The T. Eaton Company Limited , commonly known as Eaton's , is a Canadian retailer who used to be Canada's largest department store chain. Founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, a Ulster Scot Presbyterian immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton has grown into a retail and social institution in Canada, with stores across the country, purchasing offices around the world, and catalogs found in mostly Canadian homes. The changing economic and retail environment of the late 20th century, along with mismanagement, culminated in a chain bankruptcy in 1999.
Eaton pioneered several retail innovations. In an era when bargaining for goods is the norm, the chain states "We propose to sell our goods only to CASH - In selling goods, to have only one price." In addition, there is an old slogan "Satisfactory Goods or Refunded Money."
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Initial years
In 1869, Timothy Eaton sold his interest in a small dry goods store in the market town of St. Louis. Marys, Ontario, and she bought dry goods and a men's clothing store at 178 Yonge Street in Toronto.
The first store is only 24 x 60 feet (7.3 m² - 18,3 m), with two shop windows, and is located just a short distance from London's fashionable King Street West shopping district. In its first year of operation, with Timothy Eaton responsible for buying goods for store supplies, and a staff of four, his expectations were low that a shop with no credit policy and no bargaining would work.
The business prospered, and Eaton moved the block shop northward in August 1883 to a much bigger spot on 190 Yonge Street. The new store boasted Toronto's largest glass window, the first electric light in every Canadian store, three full-floor retail spaces featuring 35 departments, and full-fledged lightwell running the store. The first telephone store, with a phone number of 370, was installed in 1885. In 1886, the first elevator at a retail company in Toronto was installed in the Eaton store (though only rising customers were invited to use the elevator, thus requiring them to skip the various store displays when they walk down).
Eaton retained the lease at an empty store at 178 Yonge Street until it ended in 1884 to delay the expansion plans of one of his rivals, Robert Simpson. Over time, the competition between Simpson and Eaton department stores, facing each other on Queen Street West, became one of Toronto's big business rivalries. The pedestrian crossing on Queen Street West, just west of the intersection with Yonge Street, is for the years one of Canada's busiest, as thousands of buyers a day compare-shopping between Eaton and Simpson.
In 1896, Eaton was billing himself as "Canada's Largest Store". The store continues to grow in size, and new buildings are built to accommodate Eaton's postal and factory order divisions. The number of people employed in Eaton operations amounted to 17,500 in 1911. In 1919, the Eaton building in Toronto contained more than 60 acres (240,000 m 2 ) floor space, and occupied several city blocks between Yonge Street and Bay Street, north of Queen Street West.
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Winnipeg Store
At the beginning of the 20th century, Eaton undertook big business in Western Canada through its catalog. Eaton's is considered Winnipeg, Manitoba, as the most logical location for a new mail order storehouse to serve its customers better. A store was not originally part of the plan.
John Craig Eaton, son of Timothy Eaton, became an early proponent to build a combined store and mail order operation in Winnipeg. Although Timothy Eaton was initially concerned about the difficulties involved in managing a 2,100km (1,300 mi) store from Toronto, John Craig was finally able to convince his father. Eaton acquired a city block on Portage Avenue on Donald Street, and a five-store Eaton store opened for much fanfare on July 15, 1905. Timothy Eaton and his family were on hand for the opening of the second Eaton store, with the Winnipeg Daily Tribune noting in its front page title: "Canadian Napoleon of Retail Trade Reached the Capital - Seeing the Great Store for the First Time - Extremely Pleased".
The red brick store, known as the "Big Store" for Winnipeggers, was a success. The initial staff of 750 grew to 1200 in the weeks since the opening. In 1910, three floors were added to stores and other buildings were built. In 1919, Eaton's operations in Winnipeg covered 21 acres (85,000 m 2 ) and employed 8000 people.
Over the years, the Winnipeg Eaton store is considered the most successful department store in the world, considering how it dominates its local market. In the late 1960s, Canadian Magazine estimated that Winnipeggers spent more than 50 cents of every shopping dollar (excluding groceries) at Eaton, and that on a busy day, one out of every ten Winnipeg players would visit the Shop Portage Avenue.
