canadian-retail
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John Fluevog Nearly Ran Out of Money - Then Made Weirdness Its Moat
The Vancouver shoemaker survived two brushes with collapse, stopped trying to please the middle, and built a durable cult around shoes that announce themselves before their wearer does.
SVP Sports Built a 40-Year Retail Business on One Unfashionable Skill: Buying What Other Stores Miss
The Toronto retailer does not manufacture the sneaker or own the team logo. It wins in the less glamorous middle - spotting supplier deals, buying volume and turning leftover uncertainty into a reason to come back.
M&M Food Market Was Frozen in the ’90s - Then It Let Shoppers Open the Freezer
The Canadian frozen-food chain had a tired name, blank white boxes and a counter customers found intimidating. Its comeback began with a wonderfully literal idea: let people browse.
How Pet Valu Turned a $100 Million Warehouse Bet Into an 877-Store Playbook for Neighborhood Retailers
Pet Valu sells the recurring essentials pets cannot postpone, but its real product is local trust at national scale. A four-year logistics overhaul shows how the 50-year-old Canadian chain is trying to make that contradiction pay.
Loblaw Built a Retail Flywheel From Bananas, Bandages and 18 Million Loyalty Cards
The Canadian retailer turned self-service groceries into a century-long habit, then layered on private labels, pharmacies, apps and points. The result is a formidable convenience machine - and a permanent invitation to scrutinize the price of dinner.
The $43 Million Shortcut: How KITS Turned Contact Lenses Into a Million-Customer Eyewear Machine
KITS bought a working contact-lens engine, gave away the first pair of glasses, and spent years teaching a low-margin retailer to manufacture loyalty. The useful lesson is not the discount - it is the machinery behind it.
How Source for Sports Made Local Ownership Its National Advantage
The Canadian sporting-goods network found a middle lane between the big-box chain and the lonely independent: pool the buying power, share the technology, and let local owners keep the whistle.
Jason Potter
Jason Potter is the President and CEO of Grocery Outlet, the Emeryville-based bargain grocery chain known for its independent owner-operator model and treasure-hunt aisles. He took the top job on February 3, 2025, after nearly five years steering The Fresh Market and 26 years climbing through Sobeys, Canada's national grocery giant. He started bagging groceries at 13 in a small Alberta town and has been in the trade ever since.