The chief executive officer is taking Canadian Tire back to the future. Armed with a new store format, dubbed the “smart store,” he’s focused on improving the basics of customer service – right down to ensuring washrooms are in order – keeping popular products in stock, and cutting spending on store restyling.
His engine for growth is the smart store, of which there are 36 currently, with another 60 planned for 2010. Most of these will be existing stores converted to the new format on the cheap: Canadian Tire has shrunk its tab for converting stores to the model to $300,000 each, less than half its 2008 estimates.
A previous generation of revamped stores had been developed to draw more women with prominent displays of home furnishings. But the displays frustrated men by forcing them to hunt down hardware and tools, for instance, which had been moved apart. Now those changes are being reversed in the smart stores.
“It decreased the experience for the male shopper,” Mr. Wetmore said. “We brought a bit of balance back in the smart store.”
Paint sales, for instance, lost momentum when the section was moved close to home decor to entice female customers, said Mike Arnett, president of the retail division. With paint now back in the hardware section at the back of the smart store, business is coming back, he said.