The store closed on October 17, 1999, along with 36 other Eaton stores.
Overseas purchase offices
Eaton's has two purchase offices located in Europe (see advocacy with address for office):
- 7 Warwick Lane, London - opened in 1892
- 103 rue Reaumur, Paris - opened in 1898 Canadian dominant retailer
Canadian dominant retailer
Eaton's success helped revolutionize retail stores in North America. American retailers flocked to see shops on Yonge Street and Portage Avenue, wanting to emulate Timothy Eaton's method south of the border. Until the 1950s, Eaton promoted itself as "the largest retail organization in the United Kingdom".
In 1905, The Globe wrote: "There is hardly a name in Canada, with the possible exception of the Prime Minister, who is well known to the common people like Mr. Timothy Eaton." Timothy Eaton died in 1907, and was replaced by John Craig Eaton as President of T. Eaton Co. Limited. The success of the company continues under the heir of Timothy.
In 1925, Eaton bought a Goodwin store in Montreal. In 1927, Montreal boasted a new six-storey Eaton store on Saint Catherine Street, expanded to nine floors in 1930. Over time, Eaton's stores opened in other cities across the country.
In 1977, the Toronto Eaton Center opened in downtown Toronto, replacing two Eaton stores in the downtown area before. The complex - stretched 400 m on several levels from Dundas to Queen Street and boasted 200 stores - anchored at the north end by a nine-store Eaton store.
Personal label device Eaton sells under the label "Viking". It's mostly produced by White.
Eaton's Catalog
The first Eaton catalog was a 34 page booklet published in 1884. As Eaton grew, so did his catalog. In 1920, Eaton's mail order warehouse operated in Winnipeg, Toronto, and Moncton to serve its catalog customers. The catalog cataloging office was also established across the country, with the first opening in Oakville in 1916.
While most Canadians live in rural areas, often living in remote settlements, Eaton's catalog provides a selection of items not available to many Canadians, such as Sears Roebuck's catalog in the United States. It serves an important economic role, because it breaks local monopolies and allows all Canadians to access prices and selection enjoyed in some larger cities. The catalog offers everything from clothing to farming tools. Some Canadians even buy their homes from catalogs, with Eaton shipping them all the materials needed to build small prefabricated homes. Currently, a large number of Eaton catalog houses are still present throughout the country, especially in the West. This catalog has many other uses, ranging from its use as a learning tool by the settlers learning to speak English, to its use as a goalie padded during a hockey game.
This catalog became a cultural icon of Canada, even appearing in many Canadian literary works. In the story of Roch Carrier, The Hockey Sweater , a young Quebec boy asked his mother to Montreal Canadiens hockey jersey from the Eaton catalog, but received Toronto Maple Leafs jersey instead. Since the family is francophone, mom does not order using catalog form but write notes and send money to department store. Due to the prevailing language and cultural barriers from Canadians speaking English and French, the family did not realize that the goods were interchangeable, and they did not want to offend Eaton by returning them.
Over time, the catalog became a less profitable operation, and in the 1970s, it was a money-losing proposition. As the Canadian population became more urbanized during the 20th century, Canadians had access to more local stores, and less depending on catalog purchases. In the mid-1970s, it was estimated that 60% of suburban customers in Canada lived within thirty minutes of an Eaton store. Others blame Eaton management for catalog failures, pointing to a similar catalog of Simpsons-Sears (now Sears Canada catalog), which continues to this day despite never having enjoyed the iconic status or popularity of the Eaton catalog.
At a press conference on January 14, 1976, Eaton announced that the spring-summer catalog of 1976 would be the last. 9000 mail order employees out of work. Many Canadians are surprised. In one noteworthy incident, Barbara Frum of CBC Radio As It Happens opened her interview with Eaton Earl Orser president with the question "Mr. Orser, how can you?"
