Sears Canada debuts appliance/mattress stores
By Michael J. Knell -- Furniture Today, January 23, 2005
Toronto — Sears Canada has rolled out its long-awaited appliance and mattress store format, and also opened two Sears Home stores in western Canada.
Sears Appliances and Mattress Stores have opened in the Greater Toronto Area, in Oshawa, Mississauga, Burlington and Stoney Creek, Ontario. A fifth was opened in Calgary, Alberta. The next is set for the Scarborough section of Toronto this spring.
Each appliance/mattress store has about 12,000 square feet of selling space, with about 5,000 square feet devoted to bedding. The lineup includes all 37 beds seen in Sears Home stores, plus a number SKUs from the catalog and a selection of high-end beds.
The private-label Sears-O-Pedic brand is featured, along with models from the national bedding program, emphasizing Simmons, Sealy and Serta.
Bruce Watton, national merchandising manager/furniture, said Sears Canada is pleased with initial results. He anticipates between five and 10 more appliance/mattress stores will open this year.
Meanwhile, Canada's second-largest furniture and bedding merchant has opened a full-sized Sears Home store in Regina, Saskatchewan, and its second down-scaled Home store in Red Deer, Alberta.
The full-sized store covers about 40,000 square feet of selling space and features Sears' complete furniture, bedding, appliance and electronics offerings, plus services such as kitchen cabinetry and the like.
The smaller stores — the other is in Lethbridge, Alberta — contain edited versions of the large-market stores, with a heavy emphasis on galleries, including Natuzzi, Sklar Peppler and Sears-O-Pedic, supported by private-label goods.
"In the large-format stores, about 55% of the floor is private and national brands, while in the smaller versions the stores are about 70% private and national brands," Watton said, adding the presentation in the smaller Home stores reinforces the national marketing program.
There are now 64 Sears Home stores across the country. "We've got most of the major markets covered," he said.
At least one new Sears Home store will be added to the network in 2005. Watton also said at least one gallery will be added to the core lineup this year, while the others will be updated.
"You're going to see a refreshment of the galleries that we introduced in late 2003 and 2004 — between one-third and one-half of the floor will change," he said.
Sears Canada is moving to acquire Cantrex Group, one of this country's largest furniture and bedding buying and marketing groups.
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