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Giant Tiger, known as Tigre Geant in Quebec, is a Canadian discount department store chain founded in 1961 by Gordon Reid. They operate across most Canadian Provinces and they continue to be very successful in the Canadian market.
History[]
In 1961, Gordon Reid opened the first Giant Tiger store in Ottawa, ON. He was inspired by various American discount store such as F.W. Woolworth which his Mother had worked at in years past.
Initially, Giant Tiger didn't expand very much, they stuck to Ontario for many years. Mr. Reid used the Co-op concept for his stores, which meant that all the employees of his company owned a part of the store. Eventually, He started to franchise Giant Tiger and they expanded to a few more stores.
Giant Tiger stores were made much smaller than their competitors such as Woolco or Zellers, this meant that the store managers of Giant Tiger only bought items that they knew would sell well in their local community, Giant Tiger stores were also re-stocked daily, meaning that products were always going in and out of the store quickly.
A decade after Giant Tiger had opened its first store (Which had now closed) they had a mere 6 Giant Tiger locations. As the years went on and people became more budget conscious due to inflation, Giant Tiger became a more popular store, and they opened more locations.
In 1977, Giant Tiger expanded into Québec, they were branded as "Chez Tante Marie. " Eventually, Giant Tiger began to phase out this name in favour of "Tigre Géant." The last Chez Tante Marie stores were re-branded to Tigre Géant by 2017.
In 1987, Giant Tiger launched their own trucking company called Tiger Trucking, this was made so they didn't have to rely on other trucking companies. On average, Tiger trucks drop shipments off around 5 times a week at Giant Tiger stores, this frequency is equivalent to most grocery stores.
in 2001, The North West Company opened franchise stores in Western Canada, until 2020, this company operated all of the Western Canadian Giant Tiger locations. In the same decade, Giant Tiger also started opening locations in Atlantic Canada, this meant they now operated coast to coast.
In 2010, Mr. Reid stepped down as CEO for Giant Tiger. The current CEO is Gino DiGioacchino.
Today, Giant Tiger continues to open new locations and expand into other parts of Canada, they are yet to go into the British Columbia or Newfoundland & Labrador market, but they will probably expand to those places in the future.