ZCZC
BCN-06
NETHERLANDS-CANADA-RETAIL-SHOPPING
Canada’s Hudson Bay to close Dutch stores: reports
THE HAGUE, Sept 1, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Canada’s iconic department store chain
Hudson’s Bay is to close its doors in the Netherlands at the end of the year
leading to 1,400 job losses, Dutch media said Saturday.
Two years after the 349-year-old company opened its very first overseas
store in Amsterdam, “Hudson’s Bay will leave the Netherlands,” the
authoritative financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad reported, based on
internal company documents.
“Due to the long-term financially untenable situation, the shareholders in
HBC have decided to stop further financing… and close the stores in the
Netherlands by the end of 2019,” the paper quoted the Hudson’s Bay Company as
saying.
The paper added 1,424 jobs would be lost and 15 stores will be closed.
Hudson’s Bay opened its Amsterdam store with much fanfare in September
2017, hoping to buck a trend seen on Dutch shopping streets in recent years
where a number of large chains have been shuttered.
The Canadian company, incorporated in 1670 and built up on the fur trade,
took over stores previously occupied by the much-loved but ultimately defunct
Dutch chain Vroom & Dreesmann (V&D), which sold everything from confectionary
to own-brand vacuum cleaners.
Once the country’s biggest department store chain after being founded in
1887, V&D declared bankruptcy in late 2015 after years of losses and finally
shut down several months later.
Many other retailers are also hard hit by the rapid rise of online
shopping.
“Hudson’s Bay gave the fading confidence in retail trade in many Dutch
cities a boost,” the centre-left De Volkskrant said.
“But the Canadian warehouse giant chose the wrong price segment, the wrong
target group and the wrong marketing strategy,” it said.
BSS/AFP/SR/1800 HRS