Warehouse One continues to thrive

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/08/2017 (3178 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While brands like Sears and Le Château struggle to survive and superstar chains like Macy’s, J.C. Penney and American Apparel close hundreds of stores or go bankrupt, Winnipeg-based Warehouse One likes flying below the radar.

Celebrating its 40th year in business, the popularly priced, no-frills jeans and casual wear store is bucking the trend.

It’s not contracting — it’s growing.

Very committed to listening to what their customers tell them they want — including T-shirts featuring slogans such as “Drinks Well With Others” — Warehouse One’s unpretentious vibe has helped insulate the chain from the carnage happening all around them in the retail world.

Thriving in places like The Pas, Red Deer and Marystown, N.L., the private-label chain has added three to four stores per year over the past decade and now numbers 128 locations, coast to coast.

Company president Neil Armstrong doesn’t worry about what others are doing.

It’s been 15 years since the current owners, Stern Partners, which is also the majority owner of the Free Press and includes Bob Silver’s Western Glove Works in its portfolio of companies, bought the assets out of receivership.

Armstrong, 45, said the company has grown and generated profits every year since 2004.

“There are people still with the company who remember what it has been through,” he said.

“It helps keep us humble.”

The tumultuous change in retail brought on by online shopping means Warehouse One has had to invest in technology — including a new e-commerce platform that went live a few months ago — but it has not had to dramatically alter its offerings.

“Our fundamental core value has not changed,” Armstrong said.

“We listen to our customers and respond to what they want. We continue to develop great products, making sure all our associates know why they are great products and our customers trust us because of that.”

Working with manufacturing plants in China and Cambodia, the chain stocks its stores with 90 per cent Warehouse One-branded items.

Armstrong said its jeans, tops, leisure-wear and hats are as current as they ever were.

“We’re not fashion-forward but I would say we are on trend,” he said.

Armstrong will not disclose how Warehouse One is able to offer jeans for $49 to $59 that include the same lifting and shaping technologies found in high-priced designer jeans.

The commitment to its own private label means, despite the fact that Bob Silver is Ron Stern’s partner, you won’t see Silver Jeans in Warehouse One (though periodically the chain will run a program with third-party brands).

“I can’t imagine the day when you will walk into Warehouse One and find a $250 pair of jeans,” said Armstrong.

“Because it would just sit there and sit there and sit there.”

Its 40th-anniversary promotion — on until Saturday — features 100 styles of $39 men’s and ladies’ jeans, $30 men’s and ladies’ hoodies, $15 men’s T-shirts, and $10 ladies’ tanks.

Even its big anniversary sale is not over the top, considering Warehouse One regularly features promotions where a second purchase of the same product is half-price.

A national retail industry consultant, who said her business is booming because of the significant disruption occurring in the sector, said budget-priced apparel chains are really the only ones growing these days.

Two years ago, Stern Partners acquired Comark Inc. — also out of creditor protection — which owns the Bootleggers, Ricki’s and Cleo chains, creating one of the largest privately held retail operations in the country with more than 500 brick-and-mortar locations.

Stern Partners also recently acquired the 30-store southern Ontario chain, Jean Machine.

“Given its strategic position on pricing, on content, the dual-gender aspect of their business, Warehouse One manages to appeal to a broad cross-section in particular in the secondary centres,” said Gerry Bachynski, president and CEO of Comark Inc.

Bachynski said he believes the Comark brands can remain successful.

“We’ve demonstrated that,” he said.

“We have turned the corner, in part because of sharing some of the successes that Warehouse One has had.

“Warehouse One is very disciplined about the way they make decisions,” Bachynski said.

“They are very customer-focused as a business. There are a lot of things they’ve put in place in recent years cementing their relationship with their core customer base.”

That core base now includes some 300,000 people on Warehouse One’s email list as well as a system through which stores channel customer feedback directly to the buying team.

“In this business you do not get lucky. You have to listen,” Armstrong said.

“Success did not happen by chance. We spend more time looking at ourselves rather than others and as long as we keep the commitment and passion through our operation, keep the product knowledge up, develop good products and continuing to test the market to make sure our product is great, we will be fine.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca