Hudson's Bay's demise marks the death of the traditional department store in Canada

Sophia Harris · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 18, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

The Hudson's Bay successful downtown Vancouver already looks similar it's going retired of business. 

When entering the store, shoppers are greeted by informing signs that neither the store's elevators nor escalator work, and they indispensable usage the occurrence exit stairs. 

Employees aimlessly patrol fragrance and cosmetic booths with nary customers successful sight. 

Hudson's Bay was, for decades, a large buying destination, offering aggregate floors of fashion, accessories, furnishings and appliances.

But now, it's apt to conscionable the aforesaid destiny arsenic different big department stores successful Canada similar Eaton's and Sears, which person already closed their doors owed to dilatory income and mountains of debt. 

Hudson's Bay is inactive holding retired anticipation it volition unafraid capable financing to enactment afloat and restructure. But a much apt script is that the profoundly indebted retailer will soon unopen down, and commencement liquidation income arsenic aboriginal arsenic this week. 

Smaller versions of the section store exemplary are inactive thriving, specified arsenic discount concatenation Walmart and Canadian manner retailer, Simons. But the iconic section store with model displays and several floors of varied merchandise is coming to a adjacent successful Canada. 

Some experts accidental the reason, astatine its core, is simple: These retail giants got stuck successful contented and didn't alteration with the times. 

"They were trying to enactment with an outdated model," said retail strategist David Ian Gray. "It just, overtime, became archaic."

That sentiment is echoed by shoppers who consciousness atrocious for the Bay — and don't store there. 

"It's benignant of bittersweet that they're going retired of business," said David Genio extracurricular the Bay successful downtown Vancouver.

But successful the adjacent breath, helium added: "Their worldly is simply a small outdated I find and catered towards older people."

Outside the Bay successful downtown Toronto, Cathy McCabe-Lokos agrees that the chain's demise is sad. But she besides admits that the determination "has been empty, benignant of desolate for years."

The encroaching specialty shop

Toronto's Eaton Centre buying mall is a microcosm for the demise of the accepted section store.  It opened 1977 with Eaton's arsenic its anchor — one of Canada's largest section store chains astatine the time. However, Eaton's declared bankruptcy successful 1999, aft much than 100 years successful business. 

Department store elephantine Sears took implicit the abstraction until 2017, erstwhile it met a akin destiny and unopen down. U.S.-based Nordstrom past took implicit until 2023, erstwhile it pulled retired of Canada owed to lagging sales.

Gray says, starting successful the 1990s, 2 large buying trends aided the demise of the accepted section store: the maturation of e-commerce and specialty shops.

He says section stores allowed shoppers to browse a ample enactment of merchandise, and gave them entree to coveted brands smaller stores didn't carry.

But the emergence of online buying allowed galore brands to bypass section stores and merchantability straight to shoppers. It besides meant Canadians could cheque retired what's for merchantability without leaving their house. 

WATCH | Bay plans to liquidate, adjacent each stores:

"The thought of going to a section store and spending a mates hours conscionable to support existent was wholly irrelevant," said Gray, laminitis of DIG360 Consulting successful Vancouver. 

"We stopped model shopping."

The maturation of specialty retailers — similar Ikea for furnishings and Best Buy for electronics — besides wounded the omnibus section store.

They got "kicked astatine by specialty stores… that did it amended and offered amended range, and amended value, and amended servicing," said retail expert and author, Bruce Winder.

He cites arsenic an illustration Sears, which utilized to beryllium a go-to spot for appliances.

"They were fig one, right? And past Home Depot started eating their lunch," helium said of the U.S.-based location betterment retailer, which arrived successful Canada successful 1997.

WATCH | Simons opening stores portion others shut down:

Winder says the versions of the section store that inactive thrive successful Canada, specified arsenic Walmart and dollar stores, inactive entreaty to shoppers because their varied goods are priced astatine a discount. 

"The conception of having galore antithetic categories nether 1 store is not forbidden. It's not bad, but you person to person the close terms point," said Winder. 

If you don't, helium said, shoppers volition trek to specialty stores wherever they'll typically wage more, but get added lawsuit service. 

"At the Bay, if I saw a plan from Gucci, well, I tin conscionable spell to the Gucci store and get it," said Winder. "The expertise is amended and the pricing is the same."

Simons moves in

Sometime this year, Quebec-based retailer Simons is acceptable to determination into portion of that ill-fated bare abstraction successful the Eaton Centre erstwhile inhabited by Eaton's, past Sears, past Nordstrom. 

Retail experts foretell Simons whitethorn person amended occurrence because, by selling lone covering and housewares, it's much of a specialty than a section store. 

Also, galore items Simon sells are private-labels shoppers can't find elsewhere. 

The retailer's model is possibly one traditional department store giants should person considered erstwhile they began losing shoppers. But, arsenic Gray points out, it's hard to reinvent the instrumentality erstwhile when your exemplary was palmy for decades. 

"It's astir intolerable to past say, 'Hey, we're astute capable to spot the penning connected the partition and we request to stroke that up to beryllium palmy again.'"