After 30 years in the Greater Vernon community, Canadian Tire is ready to relaunch with a new look.
Canadian Tire will show off its recent face lift during a grand re-opening at the 27th Street location, Thursday to next Sunday.
A walk through the front doors reveals a completely new floor setup, featuring a more comfortable and open concept for the customer as the store completes the last of its renovations.
“What this renovation does is it displays our whole store, it opens it up a lot better. It’s more competitive in the marketplace,” said Grant Turner, the dealer for Vernon Canadian Tire.
“The store needed a refresh and Canadian Tire Corporation came out with a new store design.”
The new Smart Store plan is part of a nation-wide initiative with about 50 stores unveiling the new layout this spring – more than 30 of which are in Western Canada. More launches planned for the fall.
Management is excited about the new renovations and is already seeing the re-design paying dividends.
“People really like the openness of it. We’ve been torn up since January, usually when you tear things up like this, with products in the back or you can’t find things; usually sales go down. Our sales have gone up even before our grand re-opening.
“I think people like the layout of the store, and more product in the store, it’s all working to the benefit of us and the consumer,” said Turner.
Some of the new layout features include updated displays in nearly every department, an expanded seasonal department and price info kiosks.
The company’s focus was on making the whole experience better for the customer and making it easier to shop. The new displays make it easier for customers to see and handle the items they are purchasing while new shelves mean less clutter.
“Two words – customer experience. We want them to have a good experience here,” said general manager Mark Corson.
Corson is focused on giving customers a better experience and knows that a layout change isn’t the only requirement to do that.
“We’re really working hard to keep in stock. We’re really working hard with the staff to ensure there is more interaction with the customer and that we’re not giving customers a rain-check but rather actually giving them stock.”
Canadian Tire is also aiming to raise money for its Jump Start charity at the grand re-opening event.
