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It was founded in 1931 by Walter P. Zeller as "stores for thrifty Canadians". The chain began with a humble 12 stores. In 1978 Zellers was acquired by the Hudson's Bay Company, at which time it was headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Hudson's Bay Company later acquired Kmart's Canadian division as well in 1998, and merged it with the Zellers division to create a larged combined chain under the Zellers name; many KMart locations were closed, with selected sites becoming full Zellers outlets.

Today, Zellers has over 35,000 employees and it is a division of Hudson's Bay Company. The average store size is 94,000 square feet (8,700 m²). Zellers Select stores are designed for smaller markets with populations under 25,000, and the stores average 45,000 square feet (4,200 m²). Since 1998 over 50% of stores have been renovated to the latest prototype. 228 Zellers stores have pharmacies, and 247 have a restaurant (either Zellers Family Restaurant, Zellers Family Diner, or the newest concept, Neighbourhood Market Cafe). In an effort to improve the image of the company, customer service is organized into two teams. Service associates, wearing red shirts, help cutomers find what they need and provide additional assistance, while merchandisers, wearing grey shirts, stock the store.

The everyday low pricing model that was made well-known by Wal-Mart is used on 95% of merchandise at Zellers. Over the past three years, Zellers has expanded its product assortment in the majority of stores to include big ticket items, patio furniture, electronics and ready-to-assemble furniture.

In the past few years Zellers has made a notable push to drive sales through use of exclusive, private label merchandise. In a strategy similar to Target's, Zellers sells Mossimo , Cherokee, Sportek , Stuff by Hilary Duff , Gloria Vanderbilt, Airwalk , Waverly Decor , Wabasso, and many other labels that can only be found in their stores in Canada. Private brands now represent over 30% of Zellers sales.

Neighbourhood Market is Zellers' expanded section of grocery items that goes beyond just selling dry snacks and other food. Frozen and dairy aisles, including ice creamIn its simplest form, ice cream (originally iced cream is a frozen dessert made from dairy products ( milk, cream or custard) combined with flavourings and sweeteners. This mixture is super-cooled by stirring while reducing its temperature to prevent larg, and frozen pizzaFor the computer language, see Pizza programming language . For the Australian television show, see Pizza (Australian television . pepperoni, peppers, olives, and mushrooms. In its basic form, a pizza (occasionally, albeit redundantly, pizza pie is an ove, have been added to create an easy one-stop shopping experience. This may seem unusual to many customers, and was practically unheard of in a mass merchandiser in Canada until recently. In these stores the food assortment has been expanded by 50%. Due to the success of this format, Zellers plans to roll out Neighbourhood Market to 30 stores by the end of 2004. Besides the stores with this new concept, the company expects to have at least another 40 stores with at least some dairy and refrigerated products, along with boxed and canned goods. Many analysts would speculate that this action is in response to Wal-Mart's success in Canada. Already, about 85 Wal-Mart stores have expanded food offerings of their own, known as The Grocery Pantry. Whenever a new store is built, or an old one renovated, Zellers will make Neighbourhood Market part of it. In spite of all of this, Zellers says it doesn't expect to take things to the point where it has all of the same products as a full grocery.

At the end of fiscal year 20032003 is a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar), and also: The International Year of Freshwater The European Disability Year Summary Perhaps the defining global event of the year 2003 was the Invasion of Iraq launched by the U, Zellers had sales of $4.625 billion and average sales of $198/ft² ($2,131/m²).

In 20042004 is a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 2004 calendar), and has also been designated the: International Year of Rice International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition Elections are to be held in 73 co, there were media reports that the American Target CorporationTarget Corporation is the second most successful discount retailer in the United States, behind Wal-Mart. Target has been more successful than competitor Kmart at differentiating itself from Wal-Mart with a more upscale image. In the past Target has opera was investigating the purchase of some or all of the Hudson's Bay Company, with some columnists suggesting that Zellers might face purchase the same way WoolcoWoolco was a discount retail chain, founded in 1962, as a division of Woolworth. Woolco stores were Woolworth's response to Kresge's Kmart stores. Kmart, Target, Meijer and Wal-Mart all opened their first stores in 1962. In 1983 Woolco was closed in the U was bought out by Wal-Mart in the early 1990s.