Hudson's Bay Revives Dormant Discount Chain in Canada

Hudson’s Bay (HBC) is reviving its long-dormant discount retail brand Zellers, announcing the first 25 store-in-store locations for new Zellers outlets as well as the launching of a Zellers e-commerce site.

Decades ago, Zellers was known throughout Canada by its Royal Canadian Mounties-type slogan: “Where the lowest price is the law.”

The retailer announced three Zellers locations in the Greater Toronto Area—although none in downtown Toronto, the most densely populated part of the country.

Zellers outlets are opening in the Hudson’s Bay store at the Scarborough Town Centre; at The Bay’s Erin Mills Town Center Location; and in The Bay at Burlington Mall. The company is planning to open nine Zellers outlets overall in Ontario.

“Opening in communities across the country, the brick-and-mortar locations will complement the first-ever Zellers.ca e-commerce site, ultimately bringing Zellers to nearly every community in Canada,” Hudson’s Bay said, in a press release.

The store-within-a-store outlets generally will take up between 8,000 and 10,000 SF each, a concept that increasingly is becoming popular with retailers across North America who want to expand the demographics for their foot traffic.

HBC as a retailer has aimed for the middle tier of the Canadian market. Analysts said the store-in-store format is a timely way for the company to expand their reach in a slumping economy.

Analysts explained the lack of a location in downtown Toronto by noting that the demographics in the city’s hip urban center, rapidly expanding with immigrants, don’t present a strong market for a nostalgia brand popular with Boomers in the 1980s and 1990s. Younger consumers aren’t familiar with the Zellers brand, they said.

HBC owned the original Zellers discount brand, which was founded in the depths of the Great Depression in 1931 in London, Ontario. At its peak in the 1990s, there were 350 Zellers stores across Canada. HBC closed almost all of the stores in 2013, operating the last three Zellers-branded stores as clearance outlets for it’s The Bay stores.

In 2021, Hudson’s Bay filed a lawsuit to protect the Zeller brand after a Quebec family registered several company names using the word Zellers, claiming HBC let their trademark for the brand expire. The matter is still being litigated in Federal Court in Canada.

Discount chains in the United States, including Dollar, Dollar Tree and Five Below, are leading the retail sector in new store openings, GlobeSt. reported.