Swimco location in Park Royal Shopping Centre in West Vancouver.
Dave Bacon, co-owner and President of Swimco, said the company is continuing to grow its sales and looking at different opportunities.
“Capital expenditures are the challenge. And financing. And capex is everybody’s challenge but when you’re a small business like us now, I joke about being a 46-year-old startup because we’ve got all the experience. We don’t have the credit we used to have. We don’t have the resources we used to have so we have to be a bit more creative and a little more careful. And that’s what we’ve been doing,” said Bacon.
“We managed to more than break even. Our brand is well-known in the markets we’re in so people are finding us as we open up. We’re looking at opportunities in Western Canada certainly.”
Lori Bacon, who used to run the company, is a co-owner but isn’t involved today in the day-to-day operations of the retailer.
Dave Bacon said the company bought the assets from the receiver in December 2020.
Initially, Swimco ran its operations online only all of 2021 except for a two-month period where it did a pop-up in Willow Park Village in Calgary.
“We did so well there and we were so happy with the results and our customers were super happy having us in that location that we decided we would pursue a full-time location,” he said. “It obviously took a while before the opportunity came up. In 2022, we opened in WestHills (Towne Centre) for the summer so we had a store open during the summer as the space in Willow Park Village wasn’t available until the fall. We moved in full-time to Willow Park Village in the fall of 2022.
“We also opened up in South Edmonton Common that fall. We were in a temporary location in South Edmonton Common and we just recently relocated to a permanent spot in that same centre. We quite like South Edmonton Common. They’re great people to work with. It’s kind of a different centre for us. We’ve been in the big malls for so many years but we’re finding we’ve got a lot more control in that outdoor mall type like South Edmonton Common, WestHills, Willow Park Village. You can control your overhead too, not having to be open 9 until 9 for one and certainly the rent is a lot more approachable in those outdoor centres than in the big malls.
“We got a call a year ago from the people in Park Royal in Vancouver. Our former space which had been renovated before the bankruptcy had come vacant and they made a call asking us if we’d like to go back into our space. Of course, we said yes. It was a no brainer to be able to open up a store in a beautiful space perfectly built out to our specs and with no expenses. It just cost us $10,000 to put a sign up . . . In terms of capital expenditures it was an easy store to walk into. It’s as strong a market in Vancouver as any of those malls and we really like that North Shore area and the customers are really happy.”
Swimco closed its retail store locations after 45 years in business. In 2020, the national swimwear company had filed a Notice of Intention, under creditor’s protection, to restructure its operations as it responded to the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But on October 13, 2020, a Certificate of Assignment into Bankruptcy was filed to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada by Deloitte Restructuring Inc., which was the licensed insolvency trustee in the matter.
The retailer opened its first store in Calgary in 1983 but Swimco actually had its roots as a home-based, mail-order business started by Lori Bacon’s mother Corinne Forseth a few years before the retailer opened its first location.
“We’re looking to be a smaller company. We’re at 20 (stores) and we envision staying there,” said Lori Bacon in an interview with Retail Insider during the summer of 2020. At that time, she confirmed that the company had about $6.5 million in unsecured claims and that included about $1.6 million in landlord rent.
Swimco had reduced its head office by about half. The company had 45 staff in its corporate head office but that was reduced to about 20. Retail staff was about 200 but fell to about 120 during that summer.
I wonder if there is a possibility of Swimco opening up concessions in department stores.