Canadian Retail Market: A Discussion

By Carl Cotton

Many attempts have been carried out by landlords and brokerages of Canada to bring investors and retailers down to Canada. These steps are important to be sure that more brands are available in the country. At the same time, many things have been done by developers and retailers in order to ensure purchases can be easier for people who want to get products. These developments include new retailers that also involve food markets and food halls. There is already a standard of food mall opened at Upper Canada Mall in the north of Toronto. Plenty of others will be opened to ensure a reasonable fall in the food market.

At the same time, landlords of shopping centers have invested a lot in their malls which has raised competition to a high level in the country. More features are added to ensure survival during the competition. Also, malls are stepping up in their customer relationship. They are now adding entertainment as a part of the services they offer. Entertainment such as “The Rec Room” and VIP movie theatres.

Other malls that are fancy are adding valet parking and the remaining centers have new retailers that beat down prices of products. This makes customers able to save more and use the money for other things. Canadian retail market has what it offers to its customers at a different time of the year.

Development, growth and up-to-date innovations are something truly inevitable for a market like this.

These developments appeared in the market in recent years:

a.     The way stores have been transformed into a public space or location with more services, events, cultural programming and more.

b.    The appearance of augmented reality (AR). This has been from using an app to check out some goods that might be of interest before purchase. Amazon using AR to make the product available as a search function in the app.

c.    The greater use of e-commerce for transactions. It has to become more popular because a lot of  Canadians will transact more digitally because a challenge about online shopping in Canada is that, it has always had a slower growth when compared with the U.S.

d.    A more physical representation of brands which seem to be available online alone. Previous years have seen a few online stores such as Canada Goose, Frank + Oak, Indochino and also Amazon.

e.    More checkouts for mobile devices such as Samsung, Google, and Apple. This implies that these phone products will make it possible for many customers to make payments with their mobile devices.

f.    More diving to have more demographic information which helps to understand customers and help them have a better buying experience.

g.    Orders made via the use of voice. Examples include orders from Amazon’s Alexa for Lyft users, Walmart makes you order for items only by speaking to your device using Google Express eCommerce via the Google home.

h.    Availability of visual shopping. Visual shopping is when a customer is able to take the pictures of previous items which he has purchased before and can launch a search of similar items which is available online. This implies that the new search engines will be smartphone cameras. Also, people will be able to do more online shopping from pictures people have shared on social media platforms. Retail space for rent Toronto is one of such developments.

The implication is more luxury stores will be available in Canada. In Toronto for example, one of the most renowned shopping centers, Yorkdale will unveil new stores for Fendi and Dior, Gucci and Balenciaga. Hermes will open its two-level flagship. This will be done at Burrard Street and southwest of West Georgia Street. Also in Alberta, luxury will improve because CF Chinook Centre now has a Louis Vuitton boutique.

However, although all these new developments seem to be for rich people, they are many more options for the poor also. The Co-founder of BiWay $10 Store has said that a new location will be opened in August on Bathurst Street of Toronto. Dollarama keeps opening more stores.

Conclusion

The good news of the matter is that people will be able to get the best bargains they want. Since there is competition, many stores will sell at discounted prices and make a lot of items available at an affordable price.