Retailers like Sears Canada, Reitmans and Indigo have been facing low sales and growth recently. They’re not the only ones as Montreal-based Jacob, a staple brand for many shopping centres in Canada, has been reported by CBC to have financial problems that could cause all of their stores to be closed next month.
Another Quebec-based fashion brand, Le Chateau, is also facing financial problems. CBC has reported that the chain brand’s stock has declined by 85 per cent since 2009.
“These retailers fear letting go of what made them very successful in the past,” Maureen Atkinson, a retail analyst at J.C. Williams Group, told CBC. “And they haven’t responded fast enough to changing market dynamics.”
In the recent years, several foreign retailers have expanded into the Canadian market, opening Canadian stores and potentially posing a threat for already-established retail brands in Canada that have made a name for themselves in the past.
“Years of complacency, and a failure to innovate, could spell the end of many Canadian retail brands,” Craig Patterson, a retail analyst and the founder of the Retail Insider, told CBC. “Foreign players could obliterate our local retailers.” CJ
