Less than a month after plans became clear on two shoe stores relocating to larger spaces within Shoppers Mall, a third shoe store is in the news this week regarding what appears to be a likely eventual closure in the months to come. Its being reported this week that Payless ShoeSource Canada Inc will soon file for creditor protection and is expected to close all 248 of its Canadian stores beginning at the end of March and running liquidation sales to as late as May. Its unclear at this time what timeline might apply to their Brandon store but their Shoppers Mall outlet appears likely to soon be no more should everything go according to the plan outlined in the article.
In response to an inquiry yesterday, a Payless customer support representative stated that "At this time, we have no specifics about business closing. Our stores are open and doing business as usual."
When the topic of store closures comes up, a common question from consumers is the status of gift cards. According to the CBC story linked above, Payless is seeking permission from court to honour store credit and gift cards until March 11 and returns/exchanges to March 1.
A separate Mall tenant, Things Remembered, was the subject of another post yesterday. Its important to note that its anything but doom and gloom for Brandon’s primary Mall, having in January celebrated the opening of La Vie en Rose and soon seeing the completion of construction on Original Joes and Delta9. November saw Shoppers Drug Mart open an 18,000 square foot store in a newly renovated section that includes Sobeys Extra and a relocated larger Ardene. Should Payless in fact liquidate and close, much of any void in shoes is likely to be filled by Shoe Warehouse’s recent relocation to a large space within the same mall and Soft Moc’s pending in-mall re-location under its “Shoe Rack” concept.