Williams-Sonoma to Bring West Elm to Canada

Williams-Sonoma Inc. (San Francisco) has announced plans to bring its West Elm division to Canada. According to the Toronto Globe & Mail, the younger and hipper version of the parent operation will open its first Canadian stores in October in Toronto's King Street West area.

Later this week, Inter IKEA Systems B.V. (Delft, Sweden), which is going after the same young, on-a-budget, urban apartment-dweller, will launch a temporary "pop-up" showroom in the same Toronto neighborhood.

West Elm has been expanding rapidly. There are 32 West Elm stores today and industry observers told the Globe & Mail that it could have 200 or more outlets over the next several years. "We really want to take on more of the mass market, below Pottery Barn, which is why West Elm was conceived," said Dave DeMattei, group president at Williams-Sonoma. "We go after the upper tier of the mass market. We are a specialty version of IKEA."

Source: VMSD.com