 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Discount |
| Founded | 1982 |
| Founders | Caroline Str Neil Rosenberg |
| Headquarters | Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Framingham, Massachusetts, United States |
Number of locations | Canada – 279 (May 2, 2020) |
| Products | Clothing and general merchandise |
| Parent | TJX Companies (1990–present) |
| Website | www |
Winners Merchants International L.P is a chain of off-price Canadian department stores owned by TJX Companies.[1]
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.[2] The firm does not sell online.[2] Its market niche is similar to the American store TJ Maxx, and it is a partnered retailer to department stores HomeSense and Marshalls.
History
In 1982, Winners was founded in Toronto, Ontario by Caroline Str and Neil Rosenberg. It was one of the first off-price department stores in Canada. In 1990, it merged with TJX Companies, the world's largest off-price department store owner.
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."[3]
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.[3] 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.[4]
See also
References
- ↑ "How we do it". Winners.ca. Retrieved 2017-10-08.
- 1 2 "Winners FAQ". Winners.ca. Retrieved 2017-10-08.
- 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.
- ↑ "Company response: Winners". Marketplace. CBC. Archived from the original on October 30, 2016.
External links