Toronto's Santa Claus Parade
Eaton sponsors the annual Eaton Santa Claus Parade in Toronto. The first parade took place on December 2, 1905. For several years, the Eaton Santa Claus Parade was also held in Winnipeg and Montreal.
In the 1950s, Toronto's parade was the largest in North America, spanning one and a half miles and involving thousands of participants. It was broadcast live on radio and television in Canada, and CBS television in the United States broadcast the parade for several years.
To publicize the parade, Eaton published a number of books and notes about a sad little bear called Punkinhead (originally created by Charles Thorson) who became Santa's best friend and took part in the Santa parade. Punkinhead characters were included in the parade for many years.
In August 1982, Eaton announced that they would no longer sponsor the Santa Claus Parade, due to rising costs. A consortium of local businesses saves the parade, which continues to be held every year.
Decline
Unsuccessful expansion
In the 1970s, Eaton tried to expand its reach in Canadian retail by opening a chain of discount stores or "juniors" called Horizon . The Horizon chain closed in 1978. Three of its stores were converted to Eaton stores, and the others were permanently closed.
In the 1970s and 1980s, through the Toronto Municipal Administration Program of the provincial government, Eaton was a partner in the development of malls in small towns, aimed at encouraging the revitalization of urban core. When the chain forms the anchors of many of these shopping centers, this often carries the name "Eaton Center". Almost all these malls - in cities like Sarnia, Brantford, Guelph and Peterborough - have high vacancy rates and poor patronage, and contribute to the financial problems of the store.
Suburban Competition
The economic recession of the early 1980s harmed the company. The Hudson Bay companies, Sears Canada, and Zellers all take market share from Eaton. In the 1990s, American retailers, notably Walmart, expanded to Canada, and Eaton found it increasingly difficult to compete.
Retail trends and land use in the last decades of the 20th century did not benefit Eaton. Traditional department stores, including Eaton's, ordered the ever-shrinking part of the Canadian retail dollar, as big box stores, such as Wal-Mart and Zellers, and specialty stores expanded their retail sales share. With the emergence of urban sprawl, most of the shopping districts in downtown Canada (historically dominated by Eaton) should increasingly share retail sales with increasingly suburban shopping areas, where Eaton is just one of many competitors.
Family management
Eaton difficulties are not all caused by external forces. The poor management by the last two generations of Eaton family members to run the chain contributed to Eaton's death. Shops that once served as a landmark in their community were not renovated. The new Eaton stores built since the 1960s are largely indistinguishable from other chain stores, further reducing Eaton's status as a destination store.
The end of the Eaton Santa Claus catalog and parade, albeit a cost-saving measure, ensures Eaton no longer has the same place in the hearts of Canadians.
The chain that has been touted in the 1940s and 1950s as "The Store for Young Canada" lost contact with younger customers, and was unintentionally known as a chain serving older buyers. Once known for its superior customer service (with its staff proudly known as "Eatonians"), Eaton began reducing its sales and training staff in an effort to cut costs. A chain that once prided itself on its worldwide purchasing offices and on the unique and diverse goods offered by its customers, in the second half of the 20th century, ancient supply chains and a gratuitous and confusing approach to merchandising.
In one very bad move, Eaton moved into the "Everyday Prices" strategy (also known as "Eaton Value") in 1991, meaning that all discounts and sales, including Eaton's famous Trans-Canada Sales, were abolished. The strategy quickly expelled customers, but continued for four years before being abandoned.
In 1997, seeing the success of The Bay in the upscale retail, Eaton captivated their chief executive George Kosich to try to duplicate the strategy. The Hudson Bay Company filed a lawsuit that said Kosich had breached his employment contract. Eaton also sued HBC for hunting down some of its executives. Despite the controversy, the new retail strategy not only failed, but also gave Sears Canada rivals the opportunity to rise to Eaton's long-dominated market segment. Kosich resigned in 1998 and was replaced by chairman Brent Ballantyne.
