About half of the Source's hundreds of stores that sell electronics in Canada are expected to close after the retailer's parent company announced a deal with Best Buy Canada.
Bell Canada Enterprises and Best Buy Canada are teaming up with plans to operate 165 the Source stores that will be rebranded as Best Buy Express and sell consumer electronics and telecommunications products and services from Bell, Virgin Plus and Lucky Mobile.
The Source has 335 stores in Canada, according to its website, so around 170 locations are expected to close as a result of the partnership. A representative for Bell Canada told CoStar News the remaining the Source stores will close in 2024, with the transition taking several months. The transition plan is still being finalized, and additional details on which stores will close are not known.
The 165 small-format stores that will be rebranded as Best Buy Express will expand Best Buy's presence in malls and in smaller and mid-sized communities across Canada when they open in the second half of 2024, according to a statement.
The Source was long known as Radio Shack, which sold electronics items in over 800 outlets in Canada in the 1990s. Radio Shack rebranded as the Source in 2005 and Montreal-based Bell Canada, one of Canada's largest communications providers, purchased the chain in 2009.
The Source's stores are located in Toronto and Montreal and other markets in eastern Canada. The stores, which are branded La Source in Quebec, can be found in major shopping centres such as Fairview Centre, Carrefour Laval, Galeries D’Anjou, Eglington Square, Toronto Eaton Centre, Union Station, Hudson Bay Centre and Vaughan Mills, among others.
Staffers at several the Source stores told CoStar News by telephone they are unaware whether their stores will continue to operate after the changes. “Nobody knows what’s going on,” said one employee. “We will only know in March,” said an employee from another store.
The Source maintains its headquarters in Barrie, Ontario, where an employee from the human resources department declined to comment on which stores would remain open or whether the head office would continue following the change.
Best Buy Canada, a subsidiary of U.S. retailer Best Buy, currently has more than 160 stores across Canada operating as either Best Buy or Best Buy Mobile, according to the statement.
Radio Shack, meanwhile, was founded in the U.S. in 1921 and went through a series of ownership changes and bankruptcy procedures in recent years. Unicomer Group acquired Radio Shack‘s intellectual property assets and domains in about 70 countries in 2023, according to the company website. Unicomer Group operates Radio Shack stores in Latin America, South America and the Caribbean, the website says.