By Mario Toneguzzi

Canada Computers & Electronics has opened its flagship location in Toronto’s North York area in what it calls the biggest computer retailer store in Canada.

The store at 6600 Yonge Street features a unique Smart Home area in the store as an interactive experience for customers as well as a unique store-in-store concept for popular brands.

Haingjin Moon, Marketing Manager for the company, said the retail space for the store is about 45,000 square feet.

“It’s located right at Centrepoint Mall in Toronto. It’s right at the corner where a major bus stop is. We used to have a store located in North York and that was one of our biggest revenue generators. However, we had to close the store because the building was set to be demolished for a condominium development. We closed that store in October of last year,” said Moon.

“When we were building the store space in North York, we had an overwhelming welcome from our customers. After our previous store closed, customers had to travel all the way to Midtown Toronto or Vaughan. Now that our new flagship is open, everyone’s really, really excited.”

Because the space is so huge, Moon said Canada Computers is doing something different from most other stores. That includes introducing a store-in-store concept with key brands that have dedicated space within the flagship. Smaller size store-in-store formats are about 10 feet by 10 feet, with bigger formats measuring about 20 feet by 30 feet.

Popular brands carried in the store include Corsair, Logitech, Asus and Razer.

The stores have 13 brands located in the store-in-store open concept spaces.

“We also have a Smart Home area at the back of the store. The whole reason to place that Smart Home within the store at the very back is because we wanted to have a proper customer experience in that location, and we wanted to make sure that the customers are walking through to the back of the store. We don’t want you to miss anything,” said Moon.

The Smart Home area has various products for a home that can be controlled through someone’s phone or tablet. The Smart Home has areas for home theatres, gaming, music, creators and an area for products for bedrooms and home offices.

“The store is right in the heart of the Midtown area - very close where students from university would be commuting using the transit system and is accessible from multiple highways within five to 10 minutes,” said Arun Sharma, Director of Retail Operations.

Although the North York location is currently open, it will have a grand opening on Saturday December 14 with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 9:30am. Door crasher sales will be offered that day and will feature deals that will be available that Saturday as well as on Sunday December 15.

On the grand opening, there will be prizes, snacks, refreshments and a lucky draw for customers.

Canada Computers was founded in 1991 as a retailer of personal computers, IT and components, as well as consumer electronics.

The first Canada Computers location was in Kingston, Ontario.

The retailer does custom built PCs and has its own pre-built house brand computer system and in-house brand iCAN (brand features: office furniture, cables, keyboards, mouse pads, household appliances, etc.)

Today, the company has 37 locations - five in British Columbia, one in Nova Scotia, five in Quebec, and 26 in Ontario. Last week Retail Insider reported on the new Halifax store which held its grand opening on Black Friday.

Upcoming stores are expected in Cambridge and Oakville, Ontario next year.

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Mario Toneguzzi, based in Calgary has 37 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald covering sports, crime, politics, health, city and breaking news, and business. For 12 years as a business writer, his main beats were commercial and residential real estate, retail, small business and general economic news. He nows works on his own as a freelance writer and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Email: mdtoneguzzi@gmail.com

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