Opinion: Reasons for Hudson’s Bay Collapse Reveals Retail’s Brutal New Reality

1. A Failure to Evolve The most glaring factor behind Hudson’s Bay’s demise was its inability to adapt to modern consumer preferences. The company struggled with painfully slow e-commerce adoption while competitors raced ahead.

Other department stores successfully integrated independent brands, popular D2C offerings, and created engaging in-store activations. Hudson’s Bay did none of this effectively or at scale. Their merchandising strategy became increasingly disconnected from reality.

Walking through their stores in recent years felt like stepping into a retail time capsule – dreadful, empty, sporadic, and unorganized. Perhaps this worked for shoppers over 45 seeking their annual Christmas fragrance in that familiar spot on the third floor, but for everyone else, it offered nothing worth visiting for.

I haven’t personally shopped at Hudson’s Bay for nearly a decade. The one time I tried buying a Polo jacket from their inventory (requested on someone’s Christmas list), they didn’t even have it in-store. I had to order it online for delivery – which perfectly illustrates their broken omnichannel experience. 2…