Zellers customers delighted, dismayed by Target takeover
Posted Jan 14, 2011 05:29:41 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Local shoppers are divided over news that Zellers stores are about to go the way of the dodo.
U.S. retail giant Target is paying out $1.8 billion to buy up the leases of as many as 220 Zellers stores from the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The U.S. store known for its bullseye logo wants to have up to 150 stores operating in Canada by 2013.
The outlets will continue to run as Zellers until they are renovated.
News that the clock is ticking for the Canadian discount store had some shoppers at the Bayers Lake location concerned.
“I will miss Zellers,” said one woman. “They’ve been around so long, it’s like losing somebody.”
“It’s kind of sad in a way that we’re losing another Canadian retailer to an American giant,” said another man.
But not everyone is upset with the buyout, noting that a new retailer could offer more selection and possibly lower prices.
“I think maybe it would be a good thing,” said one shopper. “It might be even cheaper than Zellers, I hope.”
Another woman said there may be some reaction now, but customers will get over the eradication of a Canadian retailer.
“Everybody thought the same thing about Wal-Mart too, but they’re an American company too,” she said.
While shoppers are weighing in, it’s not clear yet what will happen to Zellers employees.
The Hudson’s Bay Company employs 28,000 full and part-time workers at Zellers stores across Canada, including 13 here in Nova Scotia.
A Target spokesperson tells the Herald it’s too soon to say which stores may be closed and which may be reborn as a discount-chic superstore.
Target’s president and ceo says the deal will create thousands of new jobs because each Target store employs about twice as many people as an average Zellers store.
He says Zellers employees will be encouraged to apply for work.
