Shop-Rite (Canada)

Shop-Rite was a chain of catalogue stores in Ontario, Canada, that operated from the 1970s to 1982. In a Shop-Rite catalogue store, customers would browse the catalogue, select their merchandise and apply to the store clerk for the item.

Shop-Rite
Subsidiary
IndustryCatalogue store
FateBankruptcy
FoundedEarly 1970s
Defunct1982
HeadquartersBrampton, Ontario
Number of locations
65
ParentMiddlesex Warehouse Sales Ltd. (early 1970s-1972)
Hudson's Bay Company (1972-1982)

The chain began with four stores in London, Ontario, in the early 1970s and was acquired in 1972 by Hudson's Bay Company (HBC)[1]when it purchased Middlesex Warehouse Sales Ltd., the operators of Shop-Rite catalogue stores. HBC, which operates The Bay department store chain and other retailers, expanded the chain to 60 stores within three years and built a large distribution centre in Brampton.[2]

In November 1981, the chain had 65 stores in Ontario when HBC announced that it would close the unprofitable chain on January 30, 1982.[2] Shop-Rite had been running annual losses of $3 million as a result of waning consumer interest.[2] It was expected that it would cost The Bay $8 million to close the chain, and that about 10 per cent of Shop-Rite's staff would be offered jobs in The Bay.[2] Wally Evans, president of The Bay at the time, said that in order to make the business viable, it would have to expand outside of Ontario, but that it did not have the money to do so.[2]

Shop-Rite was unable to compete with Consumers Distributing, which had over 400 catalogue stores in 1981 and sales of 40 per cent more per store than Shop-Rite.[2] Consumers closed in 1996.

Locations
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  • Guelph — 275 Eramosa Road, Guelph, ON
  • Kitchener — 27 Scott St, Kitchener ON N2H 2P8
  • Ottawa — Shoppers City Plaza, 2016-2 Ogilvie Road; Billings Bridge Plaza, 2277 Riverside Drive; Shoppers City Plaza, 1980 Baseline Road; Lincoln Fields Mall, 2525 Carling Avenue; Alta Vista Plaza, 2679 Alta Vista Drive
  • Smiths Falls — County Fair Mall, 275 Brockville Road
  • Timmins — Timmins Square, 1500 Riverside Drive
  • Toronto — 2 Blair Road Street East
  • North York — 747 Don Mills Road
  • Etobicoke — Burnhamthorpe Rd & Saturn Rd
  • Etobicoke — Royal York Rd and Bloor
  • Mississauga — Square One Shopping Centre 100 City Centre Dr, Mississauga L5B 2C9
  • Waterloo — Westmount Place, 50 Westmount Rd N, Waterloo ON N2L 2R5
  • Newmarket — 17255 Yonge Street, Newmarket, ON
  • Stratford — 1032 Ontario Street
  • Thunder Bay — 1186 Memorial Avenue
  • Orillia — 400 Laclie St
  • Cambridge - 256 Hespeler Road, Cambridge, ON
  • St. Catharines — 350 Scott Street, St. Catharines, ON
  • Scarborough — Sheppard Av, west of Kennedy Rd
  • Sudbury — 1774 Regent Street, Sudbury, ON
  • North Bay — Lakeshore Drive
  • Simcoe — Norfolk St S. at Water St.
  • Windsor — 3310 Dougall Avenue

See also
  • List of Canadian department stores

References
  1. HBC Heritage
  2. "600 to lose jobs as Bay closes Shop-Rite stores". The Ottawa Citizen. 1981-11-18. Retrieved 2011-11-22.
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