Article Excerpt:
TWST: What is Hart Stores?Mr. Hart: Hart Stores is a retail chain of department stores across Eastern Canada. We are located in a lot of smaller, less competitive tertiary markets, which pretty much gives us that competitive edge. At the same time, we've been growing at a steady rate over the last five years, in particular where we are expanding our base of four to five stores a year. The company started in 1965 in a small Quebec region serving what we considered an underdeveloped retail market. Over the years, we've expanded to some larger markets and also maintained our profile in some of the less competitive markets. At the same time, our stores have expanded in size from the first store being 8,000 square feet to today where we are currently operating stores at 30,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet. We continue to open these larger format stores in some of the larger markets as we continually expanding our product line. In addition to looking at the less competitive markets, one of our strengths is expanding our unique product line to differentiate ourselves from the big-box competitors. For sure, there are a lot of areas that do overlap on consumer products, and where we do, we are more than competitive. At the same time, we try to focus on additional product lines that are focused, unique and distinct. Over the years, the company has grown from a smaller clothing type department store to a full-scale department store where we are today, including housewares, giftwares, toys, linens, domestics, home furnishings, linens as well as the fashion and footwear. With the growing market and the expansion in the home market, we developed a strong niche in that area, and today, the company is a little different in a sense that we are trying to service more customers and offering them more products. That's pretty much a gradual development of the company. As we speak, we are in the process of opening some additional stores for 2005 and recently did that for 2004.
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