TORONTO —
December is typically the busiest time of year for many businesses, especially malls and retailers that rely on last-minute holiday shoppers to keep them afloat in the slow months of the new year.
But as retail restrictions in every province limit shopping to various degrees, shoppers are rapidly shifting online. With two weeks left before Christmas, many Ontario businesses say the province’s lockdown measures, which are among the strictest in the country, are putting their livelihoods in jeopardy.
For Toronto clothing store owner Irina Rapaport, her December sales are a fraction of the norm. She says that’s because it’s impossible for her to do curb-side sales because customers can’t try on clothes.
“It’s terrible, there is nothing coming in. Zero,” Rapaport told CTV News.
Lockdown measures have meant that non-essential businesses are closed in Toronto and Peel Region, with shopping limited to online and curb-side pickup. Those same lockdown measures are being extended to the York Region and Windsor-Essex as of Monday. However, big box stores that sell non-essential items alongside groceries, such as Costco and Walmart, are allowed to stay open.
Small businesses have spoken out about this discrepancy, saying it unfairly targets independent retailers while funnelling customers into large corporately owned stores that have already seen sales skyrocket during the pandemic.
Hudson’s Bay Co. on Thursday asked an Ontario court to suspend these restrictions. In a judicial review, the company called the restrictions “unreasonable” and called for a solution that doesn’t jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of workers.
Sam Nirenberg, owner of Body Blue, a denim store in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood, said December sales usually carry his business through the next couple months.
“It’s very stressful,” Nirenberg said. “We’re doing everything we can to get people to digitally shop at our store, but it’s not the same clientele.”
With Christmas around the corner, he said his business is feeling pinched. They used to have 19 staff on hand, but they’ve had to cut down to four.
“This year it’s going to be very difficult,” he said.
Nirenberg expressed frustration over the province’s decision to keep large retailers open, calling the policy “ridiculous.”
“It’s very unfair that the big box stores are allowed to be open and no one is socially distancing there, and we can’t be open. It doesn’t make sense to us,” he said.
Keiley Routledge runs the nearby Small Wonders Pets shop and said she’s behind lockdown measures if they’re going to bring down cases.
“But clearly it’s not happening, and the big box stores are opened unfettered where people can crowd without security, without hand sanitizing,” Routledge said.
“Basically we’re being punished for being a negligible part of the problem.”
Other provinces have taken similar but generally looser measures to limit shopping. In Alberta, malls and retailers will need to cut capacity to 15 per cent by Sunday. Quebec has similarly put tighter limits on store capacities. Manitoba has restricted shopping to essential items only, a list that includes groceries, baby items, winter clothing, pet supplies and tools. British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland are allowing all retailers to remain open, though safety protocols such as masks and hand sanitizing are in place.
The tighter the measures, the more business could see their bottom line affected, says Karl Littler, senior vice-president of the Retail Council of Canada.
“This pandemic has become the lump of coal for them because obviously it’s such a central part of the year,” he said.
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.
