Zellers announced Friday it will open its locations within Hudson’s Bay in British Columbia on Tuesday, April 4.
Hudson’s Bay Co. locations in Ontario and Alberta officially launched their Zellers pop-up experiences on March 23.
The company announced the next locations to open will be in 7 Oaks Shopping Centre (Abbotsford), Aberdeen Mall (Kamloops), Guildford Town Centre (Surrey) and in downtown Vancouver.
Stores will also open in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Saskatchewan on Tuesday.
Retail experts say the return of the discount brand is well-suited for today’s inflationary era, but the Zellers comeback story might prove to be less a resurgence of department stores and more their last gasp.
Zellers, which has been owned by HBC since 1978, largely left shopping malls and independent outlets a decade ago when U.S.-based Target took up its storefronts amid a brief stab at the Canadian market.
After being gone from the Canadian shopper’s psyche for so many years, the Zellers brand has built up a fair bit of “nostalgia,” says Joe Aversa, associate professor of retail management at Toronto Metropolitan University.
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That could drive consumers eager to recapture some of those retail memories to the shopping mall in the coming days, he says, boosting foot traffic for Zellers, HBC and the surrounding stores.
– with a file from Global News’ Craig Lord
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