![]() While the company was privately owned, woes surrounding its Horizon stores were publicly known, with the Financial Post claiming sales dipped after the 1972 Christmas season. Stores were launched during a general downturn for discounters. While the Scarborough and Yonge-Eglinton locations were successful, the remainder were not, with most locations not adhering to the researched requirements. The company planned 122 locations, each intended to have 200,000 people within a ten-minute drive. ![]() The earliest stores were meant as a pilot, "to test different types of community". The first location was to be in Scarborough, Ontario, opening in August 1972. Plans for Horizon were first announced in May 1972. The company also used Eaton's credit cards and computer system, which allowed them to prevent over-spending and keep track of inventory. This extended to the store's use of a barcode reader at checkout, which received media attention the store was deemed "the most automated self-service store in Canada". Īccording to The Globe and Mail, the name Horizon "reflects a forward-looking, contemporary life style-the image these stores will project". Horizon locations would have centralized check-out counters, versus the in-department desks of the main Eaton's stores. The "'fast-moving' lines of merchandise" included clothing, "housewares and notions, sporting goods, small and large appliances and seasonal merchandise". Stores were to be roughly 60,000 square feet, and either located in neighbourhood malls "or smaller communities often close to a grocery supermarket". It was focused on the "buyer" section of the market. "Your wife goes out to buy the groceries or a pair of hose or kiddies' underwear, but she goes out to shop for furniture, for interesting gifts, expensive dresses." This insight guided both changes to their main line of stores, but also the creation of Horizon, a discount chain that the company referred to as "convenience stores". President Robert Butler observed that consumers could be classified as shoppers and buyers.
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