Nordstrom’s decision to close its Canadian stores will result in 643 job losses at its two B.C. locations, one in downtown Vancouver and the other in Langley.
The upscale U.S.-based retailer made the announcement on Thursday. In court filings, it says it has lost money every single year since it opened in Canada in 2014.
“The whole store is shocked,” Nordstrom employee Roy Jiang told CBC shortly after the news broke. “Even our manager is crying.”
Jiang works at the downtown Vancouver store, located on Robson St. in Pacific Centre mall. He says employees were notified via email and calls the situation “mind blowing.”
“It was so sudden,” he said. “All the people in the building are shook.”
WATCH | Nordstrom employees, shoppers shocked by store’s closure:
643 Vancouver employees to lose jobs as Nordstrom leaves Canada
22 hours ago
Duration 4:33
Nordstrom Inc. says it is winding down its Canadian operations and closing all 13 of its stores in the country, including in Vancouver where it opened with much fanfare in 2015, leaving its prominent Robson St. location empty.
More than 600 people work in the downtown store.
The Langley store — Nordstrom Rack — is at Willowbrook Shopping Centre.
Thursday’s announcement also took some customers shopping at the downtown Nordstrom by surprise. One was “terribly shocked” and another called it “a shame.”
Cadillac Fairview, which runs Pacific Centre, has not responded to requests for comment on the situation after first being asked on Thursday.
Downtown store opened in high-profile spot in 2015
The downtown Vancouver store takes up 230,000 square feet and three floors in Pacific Centre, making it one of the city’s more high-profile retail outlets.
Opened to much fanfare in September 2015, it was the company’s third Canadian location, after Calgary and Ottawa. Retail giants Eatons and Sears previously occupied the corner lot.
Nordstrom Pacific Centre on Robson St. in downtown Vancouver is one of 13 Nordstrom stores in Canada that will be closing. (CBC News)
Jobs originally posted for the Vancouver location included retail salespeople, nail technicians, bartenders, baristas, tailors, stylists, cleaners and a shoe shiner.
Across Canada, Nordstrom has about 2,500 employees in 13 locations. The company blames high costs, a lofty U.S. dollar, flat sales, the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of brand awareness for its struggles in Canada.
Industry watcher expected company to ‘steer the course’
Speaking on CBC’s BC Today on Friday, retail advisor David Ian Gray said he started hearing rumours of a Nordstrom closure in Canada in mid-February, but that he was “as shocked as anybody else” by Thursday’s announcement.
“The Nordstrom family, they’re not reactive decision makers,” said Gray, founder of DIG360 Consulting in Vancouver.
“They’re very purposeful. I was aware of the financial issues they were facing, not simply [in] Canada but across all of their network, but I would have thought the rumours may have been part of a negotiating strategy to reduce rent or there was something else [going] on. I would have thought there was more of a plan to steer the course in Canada rather than retreat from Canada.”
WATCH | Nordstrom announces closure of Canada stores:
Nordstrom closing all stores in Canada
2 days ago
Duration 1:35
Nordstrom announces it will close all 13 of its stores across Canada. The company says it lost money every year since opening stores in Canada in 2014.
Gray says Nordstrom’s departure from Canada is “a continuation of a lot of turbulence that began before the pandemic.”
“The pandemic just decimated the fashion sector,” he said. “There are recoveries going on but it’s two steps forward and one step back.”
Canadian stores expected to close by end of June
Erik Nordstrom, CEO of the company that bears his name, reportedly told a conference call that Canadian employees would be treated with fairness and respect, and that a trust would be set up to help them as stores close.
Operations are expected to wrap up by the end of June.
For its Canadian stores, Nordstrom says it will “commence a liquidation sale, subject to court approval,” later this month.
Customers are no longer able to shop online through nordstrom.ca but the company says orders placed before March 2 will be fulfilled.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
