Winners Merchants International L.P is a chain of

off-price Off-price is a trading format based on discount pricing. Off-price retailers are independent of manufacturers and buy large volumes of branded goods directly from them. The off-price retail model relies on the purchase of over-produced, or excess, b ...

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

s owned by

TJX Companies The TJX Companies, Inc. (abbreviated TJX) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Discount store, off-price department store corporation, headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was formed as a subsidiary of Zayre, Zayre ...

. 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. The firm does not sell online. Its market niche is similar to the American store

TJ Maxx TJ Maxx (stylized as T•J•maxx) is an American department store chain, selling at prices generally lower than other major similar stores. It has more than 1,000 stores in the United States, making it one of the largest clothing retailers in ...

, and it is a partnered retailer to department stores

HomeSense HomeSense (stylized as Homesense in Europe and the United States) is a Canadian chain of discount home furnishing stores owned by TJX Companies. It originated in Canada in 2001, and was expanded to Europe in 2008 and the United States in 2017. O ...

and

Marshalls Marshalls is an American chain of off-price department stores owned by TJX Companies. Marshalls has over 1,000 American stores, including larger stores named Marshalls Mega Store, covering 42 states and Puerto Rico, and 61 stores in Canada. M ...

History

In 1982, Winners was founded in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Ontario by David Margolis and Neil Rosenberg. It was one of the first off-price department stores in Canada. In 1990, it merged with

, the world's largest off-price department store owner. Since late 2001, Winners stores have been paired with

, a home accessory retailer, modelled on TJX's American

HomeGoods HomeGoods is a chain of home furnishing stores headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was founded as a small chain in 1992, and grew to include hundreds of locations throughout the United States. HomeGoods sells furniture, linens, cooking ...

stores. Winners acquired the struggling "Labels" brand from

Dylex Dylex Limited was one of Canada's largest retailers during the 1970s and 1980s, where it operated a number of specialty retail stores, including women's wear, men's wear, and family stores, including BiWay, a large, and now defunct, Canadian dis ...

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 Les Ailes de la Mode Inc. was a Quebec department store chain. Its flagship store was in downtown Montreal and was the anchor tenant of the Complexe Les Ailes. Les Ailes de la Mode also subleased a section of their department stores to Bowring B ...

opened a similar concept under the Labels banner after Winners did not renew its trademark on the name.

Controversy

In 2016, CBC's

Marketplace A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a '' souk'' (from the Arabic), ' ...

investigated Winner's "compared at" pricing and found that retail price of the manufacture could be misleading and inaccurate. For example, "researchers at Marketplace found that a

Risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environme ...

board game at Winners was being sold for $49.99, with a "compared at" price of $100.00. However, the game was available at full price from retailer F.G Bradley's Canadian website for $74.99." Winners responded by saying "compared at" prices are accurate and fair, and that the misunderstanding could be a result of an error in pricing merchandise due to their large volume of product intake. In follow up letter to CBC marketplace, Winners was able to verify every "compared at" price for 20 out of the 21 items, by finding the items at the "compared at" prices at comparable retailers. For the remaining item, Winners admitted that it was an error on their part and pledged to fix the mismatch.

References

External links

Winners Official WebsiteTJX Companies Official Website
{{Authority control 1982 establishments in Ontario Companies based in Mississauga Canadian brands Department stores of Canada Discount stores of Canada Retail companies established in 1982 TJX Companies 1990 mergers and acquisitions

History

Controversy

See also

References

External links