End of an era: Hudson’s Bay Company is to blame for its own downfall
The Bay has been reduced to a rump state by market changes and its own doing
Hudson's Bay Company is closing all but six of its stores across the country. (Suneet Gill)
Oh, how the mighty fall! Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), popularly known as The Bay, was founded 354 years ago on May 2, 1670 in London, England, and filed for creditor protection in March.
Liquidation sales are underway as all locations, except for six evenly split between Ontario and Quebec, prepare to shut their doors permanently.
Originally founded via royal charter as a fur-trading company, The Bay preceded the modern Canadian state as it claimed colonial sovereignty over Rubert’s Land — a territory that included both the Hudson and James Bays — encompassing much of what is now Canada.
The company’s retail venture began in 1910 and continued on strongly through the 20th century. The 21st century, however, would not be kind to The Bay — as it came to be known colloquially — until the announcement of mass store closures and inventory liquidation.
The forces that killed The Bay are the very same that have caused the general decline in brick-and-mortar department stores. First comes the competition from big-box stores such as Walmart, where consumers can buy their groceries at the same place as some clothing, perfumes and colognes, home decor, electronics, books, and so on.
Department stores like The Bay traditionally specialize in a select range of high quality and expensive goods, whereas big-box stores sell a wider variety of cheaper items. The HBC’s Zellers subsidiary was this for the parent company until it began to fold in the 2010s, thus proving that “more for less” tends to beat out “less for more.”
The rise of e-commerce websites such as Amazon have also made convenience far too lucrative for a world where the traditional work-life balance has been disrupted. Why should people take time commuting from store to store when their computers can find what they are looking for in an instant?
Online shopping — which is the logical next step of the Sears and Eaton’s catalogues of yesteryear — exploded during the COVID-19 lockdowns to levels beyond the pre-pandemic days.
They present the same principle as the big-box model with a twist — the purchase comes to your doorstep. Concurrently, the same period of time saw an acceleration in the “retail apocalypse” trend that began in the 2010s, thus proving that correlation equals causation — one rose as the other fell.
Finally, The Bay’s demise came at its own fault. The times and commercial landscape were rapidly shifting and the company did not keep up. During the days of Rupert’s Land, The HBC’s philosophy was to “stay by the bay,” meaning to remain still and let business come to it. This mentality remained in the face of competition — it stayed where it was and failed to take the necessary risks that other retailers, physical or online, adopted to stay afloat.
Once it did try to go with the times, it was too little, too late. By not appealing to consumers, The Bay lost them to competitors. The company grew complacent as the Canadian department store. Outlasting various competitors over the course of three-and-a-half centuries would certainly make one a tad arrogant.
While six stores will remain open in two provinces, just like Eaton’s, Sears, and Zellers, The Bay will become a distant memory for many.
Those who have the power are now claiming severance while the employees who kept the shelves stocked and rang up customers are being left in the dust. Funny how a company that failed to turn a profit for the longest time was able to find a little extra for its managers but none for everyone else it employed.
