At Canada’s largest retailing awards presentation this week, Canadian Tire was awarded the Retail Council of Canada’s 2009 Excellence in Retailing Award for ‘Retail Store Design for a Large Chain’. Canadian Tire won for its Smart Store format, beating out 12 other high profile submissions. The Smart Store is designed to improve operating productivity while creating an even better shopping experience for customers.
“Canadian Tire customers are our inspiration for consistently delivering innovative designs and an exciting in-store shopping experience,” said Mike Arnett, president of Canadian Tire Retail. “I congratulate Canadian Tire’s store design team, our business partners and our Dealers who passionately bring this store concept to life for our customers. For well over a decade, Canadian Tire has continued to invest in new and innovative store formats, which means that today, Canadian Tire has one of the youngest store networks in the country.”
Canadian Tire’s Smart Store concept features new presentations and a combination of improved category adjacencies, with additional space devoted to Canadian Tire’s cornerstone businesses – automotive, sporting goods and tools. In addition, these stores feature inspiring boutiques within the store, offering customers additional customer service desks and information kiosks, as well as a deep assortment of innovative products.
In line with Canadian Tire’s focus on reducing energy consumption and overall impact on the environment, the Smart Stores are built with a focus on energy-efficiency, including state-of-the-art heating and cooling systems, T8 lighting, significant glazing to harvest daylight, motion sensors to control
lighting, among others.
Canadian Tire currently has five Smart Stores and plans to open up to 30 new or retrofitted Smart Stores by the end of 2009. Canadian Tire Corp. overall operates more than 1,200 general merchandise and apparel retail stores and gas stations in an inter-related network of businesses engaged in retail, financial services and petroleum.
