A liquidation sale at six Nordstrom locations across the Greater Toronto Area will begin tomorrow.

During a court hearing held at Osgoode Hall on Monday, Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz granted the fashion retailer permission to start liquidating its merchandise, just weeks after its announcement that it would leave the Canadian marketplace.

Court approval was necessary because Nordstrom is winding down its Canadian operations under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.

During Monday’s hearing lawyer Jeremy Dacks, who represents Nordstrom, said that the retailer has “worked hard to achieve a consensual path forward" with landlords and suppliers.

Dacks said that a joint venture comprised of Hilco Merchant Retail Solutions ULC and Gordon Brothers Canada will preside over the liquidation process,” including the sale of merchandise, furniture, fixtures and equipment.

That group was also involved in the liquidation of Target, Sears and Forever 21 in Canada, he said.

The company is hoping to wrap up the liquidation process by June and close all 13 of its brick-and-mortar locations in Canada, including the six in the GTA.

Nordstrom's Canadian e-commerce platform has already been scrapped.

“Nordstrom is trying to exit quickly. They made the strategic decision to withdraw. So they are not going to drag this out,” Ian Lee, who is an associate professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, told CTV News Channel on Monday. “I think you are going to see very significant discounts. So for those consumers who are quick on the draw and get down there in the line I think they will pick up some good deals.”

Nordstrom opened its first Canadian store in Calgary in September 2014. Its first Toronto store at the CF Eaton Centre then opened in 2016.

In a news release earlier this month, CEO Erik Nordstrom said that the company entered Canada with a “plan to build and sustain a long-term business” but no longer sees a “realistic path for profitability.”

Tamara Szames, executive director and industry adviser of Canadian retail at the consumer research company Circana, told CP24 on Monday that Nordstrom likely struggled coming out of the pandemic like many retailers did.

But she also speculated that it may not have fully appreciated the uniqueness of the Canadian retail landscape.

“It's a really sad thing to hear continuously in the news about these international retailers coming to Canada and not being successful. There are a handful of retailers that have come here and are successful. But what we can learn from this is really these retailers need to come in and experience the Canadian landscape with their feet on the ground,” she said. “If we see something in common between Nordstrom and Target it is that they continued their operations from the U.S. so they were treating Canada just as another store operation versus looking at it as a new opportunity and understanding the Canadian landscape as a whole.” 

The company’s store locations in thee GTA are as follows:

  • Nordstrom Sherway Gardens, 25 The West Mall, Etobicoke, Ont.
  • Nordstrom Toronto Eaton Centre, 260 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ont.
  • Nordstrom Yorkdale Centre, 3401 Dufferin Street, Toronto, Ont.
  • Nordstrom Rack One Bloor, 731 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ont.
  • Nordstrom Rack Vaughan Mills, 1 Bass Pro Mills Drive #E4, Vaughan, Ont.
  • Nordstrom Rack Heartland Town Centre, 788 Boyer Boulevard, Mississauga, Ont.

With files from The Canadian Press