Bankruptcy
The chain, which controls nearly 60% of all department store sales in Canada in 1930, has been reduced to a market share of 10.6% in 1997. T. Eaton Co. first filed for bankruptcy protection in 1997. At that time, the Company had approximately 24,500 employees and more than 90 retail outlets. The plan is to close 31 poorly performing stores, including two thirds of its stores in Alberta. However, Eaton limits the number of store closures to 20. George Eaton, the last family involved in management, resigned as chief executive in 1997, replaced by George Kosich. In September of that year, the creditors approved the restructuring plan.
In 1998, George Kosich resigned as chairman of the board and was replaced by Brent Ballantyne, under which the company was broadcast for the first time in its history, issued 11.7 million ordinary shares for $ 15 each, while the Eaton family retained control with a 51 percent share.
The chain was finally folded in 1999 after operating for 130 years. Despite having reduced its retail outlet to 64, it finished 1998 with a net loss of $ 72 million, and announced a further closure and corporate restructuring plan. This did not work and the company went bankrupt in August 1999.
Acquisition by Sears
Eaton's corporate assets were acquired by Sears Canada in a deal worth $ 50 million. Sears bought all of T. Eaton Co.'s shares, eight from his store, with the option to buy five more, and Eaton's name, trademark, brand, and Web site. For the first time in its history, Sears rents to major locations in Toronto (Eaton Center and Yorkdale), Vancouver (Pacific Center), Victoria (Eaton Center), Winnipeg (Polo Park), Ottawa (Rideau Center), and Calgary (Eaton Center). Sears intends to get a second-hand shop in downtown Montreal, though he lost to Les Ailes de la Mode.
Sears Canada closes some Eaton stores, converts others to the Sears store, sells the others to The Bay or Zellers, and stores a number of downtown stores in order to re-launch Eaton's (now stylized eatons ) in the year 2000 as a higher-end, modern brand, with lowercase "e" in circles as logos and ad campaign stirrings built around colored eggplants. Sears also launched the Eaton catalog, with the intention of completing Sears' moderate catalog collection with something more luxurious and urban. According to Rick Brown, senior vice president for strategic initiatives at Sears Canada, merchandise should be priced above the Sears Canada and the Bay level, but under Holt Renfrew.
Sears had trouble securing name branded items consistent with the new chain image. This is mainly because of Eaton's bankruptcy. That's also because of doubt in Sears's ability to manage the upper-class chain, because until now their merchandise has lower price and quality than the old Eaton and The Bay. George Heller, then president of the All Bay rival shop, publicly warned vendors not to supply Eaton with merchandise. Many middle to top brands, especially in clothing, fear of retaliation and avoid the new Eaton.
The new Eaton is scheduled to open on September 1, 2000, but was rejected three times, finally opening on November 25th. As a result, Eaton has missed most of the lucrative holiday season and opened with marked merchandise. Haphazard construction; all shops opened unfinished and renovations will continue until 2001.
The seven-store experiment did not work, and Sears Canada President Paul Walters was forced to resign. He was replaced by his former rival and US executive Sears Roebuck, Mark Cohen, who prioritized Sears over Eaton and cut aggressively on a price reduction strategy. In March 2001 Sears announced that they stopped publishing the newly-raised Eaton catalog "out of a lack of interest". Although Mark Cohen officially announced that the Eaton chain has improved markedly in June 2001, in 2002 he retired under the name "Eaton".
Of the seven locations involved in this experiment, those in Winnipeg and Victoria, close to existing Sears stores (and, in the case of Winnipeg, in the same mall) were sold to a rival shop The Bay. Yorkdale also already has Sears (so does The Bay) and so the Eaton space is rebuilt for small retailers. The remaining four locations were renamed Sears, but eventually all closed between 2008 and 2015 when Sears himself faced difficulties. These spaces were later taken over mainly by Holt Renfrew (Calgary) and Nordstrom (in Ottawa, Vancouver and downtown Toronto), although Sears Canada maintains the top floors of the former Toronto Eaton Center location for its headquarters.
