NEW MINAS – Wicker Emporium is closing its New Minas store and liquidating stock with a massive sale as part of a wider scaling-down of the furniture and home decor company.
Company president Raj Kapahi confirmed the store announced it will close its doors at the end of May and is liquidating all items in store at between 70 and 80 per cent off original prices.
A specific date has not been set and Kapahi stated the date could stretch as late as early June, depending on how quick items sell.
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“To be honest, this location has been doing marginally well for a number of years,” said Kapahi.
“We’re just finding we’re in a position where we’d like to streamline and downsize… and New Minas seemed to be a store that has been dragging.”
A new business model for company
The closure of the Granite Drive Plaza store location is part of the company’s restructuring process that will see a fundamental change in its business model. The company currently has 23 stores across the country and will close all but 10.
Wicker Emporium has also closed its warehouse in Toronto and will move from a set stock to bi-weekly shipments of assorted, unique items distributed directly from India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The president compared it to Home Sense’s model of stocking its stores, which sees small numbers of different items stocked in the store.
“There’ll be no more landing containers. We’ll instead be getting full trailer loads of 80 to 120 items in low order quantities, creating more of a treasure hunt experience,” said Kapahi.
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Wicker Emporium not the first store to leave plaza
The company has retained its Halifax Regional Municipality store locations at Dartmouth Crossing and Bayers Lake, the only two locations to remain in the province.
This store closure is the latest of several changes that have occurred at the Granite Drive Plaza, where Future Shop’s departure in March 2015 was the first of several store changes.
The Reitmans women’s clothing store closed its doors two years later in June 2017.
Now, new development at the plaza is happening, with Easy Home setting up shop in the recently renovated space next to Winners and three other unconfirmed businesses that will soon move in.
The plaza is owned by property development company Plaza Retail Reit. The company's executive-vice president and chief information officer Peter Mackenzie confirmed via email that the new retail spaces at Granite Drive, Silver Fox and Commercial Street plazas are still on track to be finished by the fall of 2018 - just in time for the holiday shopping season.
