Abandoned - Zellers

[Music] what's up guys my name is Jake and welcome to abandoned episode 53 if you visited Canada in the 1970s 80s 90s or early 2000s there's a good chance that you might remember a massive discount retail brand called Zellers they were one of Canada's largest retailers until their abrupt end but even if you aren't familiar with the brand stay with me on this because the story also leads to one of the largest retail blunders in history with the failed transition of target Canada so today let's take a look at the once iconic retail brand Zellers this episode of abandoned is sponsored by surf shark VPN go to surf shark dot deal slash BSF to get eighty five percent off and three extra months for free it all began with a young boy by the name of Walter P Zeller it was 1912 and he began his first job as a delivery boy for the FW Woolworth company as he grew though he moved to America and stayed in retail going to work for the kreski company there he learned the ins and outs of the department store business an exploding new format of consumer shopping so Walter returned to Canada in the late 1920s and opened his own department store but after he declared bankruptcy in the 1930s he eventually recovered and purchased fourteen retail locations all in southern Ontario off the retailer's schulte United Walter soon rebranded these stores in 1932 and incorporated a brand new company under the name zellers retailer to thrifty Canadians was their slogan and it was their mission statement to zellers was an early incarnation of the soon to be popular discount department stores through the next few decades Ehlers embarked on a slew of major expansions moving their brand presence toward eastern canada and by the 1950s zellers had over 60 locations and around 3,000 employees these aggressive expansion plans were warranted too as prophet had exponentially increased to over 43 million dollars which adjusted for inflation is around 400 million dollars today his was growing quickly and becoming a well-known brand with a lot more opportunity ahead Walter P Zeller had built the company from nothing and with his brand now thriving yet his health deteriorating he retired as CEO in 1956 and a year later he died at the age of just 65 with new leadership set in place the corporation's signed a deal with the American based WT grant company to purchase an equity stake in sellers WT grant was a similar discount department store chain in the United States and they helped sellers buy up cheap products from Asia to sell in North America giving both these companies great margins through the 60s the brand was opening even more stores including their first in the hot new big-box store format and they also began introducing restaurants within their locations by 1976 sales had surpassed 400 million dollars or over 1.7 billion dollars today across there now 155 stores Zellers was now adapting to a whole new era of retail with the construction of their first location within a shopping mall and the addition of auto centers in their stores during this time Zellers had purchased the fields department store chain adding another 70 locations under their ownership eventually they got the attention of the historic Hudson's Bay Company Zellers was in a difference and clearly very profitable market segment of retail and HBC wanted end so Hudson's Bay acquired Zellers in 1981 this new merger now meant that zellers had the capital and the backing to continue their expansion and retail dominance through the 1980s they continued to build more stores and successfully position themselves as Canada's largest discount retail brand sales also reflected this as they surpassed two billion dollars by 1989 their growth was still pretty much unchallenged zellers then acquired the towers department store chain and converted most of the 51 stores including their Toronto flagship location into their own brand they also introduced their new slogan the lowest price is the law and through the rest of the 1990s they continued to grow and dominate the market by 1990 9 there were over 350 zellers locations across Canada found in almost every province and pretty much every major city Zellers was a household name in the country and they were the go-to place for many Canadians to get everyday essentials this was however until Walmart arrived by the early 2000s the American discount retailer Walmart was making a big push for expansion into Canada in 1994 they purchased wool Co a subsidiary of Woolworths and rebranded those stores into Walmart locations the company then steadily increased their Canadian presence drawing more and more shoppers to their department store meanwhile zellers was facing fierce competition because of this it got to the point where Zellers and Walmart were both main anchors inside the same shopping mall things rather quickly began to turn for the worst with a retailer despite them trying to develop new store concepts like Zellers Neighborhood Market with focusing more on groceries many shoppers felt like the stores were now tired and old looking at least compared to the new and modern Wal Mart stores which in many cases offered better deals by now Zellers was closing stores year after year and sales were dropping over the same time their parent company Hudson's Bay was also declining in sales and in 2006 the entire company was actually acquired by an American private equity firm Zellers was losing money at the time of this purchase and a new CEO was put in place to try and save the dying brand mark foot was the man chosen and by 2008 zellers was finally stabilized to some degree but still struggling as a whole by 2010 the company now only had just 279 stores and proceeded to lay off hundreds of management level employees clearly this was an attempt to eliminate higher-level paid staff to try and cut costs as much as possible their competition was absolutely killing them but then came a move not many saw coming a year later in January of 2011 the Hudson's Bay Company announced they would be selling 220 Zellers lease occasions to the American retailer targets for a little over 1.8 billion dollars this purchase would effectively almost eliminate the Zellers brand as target would be expanding their company with a Canadian division taking over these lease locations at the time of the announcement there were just two hundred and seventy three remaining Zellers locations in the country so the remaining 53 would be sold off and just three would continue operating under the zellers logo so in March of 2012 Zellers began the first phase of their liquidation this was one of the few times when a major retailer was liquidating their entire chain but not because of a bankruptcy finally by December of 2012 almost every Zeller store across Canada had closed and began their transformation into target Canada now I cover this a lot more in my separate AB and a video on the company but target was investing unbelievable amounts of money into this expansion every single location was completely remodeled into a modern target Canada store with the first few opening in March of 2013 over the course of a few months target Canada had ramped up their stores to around a hundred and thirty three locations as they ended up selling off the other eighty seven stores basically though target had little