Hudson's Bay to resurrect discount retail chain Zellers

Good news! I hope it happens here.

As long as they don't copy the failed "basic cheap items at elevated luxury prices" & "empty shelves abound!" plan that Target Canada had then things might work out. It would be nice to have an actual alternative to the usual horror show at WalMart to go to again.

I have visions of Target stores in BC. Such promise but unsustainable business model.

This is a bad idea. Businesses go out of business for a reason. If they did come back there would probably be a big inrush of business at first as people want to relive their youth. The problem is that reality never measures up to good memories. One visit would fill most people's need for nostalgia. The modern day reality that NO ONE can beat Walmart's prices is going to push the longing for yesteryear to the wayside pretty quick.

I would rather take a steel toe boot to the ball sack than to enter a Walmart. Every time that I enter one, my faith in humanity drops a few degrees. That said my weekly grocery/shopping bill is $100 at Walmart. Those exact same items would run me over $200 at my neighborhood grocery store. The de-evolution of mankind at the grocery store is not as bad as Walmart, but its not like I am not going to run into the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge while shopping there either. Hanging out with the great unwashed masses for one hour every week is well worth saving $100. That $100 a week comes out to over $400 a month. My mortgage is $600 a month. Why would I piss away 2/3 of my mortgage payment for a little nostalgia? I wouldn't. No one in their right mind would either. People vote with their wallet, and that is why this is a bad idea.

Hell I'd welcome them back. Used to shop at their Big Men's Club for clothing, now I have to hunt down a specialty store to find Tall sized shirts, even if I don't need the fat guy sizes anymore. Haven't seen oversize (12-15) men's sox in stock at WalNutz for 2years now.

Me too, but $3 for cranberry juice that 'on sale for $4.99 or $4.49 for G Zero instead of $6.99 at SaveOn keeps me coming back. Disgusted by the self checkouts, return shopping carts for your $1 and robot floor cleaners though.

I hear ya Rick. The prices at Walmart are great, but the thing that gets me every time is the screaming children. Always always, screaming children.

Part of what sunk Target was their inventory system. For whatever reason, the higher ups at Target Canada decided to build their own inventory and logistics system from scratch in stead of importing the one that worked from the US chain. Hence the empty shelves.

I don't think this is a bad idea really, as a lot of people would prefer a Canadian shopping alternative to Wal-Mart, and in many ways, Canadian Tire and Superstore just don't cut it.

The problem I see with restarting Zellers is that many old Zellers locations are now Wal-Mart stores, or in undesirable locations where most shoppers don't want to go. To restart Zellers is going to take a large investment on HBC's part, and I don't know that they have the financial wherewithal to do it. If they do get it going again, it will be a long time before it's a national chain with stores in all the major cities again.





You're right, people vote with their wallet, which is why I spend most of my grocery dollars at Costco, not Wal-Mart.

I do shop at Wal-Mart on occasion, but just as often go to Safeway or Sobey's because while the prices are better, the selection and service are too. At those stores, I don't have to scan and bag my groceries, and if I can't find something, it's easy to find an associate who not only knows where it is, but often walks with me to make sure I find what I'm looking for.

To me, that is worth paying an extra $25 or so for my groceries, but to each their own.

You'd think that corporate planners at that level would have been a lot smarter than the ones at Target Canada turned out to be. That debacle was a classic economics lesson in doing everything wrong from the beginning to the end of the entire spectacle. Despite what too many econ grads think there's nothing new at all in retail. The same model that was developed in the 1950's can still be successfully followed as long as someone in management doesn't wreck the process with a thoroughly unnecessary "new" method they thought up while sitting on the toilet.

I don't remember Zellers being in any difficulty before The Bay shut them down. I believe it happened because stuck-up yuppies among The Bay executives or shareholders thought it was "too tacky" and off-brand for them to have a discount chain for the mere peons to shop at. Then they doubled-down with that idiocy at Home Outfitters, which is now also defunct, where the prices were so awful it practically forced a shopper to go to WalMart for the exact same item priced at 30 to 40% less. Hopefully the Zellers return, unless corporate has some genius idea that ruins it from the start like Target Canada did, has the positive effect of forcing WalMart to return to lower prices as well. Aside from inflation, both the natural kind and the pandemic-induced variety, WalMart is also charging a lot more now for too many of their items. Doesn't seem justifiable given that of most of their stock given their bulk-buying philosophy remains their core strength.

They opened a Walmart here about 6 years ago. It took awhile before they got approval then forever to build the store and the strip mall it anchors, which is located in a stupid busy traffic area. I have never been in there nor have I even gone to the strip mall where they are located (there are other strip malls closer to home and easier to access with all the services I need). A friend of mine shops at a different Walmart as, according to her, this particular store sucks in comparison to the one she frequents. I worked with a fellow last year who had worked at this Walmart and he said the working conditions and the way employees were treated was pretty terrible and he quit because of it. I've heard that from others as well. I think the only time I've ever been in a Walmart at all was back in the mid-90's when my ex and I did a camping trip through Washington and Oregon and needed something or other along the way.

When the Zellers that was here closed and taken over by Target it was awful. The Target store had more empty shelves than full ones and they went down pretty quickly. I recall that most things were more expensive as well.

Zellers was always the go-to place for so many things. Clothes and any household goods come to mind first and I'm hopeful that they end up within The Bay store here, which is ridiculous big so I'm sure it will be one of the stores they select to do this.

Agreed. That's exactly why we choose to shop where we do. It's not about who has the better price. Service is so important but has been lost over the years at some places.

I can't speak for other cities. But in Calgary there's still lots of big-box location availability around here, due to the remaining residual effects of the last economic collapse and also to businesses disappearing during COVID. Zellers shouldn't have a huge problem finding good areas they can open in, not in Alberta anyway. Mall owners will be falling all over themselves to get Zellers to arrive and become a new anchor attraction for the entire location. Yeah, they won't be building anything new in downtown or inner core, given the horrible traffic & parking situations there, but the outer core and perimeter districts should have a lot of choice where they can set up shop.

I seem to remember the parent company of the Bay was in serious trouble in those days. Tried to move way upscale and we sure as hell didn't buy the kids clothes from the Bay. They used to love Xmas presents from a wealthy aunt who shopped at the Bay. My tribe were Zellers kids that's for sure.
The local Bay turned into the Northern here, then closed when Zellers did. My town is known for the original HBC National Historic Site.

There are some empty big box locations in Edmonton too, but after Zellers shut down and Target failed here, a lot of those stores were either carved up into several smaller stores (mostly in malls) or became Wal-Marts or other big box stores. Sometimes it was legitimate business expansion, but in the case of Wal-Mart, it looks to me like it was to hinder competition.

In the years since, a couple Wal-marts that have closed down are usually in the poorer, 'scary' parts of Edmonton like Abottsfield or in failed power centres like Christy's Corner.

According to the article, the initial stores will just get floor space inside existing Bay stores, but I still see an issue with finding suitable existing storefronts if they plan to open up a lot of large Zellers stores like they had prior to 2013.

Who knows, maybe Zellers will come back as smaller, niche stores with fewer items and catering to nostalgia, instead of huge big box stores that need 80,000 - 120,000 sq. ft.

Whatever happens, I wish them the well.