We've been down this road before; former shopping institutions like Sears and Eaton's have gone away. Yet the Hudson's Bay Company is different - it's a piece of Canadiana. You cannot take a class in Canadian history without talking about the Hudson's Bay Company.
There are plenty of reasons why the Bay has floundered and I did wince when I read the complaints people shared in recent CBC articles; one mentioned how the stores' escalators seemed to go out of order so frequently. And yes, when I started regularly visiting the Bay during the last 2 years, I myself was struck by the escalator being inoperable.
My wife and I had $200 in gift cards for the Bay and we spent a good 1.5 years trying to spend them. It shouldn't have been that hard to do, but for all that we thought the Bay had terrific high-end merchandise, it was also very expensive merchandise. We kept finding ourselves unwilling to spend the gift cards-- up until the bankruptcy announcement came out and we spent them out as quickly as we could.
I suppose from where I sit, those were the biggest factors in why the Bay wasn't our favourite store-- it was expensive and it didn't feature a wide range of options.
I hope the Bay comes through its difficulties in some form.
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