Canadian Tire has completed a major transformation of its Preston Crossing location in Saskatoon, increasing its footprint by more than 50%.
Following renovations that began in March, the store has expanded from 69,000 to 104,000 square feet, offering customers a significantly larger and enhanced shopping experience. The newly transformed location officially kicked off its grand reopening celebrations on October 22, with a week of special offers and community activities running through October 29.
Longtime Canadian Tire Dealer Dave Deplaedt, who has operated the Preston Crossing location since 2002, has overseen the transformation.
The investment represents a significant evolution for the Saskatoon location, reflecting Canadian Tire’s continued focus on enhancing its physical retail experience and serving the needs of local shoppers.
In an interview with Retail Insider, Deplaedt, spoke about the significant retail development in Saskatoon.
How does the investment reflect changing retail demand in Saskatoon?
The city of Saskatoon and the province of Saskatchewan continue to have a vibrant and growing economy, supported by new home construction and positive in-migration. With that growth comes increased demand for retail goods and for the products that help our customers with what we like to call the “jobs and joys” of life in Canada. Growth also brings increasingly busy lives. Customers want a shopping experience that is efficient, convenient and, above all, one they can trust to help them find the right products and solutions. Our goal with this investment was not simply to make our store bigger. It was to better position both the physical store and the overall shopping experience to meet those changing expectations.
Inside the store, that means wider, lower aisles that are easier to navigate, significant additions to our product assortment, more displays that allow customers to touch and experience products before making a purchase, and a substantially enhanced in-store inventory position. It also means maintaining customer-friendly return policies and, most importantly, providing helpful and friendly customer service when our customers need it.
But today’s retail experience extends well beyond the physical store. Customers increasingly want the flexibility to shop the way that works best for them. They can shop traditionally in-store, buy online and pick up their purchase through our product pickup warehouse, or have products shipped directly to their home.
Ultimately, this investment reflects our belief that as Saskatoon grows and changes, we need to grow and change with it. The expansion gives us the space, assortment, inventory and flexibility to serve more customers while making their shopping experience easier, more convenient and more enjoyable.
What are the main changes customers will notice in the expanded store, including new departments, product offerings or services?
One of the first changes customers will notice is the openness and visibility of the expanded store. From each of our three customer entrances, we have created lower aisles and improved sightlines that allow customers to see farther into the store and across more departments. This makes the store easier to navigate and creates a much more inviting approach to the overall shopping experience.
As customers move deeper into the store, they will find more specialized categories grouped together within departments in what we think of as a “store-within-a-store” approach. If your passion is gardening, barbecuing, power tools, garage organization, hockey, or hunting, for example, we have created distinct retail environments around each of those categories. The goal is to make those areas both inspiring for the enthusiast and easier to shop for someone simply trying to find the right product for the job.
Another major change is the amount of product we are now able to put directly onto the retail floor and, importantly, on display. We have always carried a significant SKU assortment, but space limitations previously meant that some of that assortment had to remain in our warehouse or couldn’t be properly showcased. The expansion has allowed us to bring much more of that product onto the sales floor, giving customers the opportunity to see, touch and experience products before making their purchase.
We’ve also significantly expanded the breadth and presentation of a number of key categories, including baby, toys, power tools, kitchen appliances, RV, barbecue and patio furniture. These departments now have substantially more space to showcase both the assortment and the products themselves.
Finally, one of the most visible additions is our majestic new permanent glass-enclosed greenhouse in the parking lot. It gives us the ability to better serve our green-thumb customers with a much stronger garden experience and to offer plants earlier in the spring and later into the fall.
Taken together, these changes are really about removing friction from the shopping experience. We want customers to be able to walk into the store, quickly understand where they need to go, discover products along the way, and have more opportunities to see and experience those products before they buy.
How much was invested in the renovation and expansion, and what were the biggest challenges involved in transforming the store while maintaining operations?
As we worked our way through the many moving parts of a year-long major expansion project, our top priority was maintaining our focus on the customer despite all the activity going on around them. Construction projects are notorious for impacting the customer experience as attention naturally shifts toward construction schedules and completion dates. We were determined not to let that happen here.
The scope of the project was significant. We temporarily removed approximately 10% of our existing retail floor to accommodate the new construction, moved key product categories multiple times, demolished an existing retail store, added 50,000 square feet of functional building space, relocated and added entrance doors, replaced all of the sidewalks, and constructed a permanent greenhouse in the parking lot. All of this was happening while we continued to operate the store and serve our customers every day.
