Zellers is coming back, again.
The discount retailer that has died and been revived several times since its beginnings in 1928 will have another relaunch Thursday at Londonderry Mall in Edmonton.
The latest version will maintain the original’s emphasis on affordable family offerings, but will reduce the types of merchandise sold and rethink the huge estates the Zellers once occupied.
The new retailer will occupy much smaller spaces and will carry men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, as well as home goods, luggage and seasonal items, but will abandon other Zellers categories such as toys and pharmaceuticals.
At the heart of the deal will be value because “that’s the one thing that never goes out of style,” said Joey Benitah, Zellers’ chief operating officer, in an interview with The Canadian Press ahead of the brand’s relaunch.
His family has been a fixture in Canada’s retail market for the past 50 years. It owns clothing chains such as Fairweather and International Clothiers, as well as home goods brands Bombay and Bowring.
In 2019, Joey and his sister Rachel launched Wyrth, a home decor store aimed at millennials with locations in the Greater Toronto Area.
Les Ailes de la Mode Inc., a family-owned company that shares its name with a department store they once ran, acquired the Zellers name, its logo and the rights to the Zeddy mascot, the Club Z loyalty program and the Zellers portrait studio in August.
Benitah would not confirm how much her family paid for the rights, but court documents have suggested it could have been $100,000.
The brands were purchased from Hudson’s Bay, which owned the brands and operated dedicated brand sections in its stores before HBC collapsed under the weight of $1.1 billion in debt in March.
The opportunity to add Zellers to the family’s collection of brands seemed like a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Benitah said.
“We’ve always loved the brand,” he said. “We have always understood the value and history that the brand has.”
The family’s connections and experience in the retail world helped it go from idea to reality in three months, although the Londonderry location will be more of a teaser than a final concept because Benitah is taking a gradual approach to the relaunch.
That means you’ll start with a few key brands and product categories and keep adding as the chain grows.
While he hasn’t revealed how many stores he hopes to open, he said he “absolutely plans to bring Zellers back to all major markets in Canada in a relatively short time.”
It has initially focused on former HBC properties and has been signing leases with landlords for individual floors or portions of space once held by the department store that measure no more than 50,000 square feet.
“We don’t need 250,000 square feet, 200,000 square feet. That’s not our vision for the future of Zellers,” Benitah said. “There’s a lot of space in these old Hudson’s Bay stores that we’re not going to occupy.”
Court documents have shown that the Benitahs want to take over HBC’s former Yorkdale shopping center in Toronto and several other sites the brand once used to relaunch the Les Ailes de la Mode department store. Joey Benitah declined to comment on whether the Yorkdale space could be used for Zellers.
The version of Zellers that will be released will include products from well-known brands such as Reebok, Spyder, Chaps, DKNY, Disney, Marvel and Nickelodeon. More brands and other categories such as footwear will follow.
A teddy bear version of the popular character Zeddy and an area where stuffed animals can be personalized will be introduced next year.
The company is also in talks to eventually develop a Zeddy-themed partnership that supports camps for children affected by cancer. (HBC donated the Zeddy character to an Ontario camp for youth affected by cancer in 2012.)
However, some parts of Zellers’ story will not be revived.
Toys and pharmaceuticals (former Zeller items) will likely be omitted because “they are overwhelmingly dominated by companies like Amazon and Walmart.”
“If we don’t feel like we can offer a very competitive value or, ideally, the best value in the Canadian market in any particular department, I would prefer to stay away and let others focus on it,” Benitah said.
Zellers restaurant is also not coming to stores, but “from a food and beverage standpoint, we are working on a number of very exciting, fun and interactive concepts and ideas that we will be introducing in the near future,” he said.
HBC had previously toyed with the restaurant concept when it brought back Zellers in 2023 as a pop-up and then permanent fixture at HBC locations. It mainly sold household goods and toys from the Australian brand Anko, but occasionally promoted the business with a food truck selling diners’ favorite dishes.
The 2023 version of Zellers was smaller than the original concept developed by businessman Walter Philip Zeller of Waterloo, Ontario, who opened several stores in Ontario in the early 1920s.
It was quickly purchased by the American company Schulte-United Ltd., but when it went bankrupt, Zeller repurchased its original holdings and revived the chain again in 1931.
HBC bought a majority stake in the company in 1978 and acquired the remainder in 1981.
There were 350 Zellers stores at the company’s peak, but most closed in 2013, when the chain determined they were not viable.
Two remained in Toronto and Ottawa, but closed in 2020.