understanding of the Canadian shopper and even the basic geography of the country they made terrible distribution decisions and overall had higher prices and low stock to keep up many canadians going into the store had preconceptions of what their locations were like in the united states and when they didn't have the same stock as they did in those locations people were rather disappointed this caused the pretty good initial figures to slip rather quickly as they found shoppers not returning enough on basic household items that coupled with the competition with wal-mart and the enormous competition with grocery chains in canada put them in a precarious position the chain was simply not profitable and their analytics was showing that income wouldn't generate profit until at least 2021 so despite the company mostly solving their distribution issues targets brand new CEO at the time decided to just pull pluck on January 15 2015 target Canada declared bankruptcy and announced they would be closing all 133 stores just a year and 10 months after they opened their first location at the time some stores hadn't even opened yet when the company shut everything down so by the end of 2015 all target Canada locations had closed permanently and the company reportedly lost over seven billion dollars a might actually shocked you to hear that despite the catastrophic failure of target canada Zellers remained open like I said earlier Hudson's Bay continued to keep three stores open in 2014 though the Western Canada location closed leaving just two left one in Nepean Ontario and the other in Etobicoke Ontario these locations however didn't operate under the same store format they were essentially just liquidation centers for Hudson's Bay merchandise they essentially just kept the former brand name I actually visited both of these stores the one in Etobicoke particularly a few times and yeah they were both pretty tired looking facilities with not much to offer from the heyday of the brand eventually Hudson's Bay announced that they would be closing both of these locations permanently and on January 26th 2020 the Zellers brand was finally gone today there isn't really much left to see over the past five years or so I have been seeking out the remnants of this once iconic chain the only evidence of Zellers presence is in the abandoned locations left behind the ones that weren't transformed into targets or bought out by other retailers oftentimes the only instances of the abandoned locations are inside malls that themselves were abandoned like the County Fair Mall in Fort Erie which had its main anchor being zellers however at is since been demolished the only other current abandoned location that I know of is the former store in Simcoe Ontario that standalone location closed alongside the others in 2012 yet this one never found a buyer today it stands as a ghostly reminder of the once popular chain the label scar on the front facade the logos above the main entrance and the distinct red paint wrapping around the structure remind people of what was it genuinely is a relic of a past era as many Canadians can attest zellers used to have such an enormous presence in his country the brand used to be in the largest malls and have a logo anyone in Canada could recognize they were one of the first discount department store chains and one of very few to survive through the majority of the 1900s while also successfully implementing themselves in modern retail but as time went on the brand became less and less valuable as their locations slipped from the once prominent and powerful market share they once held their competition mainly being Walmart had posed a serious and almost lethal threat to them that was until target came in and tried to replace them and that went well informally Target pretty much killed the Zellers brand then renovated their stores set up a new retail company within them then left in less than two years leaving many of them abandoned and leaving a hole in not only alternative shopping choices from Walmart but leaving a retail space burden on hundreds of malls and plazas across Canada but we can't only blame target for dissolving sellers the brand for years had been declining and losing money for their parents zellers I'm sorry was essentially the modern-day Kmart of Canada they had tired and dirty looking stores across the country as many of them were just unrenovated since the 90s Wood Zellers have gone bankrupt if target didn't step in probably I think Hudson's Bay was already getting ready to pull the plug on the zellers chain and just by the fact that they sold most of their stores for under two billion dollars is really telling on how much the company was actually bringing in with sales I think that if target never made the deal that they did Zellers days were numbered for me I have many fond memories of walking around the mall and spending time in Zellers with my mom eating at the diner I even remember walking around the store one last time before target took it over I think for many Canadians who do remember shopping at sellers they always seem to have fond memories of it kinda like how Kmart was for America in its golden era of retail even with its very few abandoned places still left in the country and very little evidence in the modern era that it never even existed I think the 80 year old company will always be a part of the golden era of Canadian retail I want to thanks surf shark VPN for sponsoring this video if you're traveling or if you live in certain countries where content may be blocked from your viewing then surf shark VPN is the perfect solution I know from personal experience that since I live in Canada when researching videos I am often blocked from viewing certain media particularly videos that are for some reason blocked to other countries or if I'm looking to watch content on Netflix that is only available and say the United Kingdom then all I need to do is easily switch my region using surf shark VPN I also like using them since doing so will keep my data private from ISPs who may want to sell it you can sign up and get 85 percent off and three extra months for free by going to surf shark dot deals slash BSF and enter the promo code BSF anyway guys even if you're not from Canada I hope you enjoyed this episode and maybe learn something new I have been on and off working on this episode for several years now even flying out to Ottawa to see the last zellers door and driving all around to find abandoned relics so I appreciate all of your support and big thanks to Sir shark for making all that time worthwhile my name is Jake and thank you very much for watching [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 712,981

Rating: 4.9435291 out of 5

Keywords: abandoned 53, Target Canada, Zellers Corporation, HBC, Hudsons Bay Company, Last Zellers alive, HD, 2020, 2021, family friendly, PG, Clean, documentary, abandoned episode, abandoned bright sun films, new episode, retail, canadian retail, canada, ontario, zellers discount brand, target canada fail, Walmart canada, kmart, sears, failed retail, department store, discount store, bankrupt, target corporation, money loss, failure, Jake williams, 1990's, retail icon, woolworth, woolco, abandoned

Id: YxWYZAuMu70

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020