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Originally Posted by MustangJay
I lived in Ottawa for many years and worked at The Bay's flagship Rideau Street store where "is it on sale?" was the customer mantra, in both official languages! It's clear that demographically, Ottawa is a very misleading city for retailers because the high percentage of government workers tends to skew reported income levels higher. While a large middle class is great, retailers like Holt Renfrew don't sell to the masses; they sell to the proverbial 1% ers, of which Ottawa has virtually none. Holt Renfrew's exiting of the Ottawa market will only add to its reputation of driving luxury department stores out of business (dare I mention the disaster that was Les Ailes?) I applaud HR for paying credit to the Ottawa store by saying it was "performing well" when in actuality the location's poor performance has not exactly been a state secret. Doubling down on it's core markets in major urban centres makes sense for Holt's if it's going to go toe-to-toe with Saks and Nordstrom's.
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I was employed by Les Ailes in Montreal at the time. Ottawa was their best store, period. It is the entire Groupe San Francisco which went belly up.