Hudson’s bay in the Vancouver downtown already seems out of the important thing.
Upon entering the store, buyers are received by the warning signals that neither the elevators of the store nor the work of the mechanical staircase, and must use the fire exit stairs.
Employees patular aimlessly and cosmetic cabins without customers in sight.
Hudson’s bay was, for decades, an important shopping destination, which offered multiple fashion floors, accessories, furniture and appliances.
But now, it is likely to meet the same destination as other great department stores in Canada such as Eaton’s and Sears, which have already closed their doors due to slow sales and mountains of debt.
Hudson’s bay is still keeping hope You will find a buyer for all or part of your business. But a more likely scenario is that the deeply indebted retailer will soon close and start the settlement sales as soon as this week.
The smallest versions of the department store model are still thriving, such as the Walmart discount chain and the Canadian fashion retailer, Simons. But the iconic department stores with screens and several floors of various goods are coming to an end in Canada.
Some experts say that reason, in essence, is simple: these retarding giants stuck in tradition and did not change with the times.
“They were trying to work with an obsolete model,” said retail strategist David Ian Gray. “Simply, over time, he became archaic.”
That feeling echoes buyers who feel bad for the bay, and do not buy there.
“It’s a bit sad that they are doing the business,” said David Genius outside the bay in the center of Vancouver.
But in the next breath, he added: “His things are a little outdated that I find and serve the elderly.”
Outside the bay in the center of Toronto, Cathy McCabe-Lokos agrees that the disappearance of the chain is sad. But he also admits that the location “has been empty, a little desolate for years.”
The specialized store
The Eaton Center shopping center in Toronto is a microcosm for the disappearance of traditional department stores. Opened 1977 with Eaton’s Like its anchor: one of the largest in Canada department store chains at that time. However, Eaton’s bankruptcy declared itself in 1999After more than 100 years in business.
The Giant of the Sears department store took over space until 2017, when he found a similar destination and closed. Nordstrom, based in the United States, took over 2023, when retired from Canada Due to lagged sales.
Gray says that, as of the 1990s, two large shopping trends helped the disappearance of traditional department stores: the growth of electronic commerce stores and specialties.
He says that the department stores allowed buyers to navigate a large selection of goods, and gave them access to the coveted brands that the smallest stores did not carry.
But the appearance of online purchases allowed many brands to avoid department stores and sell directly to buyers. It also meant that Canadians could see what is on sale without leaving their home.
Hudson’s Bay Company says that he will begin to liquidate his entire business and begin the process of closing all his stores, waiting for the court approval. The announcement occurs a few days after the company requested the protection of creditors.
“The idea of going to a department store and spending a couple of hours just to maintain today was completely irrelevant,” said Gray, founder of DIG360 Consulting at Vancouver.
“We stop buying windows.”
The growth of specialized retailers, such as Ikea for Furniture and Best Buy for Electronics, also harmed the Omnibus department stores.
They were “kicked by specialized stores … that did better and offered a better range, and a better value and a better service,” said a retail analyst and author Bruce Winder.
He cites as an example Sears, which used to be a place of reference for appliances.
“They were number one, right? And then Home Depot started lunch,” he said about the home -based improvements retail in the United States, that arrived in Canada in 1997.
As the department stores throughout Canada struggle to stay afloat, Quebec Simons are expanding, with two locations that open in Toronto next year, which carries the total number of Simons stores in Canada to 19.
Winder says that the versions of the department stores that still thrive in Canada, such as Walmart and Dollar stores, still appeal to buyers because their varied products have a price with a discount.
“The concept of having many different categories in a store is not prohibited. It is not bad, but it must have the right price,” said Winder.
If he does not, he said, buyers will travel to specialized stores where they will normally pay more, but they will receive an additional customer service.
“In the bay, if I saw a Gucci design, well, I can go to the Gucci store and get it,” Winder said. “The experience is better and the price is the same.”
Simons moves in
At some point in this year, the retailer Simons, based in Quebec, will move to part of that unfortunate empty space in the Eaton center once inhabited by Eaton’s, then Sears, then Nordstrom.
Retail experts predict that Simons can have a better success because, by selling only clothes and household items, it is more a specialty than a department store.
In addition, many items that Simons sells are buyers of private labels who cannot find elsewhere.
The retailer’s model is perhaps a traditional giant of department stores should have considered when they began to lose buyers. But, as Gray points out, it is difficult to reinvent the wheel when his model succeeded for decades.
“It is almost impossible to say: ‘Hey, we are intelligent enough to see writing on the wall and we have to fly that to succeed again.'”