The difficulty of Sears Canada continues throughout 2010; the company filed for creditor protection in June 2017, forcing it to keep all its stores in liquidation in October of that year. On January 14, 2018, Sears Canada quit the business and permanently closed all remaining stores, surrendering to the same fate as Eaton 19 years later.
Legacy
Eaton's retail-transformed in Canada, and its method is strongly adopted by retailers around the world. Many approaches to sales and service are simply accepted by customers today initially popularized by Timothy Eaton and his shop.
Many Canadians, especially older Canadians, have fond memories of the Eaton store and its catalog. Some dead companies create strong emotions among Canadians just as Eaton did.
Two shopping centers in Canada continue to be called the Eaton Center, the Toronto Eaton Center and the Montreal Eaton Center, located downtown in downtown. The Toronto Eaton Center is a tourist attraction in Toronto, with over one million visitors per week. The Montreal Eaton Center, however, is expected to be renamed at the end of a renovation announced in 2014 to combine the complex with the adjacent Complexe Les Ailes (previous Eaton store location in downtown Montreal).
Architecture
Eaton left the architectural heritage, mainly through the work of architectural firms Ross and Macdonald. Eaton's College Street in Toronto, opened in 1930, is an Art Deco masterpiece, and is currently used as a retail, office and residential office. The Seventh Floor, housed by the Eaton Auditorium and the Roundhouse restaurant, was recently refurbished and now operates as a Carlu show venue. In 1971, the Eaton/John Maryon Tower near Eaton's College Street was proposed by Eaton and a developer named John Maryon, but never built.
The former downtown Eaton's store in Montreal (now Complexe Les Ailes), also designed by Ross and Macdonald, remains a landmark on Saint Catherine Street and is occupied by a large shopping center, but only the outer shell of the remaining buildings. Also, although closed after Eaton bankruptcy, the 9th floor restaurant in the former downtown Montreal keeps it up, albeit under mothballed and closed to the public. It's protected as a registered history site, due to its rich Art deco design. Nonetheless, plans to renovate and reopen the restaurant space are stored and the site is slowly deteriorating.
Another headquarters designed by Ross and Macdonald, a former Eaton store in downtown Saskatoon, now serves as the Saskatoon Education Board's office after the Army & amp; Department store of the Navy for decades after the Eaton relocation to Midtown Plaza in the 1960s.
The old Calgary Downtown store, designed by Ross and Macdonald in 1920, was largely destroyed in 1988, although two facades were preserved and put into the new Renfrew Holt store as part of the Calgary Eaton Center's redevelopment (in 2009 Holt Renfrew opened back in what was once the second Eaton town center).
The original downtown Vancouver store, on Hastings Street, also still exists and now serves as Harbor Center downtown campus Simon Fraser University. Some residents of Vancouver associate this heritage building with the Spencer Department Store (which commissioned store building), rather than Eaton (who bought Spencer in 1948 and occupied stores until the 1970s). In fact, the former Eaton store is now known as the Spencer Building.
Not all former Eaton stores are architectural buildings: shops built from the 1960s onwards are usually architecturally inferior to their predecessors. Specifically, the exterior of the Toronto Eaton Center store can be described as a mustard-colored box, and is generally considered (from an architectural perspective) to be a poor substitute for the Main Store dismantled. Designed in the style of the 1970s and meant at the time to be a statement of Eaton's dominance and future aspirations, the modern design of this giant has not been of good age (despite Sears Canada's 1999-2000 efforts to improve the look of building facades). Similarly, the main Vancouver store, which is connected to downtown Pacific Center, was also built in the 1970s as a large white box.
After the collapse of Eaton, most stores converted to other retail banners or other uses, with stores in downtown Winnipeg producing the most controversy. When the store was emptied in late 1999, various alternative uses for buildings (including residential condominiums) were considered, and eventually all were rejected. After a highly emotional citizenship debate, which included the "hug group" of the "Big Stores" by hundreds of people in 2001, the store was dismantled in 2002 to pave the way for the hockey arena, the MTS Center. In one concession to history, red bricks are incorporated into the façade design of the arena, reviving the memory of an Eaton store that once adorned Portage Avenue.
