Indigo recently decided to quit its prime spot downtown Toronto too, a seemingly unthinkable move, taking into consideration the location would be sought after by every retailer in Toronto. They are signs of the times in Canada, and point to a dramatically weakening economy. Canadians are spending though, on housing. The average Canadian is so maxed out on their mortgage that it is a wonder they spend anything at all at retailers. I guess this is exactly why cell phone sales are still strong too, no money down, just sign this 4 year contract and obtain this nifty phone for 'free.'
Then let's not forget the car payment, like their US cousins, Canadians are going hog wild buying themselves new cars at these low rates. Everyone now owns a car worth 60K retail. So, Canadians look rich, they reside in fancy houses and talk around the latest gadgets, and drive expensive cars, but they're broker than ever. Could this be why retailers can't make any money in Canada?
The year end for most retailers just passed and soon we'll likely hear from more retailers about plans to close stores, or maybe even entire businesses, like Parasuco, calling it a day. These closures mean lots more empty retail space, and having visited half a dozen malls lately around Vancouver, I can say that they don't need more stores closing, they require more tenants, badly.
A common tactic nowadays is perfect for malls to wall up empty stores or entire rows of what once were stores, using fancy, decorative walls which try to allow it to be appear as if there never would be a store in that location. They're not even attempting to rent those spaces any more, now it's about the cover up. As though that weren't bad enough, anchors are even leaving, those are the big stores at either end of the mall that bring in the traffic, or are supposed to. The truth that they're leaving too suggests they aren't bringing in much traffic.
Fewer stores breed fewer stores. This case of the disappearing retailer will feed on itself, as once a store leaves a mall or location, whatever traffic it generated has become lost. This impacts the remaining stores, should no replacement be found. It's not hard to see how this could spiral out of control at a given point.
While strolling through a couple Vancouver malls recently, I saw signs the former tenant left inside a hurry and/or did so without clearing the store upon leaving. This suggests the retailer left prior to the lease was up, as retail racks, a fridge for pop, as well as some stock was still leftover in stores I saw. Nobody leaves their former location with inventory or retail racks in the store still, nevermind without cleaning up. These stores looked just like a thief cleaned them out, but not quite completely, leaving behind the things they couldn't take.
These aren't isolated incidents either, every mall I went to around Vancouver showed signs of desertion and contraction. One mall in particular I knew well from visiting twice a week for years, but I hadn't been there for 3 years. Upon entering I immediately knew it absolutely was dramatically reduced in size, maybe half even. It had been just gone, and they had remodeled to produce a completely new layout, but much smaller.
If it's happening here, it's probably happening everywhere, because Vancouver is one of Canada's largest and many prosperous cities. A friend lives in Montreal, and he tells me similar stories, but Montreal is home from the clothing manufacturers and retailers, so they pay far less for fashion than anywhere else in Canada, probably explains why they dress so well.
I wish Canadian media outlets would cover the reality from the Canadian economy, but they don't, they just parrot the official stats put out through the government. This and many other factors explains the explosion in alternative media sources like blogs and websites.
Vancouver blogs are usually concerned with food and fashion, above all else else, but my Vancouver blog digs deep for economic facts and data, not found on any mainstream media outlets.