- paterson1
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
Hudson's Bay announced where 25 Zellers locations will be opened across Canada this year. Two are in the Toronto area. All "new" Zellers will be within Hudson's Bay stores. It will be interesting to see how this is advertised. More from CTV News..
- brian451
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
I was looking at the list of stores and what struck me about it is a few of those stores are opening in malls where HBC had issues with management during the pandemic. My thought is perhaps what we are seeing is HBC maybe testing out Zellers and seeing what the response is. If sales in the main part of the Bay store aren’t strong maybe they will just close the bay and have Zellers be the sole tenant of the space. It would save on HBC needing to get out of leases and save on trying to gain new leases in other areas.
- Radiowiz
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
paterson1 wrote:
Hudson's Bay announced where 25 Zellers locations will be opened across Canada this year. Two are in the Toronto area. All "new" Zellers will be within Hudson's Bay stores. It will be interesting to see how this is advertised. More from CTV News..
One in Scarborough, one in Mississauga. Mississauga is not "Toronto area". The strict rule is, if TTC (Toronto public transit) does not get you there, it's not "Toronto area".
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- betaylored
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
If Zellers wants to have a future in Canadian retail they'll consider having a retro lunch counter along one side of each store offering hot dogs, fries, and smoothies etc. with the classic padded swivel stools and a couple of tables and chairs, one set aside for wheelchair access.
Also, proper and comfortable diaper changing stations in the women's AND MEN'S washrooms. Parents plan their shopping trips around this feature and just the free publicity Zellers would get and continue to get via social media photos on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook would more than cover the cost of construction.
Maybe even bring back live remotes, one a week. Moore In The Morning, the OverDrive boys from 1050, meet and greets need a renaissance.
Doing a remote was a rite of passage back in the day and it's fun to say hello to the people who listen to you.
- RadioActive
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
I believe I heard on the radio this morning that there are no plans to bring back the restaurant lunch counter or any place to eat in the store.
- betaylored
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
I believe I heard on the radio this morning that there are no plans to bring back the restaurant lunch counter or any place to eat in the store.
thanks RA, just read that on Twitter, even if they wanted to, apparently there's a Quebec family that has a Zellers restaurant and owns the name now. Don't see how they're going to create a Zellers in-store experience, it sounds horribly bland and uninspired.
Toronto could see the Zellers version of the Target rollout repeat itself. There were no Dollaramas every few city blocks when Zellers was originally a mainstay.
The Zellers parody account on Twitter is a bit of a hoot.
- paterson1
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
All the press I have read today had no mention of a restaurant for the stores. The original restaurants were called The Skillet so they could use that name, if they ever decided to bring back a restaurant. Much easier just to bring back Zeddy bear!
The upside is that HBC has certainly got a lot of exposure over this. All over the news today. Actually this could work since there is really only Walmart and Giant Tiger as main competitors.
Zellers will be selling sporting goods, clothing, toys, home decor among other product lines. This will help to separate it from the dollar stores. Walmart need not be feared too much since they had their own "Target implosion" with Sam's Clubs which didn't catch on in Canada and closed after a few years of operation.
I read that the new Zellers stores will be the second floor of many chosen Bay locations. I think HBC was wise with initially opening 25 outlets. If it works I am sure there will be more, and Giant Tiger will be more aggressive with their own expansion. Giant Tiger up until now has focused on towns and small/medium sized cities for most of their stores. GT has been quite successful and been around since 1962.
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Thread Starter- Forward Power
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
GT has been quite successful and been around since 1962.
1961, actually... their first location, near the Bell Media facility on George Street in Ottawa's Byward Market, is still open to this day, and I went past the store earlier this week, while in the city on business. 
- Radiowiz
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
If Zellers wants to have a future in Canadian retail they'll consider having a retro lunch counter along one side of each store offering hot dogs, fries, and smoothies
. . . and 45 RPM records for 89 cents each + EP's for $1.49 and of course pencils & Pink Pearl erasers for back-to-school . . .
NO!!! In a digital storage world, I still want to eat at a Zellers diner...or maybe even the late great Kresgee's diner if that could ever come back, and I'm not alone on that idea!!
There's a difference. Some things will never come back, while others still can.
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- paterson1
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
These new Zellers stores are going to be small though. Only 8 to 10,000 sq. ft. So they wouldn't even fill the entire second floor of many Bay stores. Giant Tiger, which doesn't have large stores are about double this size. GT has over 260 locations and plans to open at least five new stores this year.
I am interested to see how HBC advertises the new stores, and if they will use flyers or only on line. GT uses both radio and TV from time to time in their advertising mix.
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Thread Starter- betaylored
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Some people will be curious and go and have a look at the new Zellers, repeat customers will be the hard part. You better give them a damn good reason to go to all the effort of trudging through another store.
Social media can be savage and if they get it wrong, photos taken inside the store with a snarky #ZellersInNameOnly could be deadly.
I went to take a look at the Zellers website and the language used is cutesy and so 2005, talking about "the goss" instead of "the gossip" which is great if you're Sephora, not so much if you're Zellers.
Deckchairs, Titanic?
Last edited by betaylored (January 19, 2023 12:18 pm)
- betaylored
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Re: The Lowest Price Is The Law....It's Official
If Zellers wants to have a future in Canadian retail they'll consider having a retro lunch counter along one side of each store offering hot dogs, fries, and smoothies
. . . and 45 RPM records for 89 cents each + EP's for $1.49 and of course pencils & Pink Pearl erasers for back-to-school . . .
You forgot to mention Laurentian coloured pencils! And the "new and improved" Pink Pearl erasers they came out with, that were half pink and half blue, the blue end was supposed to erase ink but all it did was smoosh and erode the paper and barely touched the ink depending on the pen which was either Paper Mate or Bic.