50 years without Eaton’s catalogue

The Timothy Eaton Company pioneered mail-order shopping in Canada, but 50 years ago this month, it announced its iconic catalogue would disappear forever.

The introduction of Eaton’s first catalogue in 1884 coincided with the construction of a rail network in Western Canada that created hundreds of towns and villages which welcomed hundreds of thousands of newcomers to the region. Settlers could order everything from clothing to furniture to farm implements and, at one time, entire houses and barns from the pages of the catalogue.

Winnipeg was one of three mail-order hubs for Eaton’s, the others being Toronto and Moncton. A current monument to the city’s status in the catalogue empire are the two nine-storey towers built on Graham Avenue in 1916 and 1920, which together contained over 700,000 square feet of warehouse space.

The city benefited from the thousands of jobs within the buildings and at least that many who worked for the many independent companies that supplied retail goods, transportation services, printing, and packaging for the company.

On Jan. 14, 1976, T. Eaton Company president Earle Orser announced that the company’s Spring 1976 catalogue would be its last.

Orser noted that, in 1974, the catalogue generated $300 million in sales but lost $17 million and was on track to do the same in 1975. He said, “… the company cannot continue to sustain losses of this magnitude without risk to its principal business, department stores, and the jobs of its more than 40,000 employees.”

The reasons behind the losses, according to Orser, included the growing costs associated with printing and distributing the catalogue, increased retail competition, and the proliferation of malls in suburban neighbourhoods.

The company pointed out that as Canada’s population urbanised, 60 per cent of its customers lived within driving distance of an Eaton’s store. That provided no comfort to those outside that zone. A Brandon Sun editorial stated: “… the reality is that the demise of Eaton’s catalogue will deal a severe blow to the living standards of many people living in Canada outside the big cities.”

There was an outpouring of nostalgia after the announcement, but in Winnipeg the closure hit hard economically ,as the catalogue division still employed 670 full-time and 900 part-time staff, and many independent suppliers also had to lay off workers.

The last day for catalogue orders in Western Canada was April 3, 1976.

Long before the closure of its catalogue division, Eaton’s was already shopping around its massive Graham Avenue warehouse. In June 1976, it announced that it had been sold to a Vancouver developer to turn into a retail, parking, and office complex called Eaton Place. Despite the name, Eaton’s had no stake in the development.

In 2001, two years after the adjoining Eaton’s department store closed, the complex was renamed Cityplace. It was purchased by its current owner, Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation, for $81.5 million in 2009.