Statue of Timothy Eaton
In 1919, two body-size statues of Timothy Eaton were donated by Eaton employees to Toronto and Winnipeg stores, to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary. Toronto's statue is now on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Winnipeg statue took place on the outskirts of the Polo Park Mall for several years after 1999, until Hudson's Bay Company opened a Bay store at the site and wanted a statue of a former competitor to be removed. After a fight with the Eaton family, who wanted to move the statue to St. Marys, Ontario, the Manitoba government declared it a heritage object of the province. It's now located in the city's new arena, MTS Center, one floor from almost the same spot where it stood in the old shop. People often rub the tip of the left shoe of a statue because it is believed by some to bring good luck to do it. As a result, the toes are much more radiant than the rest of the statue.
Unsuccessful catalog revival
In early 2008 The Globe and Mail reported the possibility of Eaton brand revival by Sears Canada. The company is considering reviving the dead catalog with an online presence. The chain's intellectual entity is applied to a new trademark that incorporates the name "Timothy Eaton", and continues to pursue this enrollment as early as 2009. The trademark is void and abandoned by the end of 2013.
In December 2016, several months before applying for creditor protection and subsequent liquidation, Sears Canada sold Eaton's remaining intellectual property to a company affiliated with Cadillac Fairview, the current owner of the Toronto Eaton Center.
See also
- List of Canadian department stores
References
Recommended reads
- Anderson, Carol and Mallison, Katharine,
With Lady Eaton: In One Nation's Dining Room , Toronto: ECW Press, 2004. - Belisle, Donica. Retail Nation: Modern Canadian Shopping and Making Center. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.
- Belisle, Donica. "Paternalism Negotiations: Women and Shops of Canada's Largest Department, 1890-1960," The Journal of Women's History 19: 1 (Spring 2007), 58-81.
- Belisle, Donica. "Labor For Consumer Century: Commodification at the Largest Department Store in Canada, 1890-1940," Workers/Le Travail 58: 2 (Autumn 2006), 107-144.
- Belisle, Donica. "Exploring Postwar Consumption: Campaign to Unite Eaton in Toronto, 1948-1952," Canadian History Reviews 86: 4 (December 2005), 641-672.
- Eaton, Flora McCrea, Memory Wall , Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & amp; Company, 1956.
- Gourluck, Russ, Shop Unlike Other: Eaton's from Winnipeg , Winnipeg: Great Plains Publications, 2004.
- Macpherson, Mary-Etta, Shopkeeper for the Nation , Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1963.
- McQueen, Rod, The Eatons: The Rise and Fall of the Royal Family of Canada , Toronto: Stoddart, 1998.
- Nasmith, George G., Timothy Eaton , Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1923.
- Phenix, Patricia, Eatonians: Family Stories Behind Families , Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 2003.
- Santink, Joy L., Timothy Eaton and Rise of Department Store , Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
- Scribe, The, Golden Jubilee 1869-1919: A Book to Commemorate T. Eaton Co.'s 5th Birthday. Limited , Toronto: The T. Eaton Co. Limited, 1919.
- Staib, Kay, ed. Eaton 100: 1869-1969, Eaton Quarterly Special Edition Centennial, Toronto: Eaton's Consumer and Corporate Affairs, 1969.
- Staib, Kay, ed., Human Dream - Toronto Eaton Center , Toronto: Eaton's Consumer and Corporate Affairs, 1977.
- Stephenson, William, The Store That Timothy Built , Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1969.
External links
- CBC Digital Archive - Eaton: Canadian Institute
- Archives Ontario - T. Eaton Co. Recordings
- Ontario Archive Remembering Eaton's Christmas
- A Window Wonderland: The Konkles' Christmas Displays for T. Eaton Company , an online exhibition on the Archives of Ontario website
- Eaton's Goes To War , an online exhibition on the Archives of Ontario website
- Canadian Civilization Museum - Before E-Commerce: History of Canada's Mail-Order Catalog
- Eaton's History
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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