First Look at Edmonton's New La Maison Simons

Simons West Edmonton Mall. Image: West Edmonton Mall (blog http://styleblog.wem.ca)

Simons opened its Edmonton store yesterday. It is mostly complete except for a north-facing atrium area that will include art work and some more retail space. Almost $50million has been spent on the interior of the 118,000 square foot store, and impressively it is expected to turn a profit within the first year.

The store is expected to pull in sales of $60 million in the first year and to grow sales to about $100million by 2017. Impressive numbers for a store marketing a substantial amount of mid-priced, private label merchandise.

These are actually men's dressing rooms! Simons West Edmonton Mall. Image: Edmonton Sun

The store's private label merchandise, marketed under a variety of names, carry a high enough profit margin to keep the store growing. Various other designer brands are carried including some top-of-the-line designers like Jean Paul Gaultier.

Simons has spent a fortune on its store interiors and will continue to do so. Owner Peter Simons notes that they can do this because it's a privately held company, not open to the scrutiny of shareholders. An insider informs us that the company is profitable and that their strategy of 'spend more to make more' is working.

More dressing rooms. Check out the knit-covered trophy heads. Simons West Edmonton Mall. Image: Edmonton Journal

Simons is looking to expand across Canada into cities including Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and possibly Winnipeg. The chain will have 9 Canadian stores by 2013 (8 in Quebec and one in Edmonton), and would like to grow to 20 or more by 2020.

Retractable dressing rooms. Simons West Edmonton Mall. Image: Edmonton Sun

Image: Edmonton Sun

In 2011 a deal fell through to open an 80-100,000 square foot Simons store at the then-proposed 'The Elms' retail complex in Winnipeg. Expect more Canadian locations to be announced in the next while.

La Maison Simons website: www.simons.ca

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