The nearly 8,000-square-foot space will be one of the first Zellers to open later this month, with 25 shops initially planned across the country
There is a small frisson of excitement inside this Hudson’s Bay store, as though there has been a celebrity sighting. “He’s here!” says Zellers creative lead Henrietta Poon, her face brightening.
And recent retail failures in Canada underscore the difficulty of competing in the sector. Nordstrom Inc. last week said it’s shutting its Canadian stores after launching in 2014 and failing to turn a profit. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. last month also announced its Canadian stores will close. Target Corp., which launched in Canada by buying Zellers’s store leases, exited the country in 2015 after just two years and booked a US$5.4-billion loss.
Still, his team was confident Zellers could be resurrected. A pilot project in Winnipeg cut down on underperforming inventory, and even added groceries to the mix. “It was doing great,” recalls Mr. Foote, now retired. But not $1.8-billion-great. That was the price HBC fetched in the 2011 deal to sell 189 store leases to Target. The deal was worth more than Richard Baker’s NRDC Equity Partners had paid to acquire all of HBC just a few years earlier, and so Mr.
It may help that Zellers, remembered for its “lowest price is the law” slogan, is relaunching just as shoppers are feeling the pinch. But it also means more competition for tighter wallets. According to research firm The NPD Group, 78 per cent of the 1,009 Canadians it surveyed in January said they planned to cut back on product purchases because of inflation.
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