What made it work was complete buy-in to a customer-first strategy from all of the key stakeholders. At Canadian Tire Corporation, that included Real Estate and Construction, Store Operations, Retail Planning,and Merchandising. Closer to home, we had an outstanding general contractor in Wright Construction. Their deep roots in the community gave them a real understanding of the importance a fully functioning Canadian Tire store plays in the everyday lives of our customers.
Most importantly, our store staff made the difference. We have an incredibly dedicated and resilient team of employees and managers who simply refused to allow the construction project to get in the way of their everyday customer-service goals. Through constant change, product moves, construction noise and disruption, they never lost sight of the customer.
And finally, our customers deserve a great deal of credit as well. They continued to show up and shop with us despite having other options that didn’t require navigating construction and an ever-changing retail environment. Fortunately for us, Saskatchewan has consistently produced some of the hardier folks in this country, and our customers weren’t deterred in the least by a little product movement and construction noise.
When I look back on the project, that may be what I’m most proud of. We didn’t just complete a major expansion. We found a way to transform the store while continuing to take care of the people the store exists to serve.
What trends are you seeing in customer shopping habits, population growth and demand for products that influenced the redesign and expansion?
We continue to see a significant number of young families and new homeowners within our community, and that has influenced a number of the decisions we made with this expansion. We have greatly expanded our baby and toy departments and invested heavily in categories that support home ownership and family life, including yard maintenance, gardening, home projects and children’s sports such as soccer and hockey.
At the same time, the shopping habits of our customers continue to evolve rapidly, and our goal is to meet our customers however they choose to shop.
The significant growth in online shopping means we need to provide a highly credible and convenient digital option. If a customer prefers to order online and pick up their purchase, our customer pickup operation allows them to do that quickly and easily. If they would rather have the product shipped directly to their home, we provide that option as well. Just as importantly, we’ve invested heavily in our inventory position so that we can fulfill as many of those customer needs as possible with immediacy.
But as important as online shopping has become, we never want to lose sight of the customer who genuinely wants to see, touch, feel and learn about a product before making a purchase. That’s where this big, beautiful retail store comes into play. Everything we’ve done with this expansion has been designed to create a positive in-store shopping experience and to inspire our customers as they move through the store. We believe customers increasingly want more than simply a place to complete a transaction. They want shopping to be convenient, welcoming and, when possible, enjoyable. That’s why we’ve thought about some of the smaller details as well. Beyond our core product assortment, we’ve added things such as a cotton candy machine, customer-use mobility scooters, park benches throughout the store, bubble hockey and kiddie shopping carts. Individually they may seem like small additions, but collectively they help make the store more comfortable, accessible, engaging and fun for the entire family.
Ultimately, our strategy isn’t about choosing between online and bricks-and-mortar retail. It’s about giving customers the freedom to shop the way they want while creating an in-store experience that gives them a reason to come back time and again.
How does the Preston Crossing expansion fit into Canadian Tire’s broader strategy for its physical retail locations, and are there plans for further investments or expansions in the Saskatoon market?
Canadian Tire’s retail strategy is ultimately about meeting the consumer where they want us to be, and I think the expanded Preston Crossing store and the business operation surrounding it accomplish exactly that. Canadian Tire Corporation’s True North strategy places a strong emphasis on strengthening customer relationships, growing the core retail business and using the collective strengths of the organization to better know, reward and serve Canadians. At the store level, our expansion is a very tangible expression of that strategy.
We’ve made a significant investment in the physical retail experience because we continue to believe strongly in the importance of the store. We’ve expanded our assortment and inventory, created better sightlines and easier navigation, added considerably more product displays and developed stronger destination categories throughout the store. At the same time, we’ve invested in the infrastructure required to serve customers who increasingly want to shop differently, whether that’s traditionally in-store, ordering online for pickup, or having products shipped directly to their homes. For us, it isn’t about choosing between physical and digital retail. It’s about bringing those experiences together and giving the customer the ability to interact with Canadian Tire in whatever way works best for them.
I also think Preston Crossing demonstrates the continuing importance of having large, relevant and inspiring physical stores in the communities we serve. Customers can research products online, but there remains tremendous value in being able to walk into a store, see and touch the product, compare the options, speak with someone who can help, and walk out with what you need.
As for additional investment in the Saskatoon market, I can’t speak to future plans on behalf of Canadian Tire Corporation. What I can say is that we have tremendous confidence in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan, and this expansion represents a significant long-term investment in serving this growing market. Our immediate focus is on making the most of what we’ve built at Preston Crossing and ensuring that the investment delivers the kind of customer experience we envisioned from the beginning.
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