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Hudson's Bay Company

When I lived in a small town, zellers was the only department type store. I bought a lot of kids clothes there, sheets, small appliances and so on. It was like Target. Not top of the line but better than k Mart IMO. (I’m going back 35 years here). What I couldn’t get at Zellers, I ordered in from the Sears catalogue.

Back in the day my mom worked at K-mart, but did all her shopping at Zellers, like you said, it wasn't top of the line, but the stuff was better than most products at K-mart. Zellers stores were also cleaner and better organized than most K-marts as well.
 
I wasn't really old enough to be buying any stuff there before it was gone, though my mother says she distinctly remembers shopping at Zellers and emphatically disagrees that it was ever a "discount brand," as the media is portraying it today, but was in fact "overpriced on everything" and usually out of stock on anything you wanted, which, hey, that's a lot like the Bay. My mother may be biased though as she worked at K-Mart in the early 70's somewhere in Mississauga (she can't recall exactly where that K-Mart was and remembers only that it was close to the QEW but I've always wondered its location).

I do remember the Zellers in-store restaurant though and if they bring back the plate of fries and gravy for $2 I'll be there.

Here's a CBC archival story about the 1998 acquisition. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-240m-deal-that-meant-a-fast-farewell-for-kmart-in-canada-1.5443333

When HBC purchased K-Mart Canada, it wasn't difficult to tell what stores used to be K-Marts. In Brampton, K-Mart was at Shoppers World and at Queen and Highway 410. The Shoppers World location was valuable enough that Zellers expanded the store and gave it a full renovation soon after -- it was one of a very few ex-K-Mart stores that Target Canada picked up for its ill-fated entry into Canada.

In Mississauga, there was a K-Mart at Eaton Sheridan Place (Sheridan Mall) - that might be the one you're thinking of. That, too, was converted into Zellers and then Target.

There didn't seem to be as many K-Marts in Canada as Woolco and Zellers stores.
 
There didn't seem to be as many K-Marts in Canada as Woolco and Zellers stores.

When K-Mart was sold to the Bay it was 112 stores in Canada; it had been bit higher in the past, maybe ~130 not sure.

Woolco Canada ended with 160 stores when purchased by Wal-Mart.

Zellers peaked at well over 300 stores, but was 220 when its leases were largely sold off to Target.

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In the east end, we still had the forerunners of Woolco and Kmart around late into those chains evolution (Woolworths and Kresge respectively)

Kresge didn't close here til '94. There was one on Danforth by Woodbine and another at Eglinton Square.

Their tenure overlapped with the K-Mart version which was at Parkway Mall and at Markington Square.

Woolworth's also lasted in '94 and had a location on the Danforth right by Kresge and another in the Beach down at Queen and Lee (now a TD Bank, and not the same building)

Woolco had Thorncliffe Market Place (now East York Town Centre) and Morningside Mall in Scarborough.
 
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When K-Mart was sold to the Bay it was 112 stores in Canada; it had been bit higher in the past, maybe ~130 not sure.

Woolco Canada ended with 160 stores when purchased by Wal-Mart.

Zellers peaked at well over 300 stores, but was 220 when its leases were largely sold off to Target.

****

In the east end, we still had the forerunners of Woolco and Kmart around late into those chains evolution (Woolworths and Kresge respectively)

Kresge didn't close here til '94. There was one on Danforth by Woodbine and another at Eglinton Square.

Their tenure overlapped with the K-Mart version which was at Parkway Mall and at Markington Square.

Woolworth's also lasted in '94 and had a location on the Danforth right by Kresge and another in the Beach down at Queen and Lee (now a TD Bank, and not the same building)

Woolco had Thorncliffe Market Place (now East York Town Centre) and Morningside Mall in Scarborough.

Woolco had the Agincourt Mall location as well. You can tell by the flagstone veneer still visible on the Walmart.

The Downtown Hamilton Kresge store lasted into the early 1990s, and some of the original Zellers stores - back when it was more of a competitor to Kresge and Woolworths - lasted well into the 1990s and even early 2000s as Zellers Select. Downtown Kingston and Ottawa had them.
 
I am told that traffic in the store has picked up considerably in the last month; moreso on weekdays than weekends. But still well off previous norms.
 
Pusateris is open again too.

Partially, unless something significant has changed.

They were only about 1/3 open a couple of weeks back; at the time, staff believed full reopening was deferred to 2023.

I posted on that in the Sak's thread, here:

 
The MEC concession inside HBC Queen Street has opened:

Retail-Insider has the story:


From the above:

1666946185439.png


For the rest, follow the link.
 
Zellers has confirmed its first 25 'shop-in-shop' locations.

They are not freestanding, nor anything resembling a traditional zellers, only 8,000-10,000ft2 inside select Bay stores.

Only one Toronto location, Scarborough Town Centre.

Other Ontario stores below:

1674051438428.png

From:

 
Zellers has confirmed its first 25 'shop-in-shop' locations.

They are not freestanding, nor anything resembling a traditional zellers, only 8,000-10,000ft2 inside select Bay stores.

Only one Toronto location, Scarborough Town Centre.

Other Ontario stores below:

View attachment 451200
From:


Stores inside stores are nice but I wonder how well they will do.

I wonder if they are going to be used as a test bed for larger stores.
 
Stores inside stores are nice but I wonder how well they will do.

We'll have to see, but my overall thought is not well.

Occupying, on average, about 7% of a Bay store doesn't afford much visibility. It would seem to preclude bringing back the restaurant in any form, and it doesn't allow for any real category depth either.

Perhaps they will do better than I think, I'm not their target customer anyway. \

I wonder if they are going to be used as a test bed for larger stores.

If they were successful, perhaps that would be considered. Truthfully though, I'm surprised they aren't testing even one fuller sized offering.

If it fails, it just goes away; but if it boosts sales per ft2/traffic levels at 10kft2, do you dare mess with 'success' by enlarging the format at considerable cost? Dunno.
 

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