As the Bay's liquidation sales begin, Winnipeg shoppers wonder what will fill store's spaces
2 Winnipeg locations among those set to shut down by end of June as retailer attempts to restructure
As liquidation sales kicked off this week at all but six Hudson's Bay locations, shoppers in Winnipeg were among those rushing to find deals — and wondering what will fill the Bay's spaces.
"I'm just going to look around, because you just kinda never know.… I might find something of consequence," said Bonnie Bahrychuk, a longtime Bay shopper, at the Polo Park shopping centre location — one of only two left in Winnipeg, along with a store at the St. Vital mall — on Wednesday.
The liquidation of the Bay's inventory began on Monday, after the 355-year-old company was granted creditor protection earlier this month, as it attempts to restructure to stay afloat. The company plans to close nearly all of its 96 stores by June 30. Only six stores — three in Ontario and three in Quebec — are expected to remain open.
At the Polo Park location in Winnipeg, discounts ranged from 15 per cent to 40 per cent on most inventory, except the makeup and fragrance aisles. Not everyone was happy with the deals.
"I thought the perfumes were going to go on sale.… They're keeping them separate, I guess," said shopper Linda Chartrand, who also scouted out dresses.
"I'll probably check another day."
David Belanger, another shopper, said he came in to see how good the deals were.
"I'm hoping to find some good clothes, and if there's an empty clothing rack, I might even get that," he said.
The Hudson's Bay Polo Park location occupies 212,086 square feet over three floors, while the St. Vital location is 122,000 square feet over two floors, representatives for the malls said in emails to CBC. Some shoppers wondered what might fill all that space.
It could be "a gym or some office spaces … maybe even residential, fill it for low-income housing," Belanger suggested, but he doesn't see it continuing as a retail space.
"I don't think there's much reason to come to the mall anymore, really. My kids like to come to the malls just to experience, you know, coming out with their friends and stuff, but everything's done online.
"I don't know what they're going to put in here."
Chartrand, though, holds out hope for another retailer.
"They can bring Simpsons-Sears back, because it was on the other side [of the mall], and I used to go there all the time," she said, laughing.
Sears, another longtime Polo Park tenant, announced it was shutting its store there in 2017, and the retail chain closed its last Canadian stores early the following year.
Bahrychuk said she doesn't think a single business would be able to fill such big spaces.
"I think that space would have to be broken down into many uses, but exactly what, I'm not so sure," she said. "The mall owners would know what would work."
Management for St. Vital and Polo Park refused to comment on any future plans for the spaces.
Shifting shopping behaviour
Bruce Winder, a Toronto-based retail analyst, says consumer preferences have changed in malls over the years.
"If you went back … say 30 years ago, malls were the epicentre of everything we did. Everyone went there, and there was a very strong middle class in Canada that really bought everything from the mall," he said.
Department stores were the anchors of those malls, he said, offering "a number of great products at fairly low prices, and with great service."
But middle-class shoppers have moved from department stores to retailers like Walmart, Amazon and Dollarama, which lack the service of department stores but offer low prices, a wide assortment of products and convenience, said Winder.
Now, consumers want malls to be more of an experiential space, rather than just offering shopping — something to keep in mind in filling the Bay's spaces, he said.
With "really limited reason to go to the mall," shopping centre "have tried to focus more on experiential providers — you know, fun things … that you really just can't do or don't want to do at home," he said.
"Otherwise people can just sit home and order from Amazon."
He thinks landlords will have to cut former Bay stores into "at least three to six units minimum," and "might look at unconventional means like car dealerships, pickleball courts and things like that."
For now, shoppers at Polo Park said they were saddened to see the retail institution go.
Belanger had nostalgic childhood memories at the Bay.
"[When I] grew up, my mom dropped me at Hudson's Bay in St. Vital mall for a long time, and it's sad to see Hudson's Bay going, for sure."
Bahrychuk called it a one-stop destination for her.
"The thing that I'm going to be missing about this store in particular was the variation of, you know, the items that you could get — like, you could get linens, you could get kitchenware, you could get … china and wine glasses and all sorts of things."
Asked how she felt about the Winnipeg stores shutting down, Chartrand said, "not good."
"I hoped they would leave one store here at least."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
