When the flagship Hudson’s Bay store in Toronto opened Friday morning, customers burst through the doors on a mission to find one thing: deals.
Some jogged through the 675,700-square-foot store on Yonge Street in hopes of getting first pick of the company’s famed stripes merchandise. Others made a beeline for the jewelry department, where they found themselves jockeying for the attention of salespeople scrambling to keep up with requests for items behind their counters, which were all marked down by 70 per cent.
“Don’t get distracted by the makeup. It’s only 10 per cent off,” shouted Jane Mazel to a friend as they speedwalked through the beauty department, intent on finding bigger markdowns on the appliances and cookware floor.
The scene was one of the latest signs of the fall of Canada’s oldest company. It filed for creditor protection last month, citing trouble paying its bills because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, an intensifying trade war and depressed downtown traffic.
To cope, it put itself up for sale and began liquidating all but six of its 96 Bay, Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off Fifth stores last month. While there are still a few days left to make a bid to save the business, the 355-year-old company is so pessimistic it will find a saviour, it decided to pre-emptively liquidate the last six locations.
In addition to the flagship, those stores include Yorkdale mall in Toronto and Hillcrest Mall in Richmond Hill, Ont., as well as downtown Montreal, Carrefour Laval mall and Pointe-Claire in Quebec.
The “everything must go” style sell-off at those sites launched with discounts as high as 70 per cent and reminders that “all sales are final.”
‘Death of the department store’
Jeff Valiquette, who frequents the store on lunch breaks, had heard significant markdowns were coming and was in the jewelry department within a minute of it opening.
He was so zoned into his task — picking up gifts for his upcoming anniversary, a high school graduation for one daughter and a birthday for another — that he barely noticed the competition around him.
While he was “very happy” with the bag of bling he walked off with, the shopping trip was tinged with sadness.
“I come here for everything. A lot of the furnishings in our house are from either the Bay or Simpsons (a defunct department store Hudson’s Bay bought in 1978) and my kitchen table that I bought when we were married 26 years ago is from the Bay. We’re still using it today,” he said.
“It’s the death of the department store in Canada.”
Before entering the store, Jeffrey MacDonald rattled off earlier losses.
On his list were Towers, which went under in 1991, the same year as the Bay converted its final Simpsons stores to its own banner. Also lost are Sears, Eaton’s, Consumers Distributing and the Canadian iteration of Marks & Spencer.
“It would be nice if some of our country’s really rich stepped up, whether it’s Galen Weston or even Drake,” MacDonald said, referencing the Loblaw board chair and Toronto rapper.
“I mean the guy’s got a basketball court in his mansion,” he said of Drake. “He’s got an Olympic-sized swimming pool, so anybody that has the money should be ashamed that they didn’t step forward and try and save these few remaining stores.”
Joanna Robb, who was the first customer outside the store Friday, didn’t have the cash to save the Bay, where her mother worked and the family flocked for its annual Christmas window displays.
“But maybe if I chain myself to the doors, they can’t shut it down” she joked as she waited to scoop up a striped blanket.
Hudson’s Bay, which plans to close most of its 96 stores by the end of June, will pay up to $3 million total in retention bonuses to 121 managers and executives — but will not pay severance to its more than 9,300 workers.
The throws, known as point blankets, are Hudson’s Bay’s most iconic product, hearkening back to its fur trading origins in 1670.
Tiffany Cho wanted to purchase one, but initially only spotted umbrellas bearing the Bay’s green, red, yellow and indigo colours.
She grabbed two and continued her hunt, calling her mom and aunt to encourage them to join.
On the bottom floor, where the bulk of the striped products were displayed Friday, Timothy Humphries was excitedly clutching one of the last towels in the famed motif.
People kept asking him where he found it. Then, a man alerted him to a hidden trove.
“I’ll race you to it,” Humphries joked to the tipster as fellow shoppers opened drawers or queried staff about where any last remaining stripes products might be.
Heading over to the store, he expected “the vultures would have descended,” but was pleased to find a more civilized shopping experience and some steep discounts on luggage he’ll need for an upcoming cruise.
The visit was bittersweet, he said, tightly gripping his towel.
“It’s mixed emotions because I’m glad that I’ve got this piece of memorabilia, but at the same time, HBC has been here since 1670, our first Canadian company, and I think it’s a sad moment for the Canadian identity, for the Canadian economy.”