Uniqlo to Open 5 Canadian Stores in Fall 2024

Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo is continuing with its Canadian store expansion with four locations announced for fall 2024, and an additional fifth store confirmed. It’s part of a bigger growth plan for the company which entered Canada with its first stores in 2016. 

On Wednesday, Uniqlo announced that it would open three stores in Ontario, as well as one in British Columbia. The three Ontario stores will be either in or close to Toronto, and will include locations at CF Sherway Gardens in Toronto, Heartland Town Centre in Mississauga, and Bramalea City Centre in Brampton. Uniqlo also announced that it would open another store in the BC Lower Mainland at the Willowbrook Shopping Centre in Langley. 

The CF Sherway Gardens Uniqlo store will move into a retail space vacated by retailer Laura, according to sources, as well as adjacent spaces to create a Uniqlo store spanning about 15,000 square feet or so. It’s a size that appears to be a sweet spot for the retailer for its non-flagship locations in Canada. 

Heartland Town Centre will be Uniqlo’s first Canadian store to open in a power centre, making it rather unique. Heartland Town Centre is considered to be one of the country’s top big-box power centres in terms of retail offerings and consumer spending dollars. Uniqlo is taking a retail space formerly occupied by Designer Depot, according to lease plans. 

Bramalea City Centre is an enclosed super regional shopping centre in Brampton, and Uniqlo’s location in the mall will be 12,167 square feet according to a lease plan. 

Uniqlo will also be opening a fifth Canadian store in September, which wasn’t announced in Wednesday’s press release. Uniqlo’s website states that it will open a store at Royalmount in Montreal — Royalmount’s opening date was recently moved from August 15 to early September, and it’s not 100% confirmed if Uniqlo’s Royalmount storefront will be ready for the mall’s opening day, given that we’re announcing the store before Uniqlo’s PR team. The Uniqlo website indicates that the Royalmount location will be a ‘standard store’ and not one of the flashier flagships such as the downtown Montreal store or at CF Toronto Eaton Centre in Toronto.  

Jeff Berkowitz of Aurora Realty Consultants has negotiated Uniqlo’s leases since the brand entered the country nearly eight years ago, and continues to do so with the most recent store announcements.

In the fall of 2016, Uniqlo opened two stores in Toronto at the CF Toronto Eaton Centre and at the Yorkdale Shopping Centre, kicking off a national expansion that has seen Uniqlo become an important player in the fast-fashion space in Canada. The company currently operates 23 stores in Canada, a number that will increase to 28 by the end of the year. 

Uniqlo said in a press release late last year that it planned to open more than 20 stores in North America in 2024. Uniqlo is still conspicuously absent from the city of Vancouver, where it has several stores in the suburbs. 

Following the opening of the first two Toronto stores nearly eight years ago, Uniqlo has since opened a total of nine locations in the Greater Toronto Area, all in major shopping centres. Three more stores will be added this fall as mentioned above. The Greater Vancouver market currently has four Uniqlo stores, with the fall opening of the Langley store marking the fifth in the region. The Montreal area has four Uniqlo stores as well, with Royalmount being the fifth in the region. Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa are all home to two Uniqlo stores. Uniqlo’s Canadian locations have opened incrementally since 2016 and over the past 18 months, the pace of store openings appears to have accelerated. 

At this point, it would appear that Uniqlo is targeting store locations in potentially every major shopping centre in Canada that is commercially successful. Uniqlo may also target cities where it currently does not have stores, including Winnipeg, Halifax, Quebec City, London/Southern Ontario centres, and eventually even markets such as Victoria and the two largest cities in Saskatchewan. Uniqlo is also expected to secure a downtown Vancouver location, either within part of the building vacated by Nordstrom or nearby on Robson Street, though nothing is yet confirmed. 

According to the Aurora Realty website, the ideal size for a Uniqlo store is between 15,000 square feet and 40,000 square feet. The downtown Montreal flagship, which opened in October of 2020, is the largest in Canada with 45,000 square feet over two levels on Ste Catherine Street in the Montreal Eaton Centre. 

Globally, Uniqlo has more than 2,400 stores, including 60 locations in the United States and 23 in Canada. Uniqlo’s first store opened in Hiroshima Japan in 1984, and the company is a brand of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., a leading Japanese retail holding company with global headquarters in Tokyo. Uniqlo is the largest of eight brands in the Fast Retailing Group, which is one of the world’s largest apparel retail companies, and Uniqlo is Japan’s leading specialty retailer.

Uniqlo has said that it plans to operate about 200 stores in North America by 2027. It’s not known how many of those would be in Canada. When Uniqlo entered Canada, its original targeted number of stores was about 100, according to the Globe & Mail. That number could have since changed, given the pandemic and shifting consumer dynamics.

Uniqlo’s store expansion comes at a time when more consumers are shopping online. Shopping centres are still busy, with brick-and-mortar retail showing signs of longevity. The retailer has experimented with retail concepts such a pop-up in Toronto’s Financial District in 2019, and could look to such locations as South Edmonton Common in Edmonton if more power centres are deemed worthy locations. Only a handful of streets in Canada see enough foot traffic for such a retailer. 

Uniqlo is competing in Canada with a range of relatively affordable retailers with stores, though Uniqlo’s styles tend to be more staple-based than trendy. H&M and Zara are strong players in the fast-fashion market in Canada, with both having a high penetration of stores across the country. To a degree, even La Maison Simons is a competitor, with a range of well-priced fashions as the retailer opens two more stores in Toronto next year as part of a national expansion. Another international entrant into Canada will soon be announced, which will feature large-format stores and a trendier range of fast-fashion options at price points that could grab market share. Despite competition already in the market, Uniqlo appears to be bullish in terms of signing leases in anticipation of growth in this country in the years to come.