Sears Canada Closing All Stores After 65 Years of Retail Service To Canadian Communities

It’s the end of the road for one Canada’s prominent department store chain that has served communities across the nation for almost 65 years after a motion to liquidate its remaining 131 stores across Canada was approved by the Ontario Superior Court almost a week ago.

The move to liquid all of the franchise’s remaining stores and assets comes after Sears Canada failed to find a “viable” solution that would allow it to continue to stay in business while the company restructured itself.

“I am satisfied that there is no other viable alternative,” said Justice Glenn Hainey.

The Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University, Toronto.

The retailer that still more than 12,000 employees working in its remaining 131 stores across Canada will close all its stores as the company undergoes a second liquidation process after it couldn’t find a way to stay in business. These include 74 full-line stores, 8 Sears Home stores and 49 Sears Hometown stores which are independently-owned but affiliated with the company.

According to the company, liquidation sales at Sears Canada stores nationwide could beginning as soon as this Thursday, 19 October 2017 and expected to continue for the duration of 14 weeks. However, some stores have already begun their sales as early as this Monday, 16 October 2017.

Below is a map of Sears Canada full line stores and Sears Home stores locations that will be closing as part of its liquidation as indicated in Court documents. Not included in the map are Sears Hometown stores which are independently-owned and are expected to undergo their own liquidation processes, according to the documents.

A map of Sears Canada stores across Canada that will be closing. Credit: Google Map

The locations that could be closed across Canada were noted in documents that were filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Tuesday with those same documents detailing the process by which Sears Canada has entered a second liquidation process after another one was completed on October 1.

Even before entering restructuring in June, the department store chain has been experiencing dwindling sales for the past few years as the brand was waylaid by growing debt and changing consumer tastes drawn to online shopping where the company still lags behind.

The demise of the once retail giant is not a surprise to industry watchers as noted by a Marketing Professor at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, Joanne McNeish.

A Sears Canada store logo and a Canadian Flag. Credit: Canadian Press

“This is a company that had all the elements for success in e-commerce and squandered them all. I don’think it’s a complete surprise. We all kept expecting …the management team would step up and make some adjustments given the wonderful assets that this company had,” said McNeish.

She then pointed out how while other retailers had reinvested in their bricks-and-mortar operations and revamped their e-commerce offerings, Sears Canada instead sold off its assets in order to pay off creditors. And the chain has shuffled through a half-dozen CEOs since the recession of 2009.

“That kind of churn at the management levels causes people to cease to take action,” continued McNeish. “After the first one or two people start saying, ‘Well, they’re going to leave soon anyway.”

A Sears Canada store. Credit: CBC/Jeannie Lee

Another Marketing Professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, David Soberman, was in agreement with Ryerson’s Joanne McNeish pointing out that the company’s management never fully figured out how to address the problem and recent attempts to do so were rather too little and too late.

“Perhaps only in the last two or three years did they really make some efforts to renovate some of their major stores. This seemed to be having a positive effect but it’s a bit like closing the barn after the horse has already got away,” he said in an interview.

Listed below are stores and locations by province that are closing.

Store closing signs at a Sear Canada store after the court granted approval to liquidate. Credit: Canadian Press

ONTARIO

2165 Carling Ave., Ottawa

200 Fairway Rd., Kitchener

221 Glendale Ave., St. Catharines

1250 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa

419 King St. W., Oshawa

3050 Howard Ave., Windsor

637 Lansdowne St. W., Peterborough

435 Stone Rd. W., Guelph

390 North Front St., Belleville

521 Bayfield St., Barrie

84 Lynden Rd., Brantford

1355 Kignston Rd., Pickering

945 Gardiner’s Rd., Kingston

1500 Fisher St., North Bay

25 Peel Centre Dr., Brampton

1349 La Salle Blvd., Sudbury

17600 Yonge St. N., Newmarket

999 Upper Wentworth St., Hamilton

1 Promande Circle, Vaughan

1350 16 St. E., Owen Sound

Unit Y005-75 Centennial Parkway N., Hamilton

1380 London Rd., Sarnia

300 Borough Dr., Scarborough

1067 Ontario St., Stratford

240 Leighland Ave., Oakville

1800 Sheppard Ave. E., North York

5100 Erin Mills Parkway, Mississauga

900 Maple Ave., Burlington

785 Wonderland Rd. S., London

880 Fort Willam Rd., Thunder Bay

Sears Home – 1035 Plains Rd. E., Burlington

Sears Home – Unit A-42 Caplan Ave., Barrie

Sears Home – 1-17700 Yonge St., Newmarket

Sears Home – 2685 Iris St., Ottawa

1629 Victoria St. E., Whitby

QUEBEC

Sears Canada is closing all of its remaining stores across the nations after 6 decades of service to local communities. Credit: Carlos Osorio/Toronto Star/Getty Images

500 Boulevard Wilfrid Hamel, Quebec City

2700 Boulevard Laurier, Sainte-Foy

3150 Portland Blvd., Sherbrooke

900 Boulevard Grignon, St. Jerome

500 Pierre Caisse St., St-Jean-sur-Richelieu

60 Evangeline, Granby

1195 Firestone Blvd., Joliette

4025 Boulevard des Forges, Trois-Rivieres

1200 Boulevard Alphonse des Jardins, Levis

2151 Lapiniere Blvd., Brossard

7451 Boulevard Les Galeries d’Anjou, Anjou

3003 Boulevard le Carrefour, Laval

7071 Boulevard Newman, Lasalle

401 Labelle Blvd., Rosemere

6901 Trans-Canada Highway, Pointe-Claire

100 Boulevard Brien, Repentigny

700 Boulevard Des Promenade, St. Bruno

5401 Boulevard des Galeries, Quebec City

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Sears Canada closing its stores nationwide as it struggles to stay afloat in the edge of e-commerce. Credit: Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star

19705 Fraser Highway, Langley

2929 Barnet Highway, Coquitlam

943 Marine Dr., North Vancouver

3190 Shelbourne St., Victoria

4750 Kingsway, Burnaby

3199 Massey Dr., Prince George

45585 Luckaluck Wy., Chilliwack

4750 Rutherford Rd., Nanaimo

2271 Harvey Ave., Kelowna

1730 Guildford Town Centre, Surrey

4567 Lougheed Highway, Burnaby

Sears Home – 1405-2271 Harvey Ave., Kelowna

ALBERTA

A man walks into a Sears Canada store, the retail franchise which is closing its doors after 65 years of service to Canadian communities. Credit: The Canadian Press

109 Street and Princess Elizabeth Avenue, Edmonton

1616 14 Ave. N.W., Calgary

8770 170 St., Edmonton

Sears Home – Suite 500 – 3630 Brentwood Rd. N.W., Calgary

SASKATCHEWAN

1 Avenue and 20 Street, Saskatoon

Sears Home – 3015 Quance St., Regina

MANITOBA

1555 Regent Ave. W., Winnipeg

1225 A St. Mary’s Rd., Winnipeg

NEW BRUNSWICK

1325 Regent St., Fredericton