Jump to content

Consumers Distributing: Difference between revisions

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
→‎Alberta: add one
Line 121: Line 121:
====Alberta====
====Alberta====
*[[Calgary]] - Brentwood Mall - Center Street North
*[[Calgary]] - Brentwood Mall - Center Street North - Marlborough Mall
*[[Edmonton]] - Meadowlark Mall - West Edmonton Mall Phase 2 - Kingsway Garden Mall - Bonnie Doon Mall - Calgary Trail South - Eastgate Industrial Park 50th Street
*[[Edmonton]] - Meadowlark Mall - West Edmonton Mall Phase 2 - Kingsway Garden Mall - Bonnie Doon Mall - Calgary Trail South - Eastgate Industrial Park 50th Street
*[[Lethbridge]] - Park Place Mall
*[[Lethbridge]] - Park Place Mall

Revision as of 15:33, 22 April 2009

Consumers Distributing (known in Quebec as Distribution aux Consommateurs in French) was a catalogue store in Canada and the United States that operated from 1957 to 1997. At its peak, it operated 217 outlets, including almost 90 stores in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and California. Its US corporate headquarters was 205 Campus Plaza in Edison, New Jersey.

Consumers Distributing aimed to reduce costs for customers by storing goods in a stockroom, instead of displaying them in a costly showroom. Customers made their selections from a catalogue, filled out a slip with product identification, and waited for staff to retrieve the items from the warehouse.

History

The first Consumers Distributing store was opened in 1957 by Jack Stubb in Toronto. The company was taken public in 1969, but later sold to Provigo, a Quebec-based grocery retailer.

Hudson's Bay Company, which operates Canadian department stores under the Bay and Zellers names, opened the "Shop-Rite" catalogue chain in competition. It was closed in 1982. US competition was mainly from the shuttered chains Best Products (also known simply as Best) and Service Merchandise, both which operated chains of catalogue showroom retail stores in the United States.

Consumers Distributing sought bankruptcy protection in 1996 after an aggressive expansion strategy failed to make the company sustainable. Sales had dropped from $1.8 billion in 1988 to $580 million in 1995. Consumers Distributing was plagued by products being frequently out of stock, and by new warehouse format stores that allowed customers to retrieve products themselves.

Consumers Distributing was plagued more by the perception of things "always being out of stock" due to the catalogue shopping nature of the store. In a store like Wal-Mart, customers seeking a particular product go to the store to shop. With the catalogue concept, the customer selects the item either at home while looking through the company's catalogue, or by a group of catalogues in the front of every store. Once the customer picks out the merchandise that he or she wants, the customer then goes to the counter where the clerk then goes to retrieve it off the warehouse shelves. It was not uncommon for a customer to wait on line only to be told by a clerk that the merchandise was not in stock. Consumers Distributing did not have a computerized inventory until the late 1980s, which meant that the company was not able to track what merchandise was in the stores or what merchandise was wanted by customers.

Consumers Distributing initiated several initiatives to dispel this "out of stock" perception including "super stores" that had all of the available, in-stock products on display; and free home delivery or store to store transfer for items that were not in stock. They also implemented a state-of-the-art inventory system that could check the availability of other stores in real time, and also would suggest alternate products at the store which were in stock. Consumers Distributing was one of the first to initiate this "real time" stock check and prepayment of products available at other branches and the main warehouse. These initiatives, including the superstore expansion, costly free delivery, and costly new inventory management software, overextended the company. This, and increasing competition from American retailers such as Wal-Mart and Sears, led to the company's bankruptcy in 1996.

Former locations

United States

California

Connecticut

Massachusetts

New Hampshire

Maryland

New Jersey

New York

Pennsylvania

Virginia

Canada

Alberta

  • Calgary - Brentwood Mall - Center Street North - Marlborough Mall
  • Edmonton - Meadowlark Mall - West Edmonton Mall Phase 2 - Kingsway Garden Mall - Bonnie Doon Mall - Calgary Trail South - Eastgate Industrial Park 50th Street
  • Lethbridge - Park Place Mall
  • Medicine Hat - Dunmore Road and Southview Drive

British Columbia

Manitoba

New Brunswick

Newfoundland

Nova Scotia

Ontario

Quebec

  • Gatineau - Les Promenades de l'Outaouais
  • Laval - St. Martin shopping centre (Chomedey) - St. Martin boulevard (free-standing store) - Carrefour Laval
  • Montreal, Quebec - Cavendish Mall - Complexe Desjardins - Galeries d'Anjou - Mail Côte-des-Neiges - Place Alexis-Nihon - Place Bourassa - Place Frontenac - Place Versailles — Some noteworthy free-standing stores: Bleury St. - Masson St. - Mt.Royal St. - St.Hubert St. - Boul des Sources, DDO
  • Quebec City, Quebec - Galeries de la Capitale
  • Rosemere (Galerie Des Milles Iles ) (shopping center ) 315 Boul Curé Labelle
  • Salaberry-de-Valleyfield - Boul. Mgr Langlois

Saskatchewan

  • Regina - 4450 Albert Street; standalone store, now a Tony Roma's restaurant
  • Saskatoon - 3020 8th Street East; standalone store, now a TD Bank branch; also a location in a 22nd Street West strip mall later converted into other businesses and a bottle-collecting facility.

Advertising

Shirley Jones once represented Consumers Distributing in television commercials based on the theme "Consumers, we wrote the book on savings!"

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Consumers_Distributing&oldid=285461574"