FIELDS Stores Ltd. is a Canadian

discount store 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 cost ...

company owned by FHC Holdings, with 63 locations in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

, and the Northwest Territories.

History

The first FIELDS store was established in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

in 1950 by the chain's founders, Joseph Segal and Saul "Sonny" Wosk. From there, FIELDS grew to eight stores by the time it opened a store at Capilano Mall in North Vancouver in 1968, continuing to expand across British Columbia into the 1970s with the acquisitions of several regional retailers (including several small HBC stores in smaller towns). In 1972, FIELDS purchased a subsidiary chain of hardware stores called Marshall Wells, and after further expansion into Alberta and Saskatchewan, it acquired majority ownership of the

Zellers Zellers was a Canadian discount department retail chain and is currently a brand name owned by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Founded in 1931 in London, Ontario, in later decades it was based in Brampton, Ontario. Zellers was acquired by HBC ...

chain in 1976. Zellers would reverse the takeover a few months later and make FIELDS and Marshall Wells into its subsidiaries, all of which were partly acquired by the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

(HBC) in 1978, and fully owned by 1981. Marshall Wells was sold by HBC in 1985, and FIELDS was moved from a Zellers subsidiary into a full division of HBC in 1988. In contrast with the much larger Zellers stores, the FIELDS division was intended to be a small format, extreme value retail chain for rural and urban Canadian communities. Hudson's Bay Company announced an aggressive expansion strategy for FIELDS, adding 53 new stores in 2006-2007, with another 35 locations planned for 2008. Over the next several years, HBC planned on opening around 800 new stores across Canada. New locations featured the successful FIELDS "Mini Mart" concept. In December 2011, HBC announced that FIELDS stores would cease operations, beginning February 2012 in Ontario where 26 stores closed. The remaining 141 stores were also announced to close in phases throughout the year ending in the Fall of 2012. But on May 1, 2012, a company called FHC Holdings Ltd. announced that it had purchased 57 FIELDS stores in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories from HBC with the intent of keeping those stores open. There are now 63 FIELDS locations.

References

{{Authority control 1950 establishments in British Columbia Companies based in British Columbia Delta, British Columbia Retail companies established in 1950 Department stores of Canada Discount stores of Canada Canadian companies established in 1950