Southern Ontario Retail Blog

Pier 1 logo Today, Pier 1 put a notice on their website saying that they are filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as the company pursues a sale of its US business. As a result, Pier 1 decided to cease Canadian operations and close all of their Canadian stores. There goes another retailer killed by a changing industry. :( Via C TV News

Image: Techcrunch This week, 7-Eleven announced that it is piloting a 700 sqft cashier-less store inside their Irving, Texas Headquarters that's only open to their employees and has a limited assortment of 7-Eleven's popular items, which will be refined as the experiment progresses. This store will use a mobile app that allows the customer to buy items in the store and special technology that tracks what a customer purchases.

I'm pleased to announce that I've made a secondary   Tumblr page for the blog! This page will feature more short form content that is not suited for a blog post as well as my 3D models and retail memes I make. You can find it here. This new Tumblr will not replace the blog.  Hopefully you'll like the new Tumblr I made. -DZ

For today's store facts post, I'll be talking about the small Dominion turned Metro located at a plaza in the Mississauga Valley area of Mississauga. Background This store was a Dominion store before becoming a Metro in 2008. This store basically had no remodels since the mid-2000s deluxe Fresh 2.0 remodel by Dominion and the usual chain wide upgrades. Despite being located near a Food Basics at Central Parkway Mall, this dinky Metro still does some decent business. Layout Map of the store I haven't been to this store in years, so some things may be off as I've based this off the typical Fresh 2.0 layout and from Google Map pictures I've seen of this store. The only layout anomaly is that Produce is on the right side of the store instead of in the Grand Aisle and that the meat section is on the right side of the grand aisle instead of at the back. Key points Former Dominion (A&P Owned Chain) Open 24 hours Decor: Fresh 2.0 with revamped Floral,...

I’m starting a new series called store facts where I talk about the history of a particular location of a chain, the layout of the store and some key points about the location. I’ll be talking about the No Frills located at Dixie outlet Mall in Mississauga. This location has an interesting past as it was previously a Knob Hill Farm Food Terminal. If you are not familiar with that chain, you can view my post here . Background This location originally opened as a two-level Knob Hill Food Terminal, which was down sized a few years after it opened. Knob Hill closed down all their stores in 2001 and Loblaws brought a couple of the stores and some, like this one were converted to a No Frills franchise in 2001. I’m not too sure which decor this store had originally, but I’m guessing Smile, which it had until 2016 when it was renovated Very yellow. The store was then refreshed with the Monochrome revision of “Very yellow” in 2018. Layout Here’s a rough map of the store that I'v...

Here's a bookmark from Indigo that I got when I brought a book from their recently. I really like the design of the bookmark with its feather-like pattern.

Image: ABC News Grow up no more Toys R us kids! Toys R us is revived! Toys R Us is opening their first new US store since the 2018 bankruptcy at  Westfield Garden State Plaza  in Paramus, New Jersey just i n time for the holiday season. A  second location is expected to open next week at  The Galleria  in Houston.  The new store has a treehouse in the middle and many toys on display for kids to play with in different sections for each brand and genre and it has kiosks where you can order items online from Toys R Us' online store.