Eddie Bauer looks to sell Canadian stores amid financial struggles

TORONTO – The future of Eddie Bauer’s Canadian stores is hinging on whether the company can find a buyer.

The latest round of court documents the apparel retailer filed Monday, when it sought bankruptcy protection south of the border, show it is looking to sell the 175 stores it has across Canada and the U.S.

A similar filing was impending in Canada, where the company told The Canadian Press it has 24 stores.

Eddie Bauer LLC said locations on both sides of the border will remain open, but host liquidation sales as the court processes get underway and the company seeks a potential buyer.

If the 106-year-old retailer can’t find someone to purchase the business, its owner Catalyst Brands will begin a wind-down of Eddie Bauer’s Canadian and U.S. operations.

Catalyst Brands was formed last year through a merger between U.S. department store JCPenney and SPARC Group, a retail holding company that acquired the Eddie Bauer brand in May 2021.

Before Catalyst Brands was conceived, CEO Marc Rosen said Monday that Eddie Bauer was already “in a challenged situation, with declining sales, supply chain challenges and other issues.” 

“Over the past year, these challenges have been exacerbated by various headwinds, including increased costs of doing business due to inflation, ongoing tariff uncertainty and other factors,” he said in a news release.

“While the leadership team at Catalyst was able to make significant strides in the brand, including rapid improvements in product development and marketing, those changes could not be implemented fast enough to fully address the challenges created over several years.”

The retailer was founded in 1920 by Eddie Bauer, a Seattle native who grew up hunting and fishing in the Pacific Northwest and wanted to develop a place for people to congregate and buy gear they’d use for outdoor pastimes. 

It blossomed when the first American to climb Mount Everest accomplished the feat in Eddie Bauer apparel and when the company outfitted the country’s military with down jackets and sleeping bags.

Its more recent history, however, has been one of struggles. It has filed for creditor protection twice before and while it has rebounded under new ownership several times, it has not been able to garner the same appeal as hit brands like Patagonia and The North Face.

“From a consumer perspective, it is nowhere near as exciting as some of the fast-growing players like Fjallraven and Arc’teryx. And for many younger shoppers, the brand is seen as somewhat old-fashioned and a bit irrelevant,” Neil Saunders, managing director and retail analyst at market research firm GlobalData, said in a statement last week.

“There are also issues with quality deteriorating, which, for an outdoor brand measured by the performance of its products, is very problematic.”

Saunders feels these issues have depleted sales and thus, profitability of stores. 

While the company has tried to turn things around by giving some locations a revamp, he said many of the older stores “are a bit of a jumble of product without sufficient emphasis on things like education and storytelling — both of which customers want in the outdoor products category.”

In Canada, Eddie Bauer has a much more limited footprint than in the U.S. Court documents show it only has stores in six provinces.

Most are in Ontario and started marking down inventory by up to 60 per cent last week.

In U.S. court documents filed Monday, the company said a legal proceeding it will soon launch in Canada will aim to protect Eddie Bauer’s assets in the country and ensure any sale agreement will be enforceable on both sides of the border.

Eddie Bauer’s stores outside of the U.S. and Canada are run by other licensees, are not included in the bankruptcy filings and will continue operating. 

Its e-commerce and wholesale operations are also not affected by the filings because they are owned by Authentic Brands Group subsidiary Outdoor 5, which can keep licensing the Eddie Bauer name to manufacturers.

If someone buys the retail portion of the company, their aim shouldn’t be to save every store, said Wendy Salisko, co-founder of advisory firm WADE.

Instead, they should “cut down to the boxes you actually believe in, get brutally clear on who Eddie Bauer is for, and make those doors feel like flagships … not end-of-season outlets,” she said in an email. 

By doing this work and putting more focus on the product, she said the company can break the habit of needing constant promotions to get people in the door.

“Make the remaining stores do what a website can’t: fit outerwear properly, talk climate, layer in plain language and send people home feeling like they bought the right jacket, not just the right discount,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2026.

Note to readers:This is a corrected story. A previous version said markdowns had begun of at least 60 per cent.