Winners

Last updated
Winners Merchants International L.P
Company type Subsidiary
IndustryDiscount
Founded1982;42 years ago (1982)
FoundersDavid Margolis
Headquarters Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Framingham, Massachusetts, United States
Number of locations
Canada – 279 (May 2, 2020)
ProductsClothing and general merchandise
Parent TJX Companies
(1990–present)
Website www.winners.ca

Winners Merchants International L.P is a chain of off-price Canadian department stores owned by TJX Companies. [1] Its market niche is similar to the American store TJ Maxx, and it is a partnered retailer to department stores HomeSense and Marshalls.

Contents

History and format

Winners logo from 1982 to 2005 Winners1980slogo.svg
Winners logo from 1982 to 2005
Winners in Southcentre Mall, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Winners Southcentre Mall.jpg
Winners in Southcentre Mall, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Winners store in Bayers Lake Business Park with 1980s logo Winners Store HFX 2007.jpg
Winners store in Bayers Lake Business Park with 1980s logo

Winners was founded in Toronto, Ontario in 1982 by David Margolis. [2] [3] It was one of the first off-price department stores in Canada. In 1990, it merged with off-price department store owner TJX Companies. [2] [3]

It offers brand name clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, fine jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. Products are at a 20-60% discount rate and the stores generally do not carry the same merchandise for an entire season. [4] The discounts are in large part to the company buying excess or end-of-season merchandise from other stores as well as its connections with TJ Maxx. [2] The firm does not sell online. [4]

Since late 2001, Winners stores have been paired with HomeSense, a home accessory retailer, modelled on TJX's American HomeGoods stores. Winners acquired the struggling "Labels" brand from Dylex in 2001. Labels had been meant to compete with Winners, but never succeeded; most of its stores have been turned into Homesense stores.

Les Ailes de la Mode opened a similar concept under the Labels banner after Winners did not renew its trademark on the name.

Controversy

In 2016, CBC Television's Marketplace investigated Winners' "compared at" pricing and found that retail price of the manufacture could be misleading and inaccurate. For example, one pair of pants was "on sale for $29.99, with a 'compare at' price of $80, or more than 60 per cent off. But next to the tag [was] another tag with the manufacturer's suggested retail price: $29.99, the same amount that Winners was charging." [5]

Winners responded by defending their "compared at" prices as accurate and fair, but acknowledged that "sometimes errors can occur" due to the volume of merchandise received by stores. [5] In a follow-up letter to Marketplace, Winners was able to verify every "compared at" price for 20 of the 21 items that Marketplace had investigated, by finding the items at the "compared at" prices at a comparable retailer. For the remaining item, Winners admitted that it was an error on their part and pledged to fix the mismatch. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marshalls</span> American multinational discount department store chain owned by TJX Companies

Marshalls is an American chain of off-price department stores owned by TJX Companies. Marshalls has over 1,000 American stores, including larger stores named Marshalls Mega Store, covering 49 states and Puerto Rico, and 61 stores in Canada. Marshalls first expanded into Canada in March 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Variety store</span> Retail store that sells inexpensive general merchandise

A variety store is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, auto parts, dry goods, toys, hardware, furniture, and a selection of groceries. It usually sells them at discounted prices, sometimes at one or several fixed price points, such as one dollar, or historically, five and ten cents. Variety stores, as a category, are different from general merchandise superstores, hypermarkets, warehouse clubs, grocery stores, or department stores.

Organically Grown is a privately held Delaware limited liability company owned by Organically Grown Group LLC, with offices in Encino, California. Julia and Robert Stein founded the company in October 2007. The brands owned and controlled by Organically Grown Group LLC include: Organically Grown, Organically Grown Baby and Organically Grown Kids.

A discount store or discounter offers a retail format in which products are sold at prices that are in principle lower than an actual or supposed "full retail price". Discounters rely on bulk purchasing and efficient distribution to keep down costs.

TK Maxx is a subsidiary of the American apparel and home goods company TJX Companies. The stores operate throughout the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands, totalling 629 stores in Europe and 56 in Australia in May 2020. In Poland, there are a total of 44 stores. The chain uses a slightly different name from that of the TJ Maxx stores in the United States, to avoid confusion with the British retailer T. J. Hughes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zayre</span> Defunct discount retailer in the United States

Zayre was a chain of discount stores that operated in the eastern half of the United States from 1956 to 1990. The company's headquarters were in Framingham, Massachusetts. In October 1988, Zayre's parent company, Zayre Corp., sold the stores to the competing Ames Department Stores, Inc. chain. In June 1989, Zayre Corp. merged with one of its subsidiaries, The TJX Companies, parent company of T.J. Maxx, which still exists today. A number of stores retained the Zayre name until 1990, by which time all stores were either closed or converted into Ames stores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TJX Companies</span> American department store corporation

The TJX Companies, Inc. is an American multinational off-price department store corporation, headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was formed as a subsidiary of Zayre Corp. in 1987, and became the legal successor to Zayre Corp. following a company reorganization in 1989.

Dylex Limited was one of Canada's largest retailers during the 1970s and 1980s, where it operated a number of specialty retail stores, including women's wear, men's wear, and family stores, including BiWay, a large, and now defunct, Canadian discount chain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sawgrass Mills</span> Shopping mall in Florida, United States

Sawgrass Mills is a shopping mall in Sunrise, Florida, owned by Simon Property Group. With 2,370,610 square feet (220,237 m2) of retail selling space, it is the eleventh largest mall in the United States, the largest single story outlet mall in the U.S., the largest shopping mall in Broward County, the second largest mall in Florida and the Miami metropolitan area after the Aventura Mall, and the third largest shopping mall in the southeastern United States. With over 21 million annual visitors, Sawgrass Mills is one of the most visited attractions in the state of Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TJ Maxx</span> American discount department store chain owned by TJX Companies

TJ Maxx is an American department store chain, selling at prices generally lower than other major similar stores. It has more than 1,000 stores in the United States, making it one of the largest clothing retailers in the country. TJ Maxx is the flagship chain of the TJX Companies. It sells men's, women's and children's apparel and shoes, toys, bath and beauty products, accessories, jewelry, and home products ranging from furniture and decor to housewares and kitchen utensils.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Closeout (sale)</span>

A closeout or clearance sale is a discount sale of inventory either by retail or wholesale. It may be that a product is not selling well, or that the retailer is closing because of relocation, a fire, over-ordering, or especially because of bankruptcy. In the latter case, it is usually known as a going-out-of-business sale or liquidation sale, and is part of the process of liquidation. A hail sale is a closeout at a car dealership after hail damage.

AJWright was a chain of about 129 American retail/outlet stores established in 1998 and owned by TJX Companies. Like its sister company T.J. Maxx, AJWright sold clothing, domestics, giftware, footwear, accessories, and fragrances at prices between twenty and seventy percent below regular prices. AJWright differed from other TJX chains by refreshing its merchandise on a regular basis. For most stores, new shipments arrived every weekday. In early 2011, TJX closed the chain's remaining stores and converted some stores to other TJX brands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HomeSense</span> Canadian chain of discount home furnishing stores

HomeSense is a Canadian chain of discount home furnishing stores owned by TJX Companies. It originated in Canada in 2001, and was expanded to Europe in 2008 and the United States in 2017. Outside of the United States, the chain is comparable to the TJX-owned HomeGoods. Within the US, where HomeGoods already operates, it features more big ticket items than its sister store.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sierra (retailer)</span> American off-price retailer

Sierra Trading Post, Inc., doing business as Sierra, is an online and brick-and-mortar retailer of off-price merchandise operated by the TJX Companies. The Framingham, Massachusetts–based company offers products in categories such as outdoor recreation, fitness and adventure gear, and apparel, along with footwear, clothing, and home decor. Sierra sells merchandise through 78 retail stores as of November 2022 and a company website. It carries products from approximately 3,000 name-brand manufacturers.

Carol M. Meyrowitz is the Executive Chairman of the Board and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of TJX Companies, the leading off-price retailer in the United States. As of 2015, she is listed as the 76th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. As of 2014, she was also ranked as the 12th most powerful woman in the world by Fortune.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Les Ailes de la Mode</span>

Les Ailes de la Mode Inc. was a Quebec department store chain. Its flagship store was in downtown Montreal and was the anchor tenant of the Complexe Les Ailes. Les Ailes de la Mode also subleased a section of their department stores to Bowring Brothers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Off-price</span> Retail format based on discount pricing

Off-price is a trading format based on discount pricing. Off-price retailers are independent of manufacturers and buy large volumes of branded goods directly from them. The off-price retail model relies on the purchase of over-produced, or excess, branded goods at a lower price, thus being able to sell to consumers at a discount compared to other stores which purchased an initial run. Among the largest retailers of this type are TJX Companies and Ross Stores. The model is more common in countries that import fashion-oriented or household goods, as the discount role in producer countries is usually filled by factory outlets or small-scale open-air marketplaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trade Secret (Australian company)</span> Australian discount store chain

Trade Secret was a chain of clothing, accessories and home furnishing stores operated by TJX Companies and had 35 stores across Australia by April 2017. The stores were located in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Newcastle, Wollongong, Cairns, Townsville, Toowoomba, Albury, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast. On 3 February 2017, they announced on their website that they would soon be rebranding all existing locations as T.K. Maxx and opening new locations across the east coast. As of 20 April 2017 the stores were operating as T.K. Maxx.

The retail format influences the consumer's store choice and addresses the consumer's expectations. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace, that is; a location where goods and services are exchanged. In some parts of the world, the retail sector is still dominated by small family-run stores, but large retail chains are increasingly dominating the sector, because they can exert considerable buying power and pass on the savings in the form of lower prices. Many of these large retail chains also produce their own private labels which compete alongside manufacturer brands. Considerable consolidation of retail stores has changed the retail landscape, transferring power away from wholesalers and into the hands of the large retail chains.

References

  1. "How we do it". Winners.ca. Retrieved 2017-10-08.
  2. 1 2 3 Strauss, Marina (June 5, 2002). "Winners ponders new chain". The Globe and Mail. Winners sells labels.. up to 60 per cent lower than usual by buying excess or end-of-season merchandise from other retailers and by other attractive deals worldwide through its link with TJX... Mr. Margolis started Winners in Toronto in 1982 and sold it eight years later to TJX, which owns TJ Maxx and Marshalls among others.
  3. 1 2 Desjardins, François (September 24, 2004). "Le Groupe Les Ailes mise sur le fondateur de Winners". Le Devoir (in French). M. Margolis, 56 ans, est né près de New York. Il a entamé sa carrière à Toronto en 1970 dans le créneau du rabais avant d'ouvrir, en 1982, un premier magasin Winners. Huit ans plus tard, la chaîne a été rachetée par la société-mère de la chaîne américaine T. J. Maxx.
  4. 1 2 "Winners FAQ". Winners.ca. Retrieved 2017-10-08.
  5. 1 2 Mancini, Melissa (January 8, 2016). "Bargains at Winners not always what they appear". CBC News . CBC. Archived from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved August 12, 2023.
  6. "Company response: Winners". Marketplace. CBC. Archived from the original on October 30, 2016.