I expect the answer includes some
left over bit of fairy dust. But are we
putting too much emphasis on what once was and not evaluating what is? Or do we only create nostalgia when we no
longer shop there?
Over the past few months Toronto
lost both the majority of the urban Sear's stores, the legendary Honest Ed's
and very shortly mall staple, Jacob.
At first blush it seems like old
institutions had had their day. But if this is my argument then why are we watching
HBC resurrect itself, arguably, again.
Before Jacob, there was Cotton
Ginny, or as we called it at the end, Polyester Ginny, both radically changing
a well liked brand to their eventual decline.
Cotton Ginny tried to reach out beyond the basics and cotton, and it
wasn’t what their customer wanted. Jacob
closed their casual store front, upped their prices and eradicated that pesky
size XL from their offerings. The
quality also significantly deteriorated.
The shop was less and less full; those of us who enjoyed the casual line
or needed that XL size had been abandoned.
All the while the sale section got bigger and was the first place many
customers headed whenever I was in the store, myself included. After not shopping there for several season’s
I happened in recently and noted that the pricing was still more than I wanted
to pay and the store wasn’t full for a weekend day. Two days later the company announced its bankruptcy.
Honest Ed's demise, looks from the
outside to be the victim of the dollar store phenomenon and a bit of
disinterest. As in, the Mirvish's
younger weren't all that interested and got an offer on the property they
decided not to refuse. Granted this is a
very oversimplified answer. But I'm not
a customer of theirs, having last graced their door sometime in the mid 90's
and being willing to pay just a little more for something of better quality I
never went back. I didn't get the
appeal.
Sears Canada is an entirely
different kettle of fish. An odd fit for downtown Toronto from the start, they
set up shop in Eaton's old Toronto Eaton's Centre location shortly after
Eaton's bit their own dust. (Having
worked at Eaton's TEC store in the early 90's I have some insight into
what-the-what happened there, but back on point.) Sears took up trade with modest renovations of
Eaton's tired space, essentially used Eaton’s same merchandise floor plan and
never really stepped it up. It was handy
if you needed a mattress or to look at vacuums, but the balance of the
offerings didn't really appeal to an urban market. As the mall upgraded their store mix and
retail in general did well through the early 2000's Sears just sat there
getting dusty and providing a handy hallway between the mall and the subway
entrance.
If you're partial to analysis having
the physical store be in competition with your catalogue was an odd choice,
considering you could pick up your catalogue orders there. And truthfully in a large centre the idea of
paying for the order processing never sat well with me. If you're partial to rumour there's a lot of
accusations of using the division as a corporate type of ATM thereby devaluing
the entire thing. Oh and that stuff
about an 'Ayn Rand' business philosophy used by people with 'C's' in their
title. An idea that is so farfetched I'm
going to leave it over there rather than to make any sort of sense of it.
Eaton's also failed to innovate
& renovate, held an entirely too large management team (people working in
the walls as we called them) and a huge shrinkage and theft problem. Yes that’s my perception, but not all of it
is unfounded.
So why are we so upset when these
giants fall? Are we harbouring a
nostalgia, which by definition, is no longer the reality? Did we really think
they would pull their socks up and get it sorted out or are we stubbornly
hoping things never change?
By way of placing myself into a
particular part of the city's history I was a very little girl when I both went
to the closing of the Eaton's College Street store and then visited their new
TEC location. Later, I did at first find it
weird to go to my old work location and find it was a Sears, but I
got over it. And in both the case of
Eaton’s and Sears, by the time they were ready to close I wasn't shopping at
either of them.
Perhaps the potential of something
new in their place placates our loss? But
the new entrant is another enterprise fraught with uncertainty. I don't know a single person who was sad to
see Zeller's go but then again Target hasn't quite been a direct hit either. I'll write soon about the anticipation by
Canadians of US retailers and how we sometimes have to be careful with our
expectations.
So I guess it is nostalgia. I have fond
memories of the small town Woolco of the 80's but if I went there now would I
be impressed? I still sorta wonder if
Cotton Ginny would have lasted now that so many retailers have decided to carry
expanded size lines. Although we still
have some work to do there, but another time, another blog post. It seems time and exposure to more choices
does temper out expectations.
And sometimes, it's just that, the times, they are a
changin'.
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| The now famous Honest Ed Signs |
