Peter Simons likes being small. It has advantages.
It’s an odd juxtaposition for Simons, a magnate in the Canadian retail business that stands well over six feet in height. And especially odd for an owner of several larger format stores throughout Quebec (and one in Edmonton) that range upwards of 100,000 square feet apiece.
But Simons says his namesake network of eight stores, which he runs with brother Richard, is indeed small when stacked up against bigger players Simons is contending with, such as Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and its sister chain, Hudson’s Bay.
And Simons is completely content with that. “People call us a department store, we’re not a department store. We’re a large specialty store, they just call us a department store because they don’t know where to categorize us,” Simons, the head of a family business that’s been around for the past 174 years, said in an interview.
It’s that small, family-run approach that separates it from those bigger, high-flying public companies, Simons, 50, says. He points to the hiring of Montreal artist Guido Molinari a while back to construct a piece of artwork featured in one of its immensely successful stores in Montreal.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to go to the board to say, ‘I’m going to build this big sculpture and it’s going to make sales go up this much.’ They would have roasted me.”
Simons announced Tuesday plans to open several new marquee locations in markets west of Quebec over the next couple of years, notably Vancouver, Calgary and Mississauga, Ont., a suburb just west of Toronto.
‘It’s not about us becoming a big company, but trying to build a quality company and I thought we needed a little more scale’
WATCH: Peter Simons, CEO of Simons, discusses plans to expand stores in western Canada, including to Vancouver and Calgary.
Coupland art
For the Vancouver location, Simons says he’s commissioned artist and writer Douglas Coupland to build a piece of artwork just as he asked Molinari to build something for Montreal. That kind of heavy investment in creating unique stores is another facet of Simons’ approach that may butt heads with public shareholders, if Simons had to answer to them.
“They’re expensive environments to build,” Simons said. “We’re a family company, we can make these calls without reporting back to Wall Street in the short term.”
That differentiation extends to the items Simons sells, which is a mix of reasonably priced private labels and high-end international brands. And the mix uniquely resonates with shoppers, experts say.
“If you walk through a Simons store and compare it to other department stores, it really is different,” Patricia Baker, a Montreal-based stock analyst for Scotiabank who covers retail companies, said.
While home décor is also a focus for Simons, both men and women shop at the store predominantly for apparel.
The retailer has lines spanning the spectrum of sartorial preferences. For women, there’s the youthful, fashion-forward Twik as well as Icone for the young professional urbanite. For classic elegance Simons sells Contemporaine.
Menswear lines include stylish evening wear in Le 31, and trendy streetwear in DJAB.
Simons plans to add five stores across the country over the next couple of years, a comparable tally to what Saks and Nordstrom are planning.
MORE: Is Canada wealthy enough for wave of luxury retailers?
Big step
It’s a big step for a chain that’s remained contained in Quebec for the most part since John Simons founded the company as a dry goods store in Quebec City in 1840.
It’s also a risky gambit given the rising number of casualties in the apparel-selling business this year as heightened competition forces some stores out of the market. On the same day Simons announced expansion plans, Reitmans said it was shutting Smart Set, a well-established smaller format women’s clothier.
MORE: Women’s clothier Smart Set to be shut down, owner Reitmans says
Jacob, another women’s apparel seller, filed for bankruptcy in the spring as U.S. chains like Target, which relies on clothing as a signature category, opened more stores across Canada.
Simons expansion plans come after the 2012 opening of a location in the West Edmonton Mall – the first foray outside of Quebec in the 174-year-old retailer’s history.
“There must have been some trends coming out of that store that prompted them to decide that they would push harder in Western Canada,” Scotia’s Baker said.
The Edmonton experiment has gone well, but “people are still learning about us,” Simons said.
Shared spotlight
The rollout of Nordstrom and Hudson’s Bay-owned Saks are U.S. high-end chains that have garnered plenty of press attention for their plans to head north. It’s time another domestic retailer captured some of the spotlight, Simons said.
The first location is set to launch at Les Promenades Gatineau in Quebec next August, followed in October 2015 by the opening at Park Royal in West Vancouver. In 2016, Simons stores will open at Square One in Mississauga in March and Ottawa’s Rideau Centre in August. Simons is slated to open at The Core in Calgary in March 2017.
There aren’t plans to expand beyond that. For now.
“It’s not about us becoming a big company, but trying to build a quality company and I thought we needed a little more scale to do what we wanted to do,” Simons said.
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