Checking out their website Simons has both men's dress shoes and sneakers for sale.  I agree they are not as high end as Holt Renfrew.  https://www.simons.ca/en/men-footwear--8355

One thing I always noticed about The Bay and Zellers, their air supply vents are all so horribly dirty. Doesn't matter if you're in Oakville, or Nova Scotia. Just look up next time you're in one of the stores.

mace wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

Checking out their website Simons has both men's dress shoes and sneakers for sale.  I agree they are not as high end as Holt Renfrew.  https://www.simons.ca/en/men-footwear--8355

It's Mark's Work Warehouse for me. Great selection of jeans, shirts, shoes and casual slacks at a reasonable price. AND the staff are helpful and easy to find. [At least at the location I shop 401/Weston Rd]

 
You’re fortunate mace, as anytime I have tried to shop at Mark’s, the customer service has been terrible, ended up walking out two years ago and haven’t been back since. And since Simons has been mentioned, I like shopping there and hope they open more stores with the Bay folding.

I've never had an issue with Mark's.  But it is a store that I don't usually require help.  Quality of clothes is excellent and the prices when on sale are good.  Mark's improved and updated their stores after Canadian Tire purchased them in 2001 and within a few years had opened new stores and doubled sales. 

In addition to some of the stars in the ads above The Bay also had TV campaigns with Celine Dion, Anne Murray, Elizabeth Taylor and more recently Mariah Carey at Christmas time.  I remember two or three years ago Mariah would do a mini concert outside of the Bay location on Yonge St. before Christmas.

For many years often the biggest clients for a lot of TV, radio and newspapers were the major department stores like The Bay, Eatons, Sears and Simpsons.  Even the second tier of stores like Reitmans, Zellers, K-Mart, Woolco, Shop-Rite, Consumer's Distributing and others were all consistent advertisers. 

Walmart does a lot of TV and still sticking with flyers along with on line.  They have been spotty with radio were never a big newspaper advertiser.  Interesting when Walmart first opened in Canada they only had one or two flyers per month since they didn't have sales.  They did learn that Canadians liked sales so after a couple of years getting smoked on Boxing Day, they went with weekly flyers and introduced "Roll Back Prices.".   

So three stores in Toronto and three in Montreal.  Nice that the store on Yonge survived.  Interesting that executives are saying that sales have been better in the last few weeks than expected.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hudsons-bay-jobs-store-closures-1.7489551

They should have kept the Eglinton Square mall location as their dumping ground for anything not moving, now that it's become a clearance centre anyway.

Good to see Yorkdale mall location is safe for now,
BUT
Either Fairview or Scarborough Town deserved to be part of the rescue also, since the good people of Scarborough shouldn't have to go all the way downtown just to shop at a Bay store.  

Radiowiz wrote:

Either Fairview or Scarborough Town deserved to be part of the rescue also, since the good people of Scarborough shouldn't have to go all the way downtown just to shop at a Bay store.  

 
Hey, Scarborough always gets the short end of the stick, that’s what makes us strong!

Aytononline wrote:

For HBC to survive they need to increase there in store customer service, A number of years ago I went to the one in Oshawa, I really did need help that day. After about 20 minutes and not finding anyone to talk with I left and have never went back.

Similar experience with me maybe 10 years ago at the not insignificant Yonge/Bloor one (which closed in spring 2022). After wandering around trying to find some help (and it's rare I need it as I know exactly what I'm there for and have researched online in advance) and seeing unstaffed checkout after checkout for about 15 minutes (and this was 4:30 pm on a weekday), finally someone approached me. They didn't have what I was after anyway and I never returned.

Even back then, this is, according to retail analysts speaking about their latest developments, symptomatic of years of neglect to facilities (dirty, worn carpets, perpetually out-of-service escalators, outdated interiors) and staff shifts cut to the bone. It'd been years since I actually saw two clerks at the two-cash register desks and even longer since those four-register desks (in the square where they were in the middle) were actually staffed by four people at once.

A caller to Alex Pierson's show on AM640 Monday claims he was just at the Bay and was watching as people were walking out of the store without paying for their items - because the remaining staff knows they're getting fired sooner than later and they don't care anymore. 

Who do they think they are - the LCBO?

What a sad ending to such a storied franchise. 

Reports over the past few days have been saying that the six Bay stores that were to be saved will also be closing.  Three of the stores were in Toronto and three in Montreal, including the flagship downtown stores in both cities.

However, there has been interest from various companies in taking over the leases of 65 Hudsons Bay locations.  The store has about 96 locations across the country.  More from the Daily Hive ...https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/hudsons-bay-company-store-leases-art-bidding 

Last edited by paterson1 (April 25, 2025 8:04 am)

mic'em wrote:

I heard a report yesterday on CBC Radio 1 that there is possibility of the rights to the iconic Hudson's Bay stripes being sold and items will continue to be produced bearing the famous look. 

Whatever happened to that "Billionaire" lady, owner of several shopping malls, with plans to buy the Bay? 

https://www.google.com/search?q=who+is+buying+the+bay&rlz=1C1GGRV_enCA752CA752&oq=who+is+buying+the+bay&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORiABDIHCAEQABiABDINCAIQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAMQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAQQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAUQABiGAxiABBiKBTIHCAYQABjvBTIKCAcQABiABBiiBDIHCAgQABjvBTIKCAkQABiABBiiBNIBCTU0NjJqMGoxNagCCLACAfEFMLL-kEpEaDPxBTCy_pBKRGgz&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:653cbfaa,vid:OmlZOfuRCTg,st:0

At first I thought I'd imagined this. But no, it's real and thanks to YouTube, there's proof.

Back in the 50s, there actually was a TV series called "Hudson's Bay," It took part in the day of the fur trappers and is fairly racist in its depiction of the Indigenous. But that, sadly, was the style back then. 

It ran in syndication in 1959 and only lasted one season. Not a striped blanket in sight. 

Retail is an interesting business.  I remember around 2017 about nine months prior to Sears Canada closing down, the retailer was pitching to Canadian Tire to buy them.  A Canadian Tire owner told me that they had looked at buying Sears Canada outright, but Sears had too many poor locations and stores that needed expensive updating.  And they also had a lot of stores that were either too close to an existing Canadian Tire or in the same plaza or power centre. 

Radiowiz wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

Retail is an interesting business.  I remember around 2017 about nine months prior to Sears Canada closing down, the retailer was pitching to Canadian Tire to buy them.  A Canadian Tire owner told me that they had looked at buying Sears Canada outright, but Sears had too many poor locations and stores that needed expensive updating.  And they also had a lot of stores that were either too close to an existing Canadian Tire or in the same plaza or power centre. 

Canadian tire? Wow. In a Toronto star article from around that time, Sears claimed they were going to team up with the grocery business to keep them alive...that also never happened.  https://www.thestar.com/business/sears-gambles-on-groceries-as-losses-more-than-double/article_f7803cc9-f841-53ab-9931-ab2c31bffd63.html

Sears was desperately trying to find a buyer in it's last few years.  Grocery likely would have been a poor choice for them so it was good that it never came to be.  Canadian Tire never made anything public about looking at Sears simply because there wasn't much from the company that they wanted.  Sears had approached them and they did give it some consideration but it didn't fit and Sears didn't have many locations they were interested in.  It will be interesting to see what they acquire from Hudson's Bay if anything.