[AlbertC]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/t-kettle-doug-putman-1.5779901

Canadian entrepreneur launching T. Kettle tea chain from the ashes of 45 shuttered DavidsTea locations

Oct 28, 2020

A Canadian entrepreneur with a track record of retail turnarounds is launching a chain of tea shops across the U.S. and Canada, out of recently closed DavidsTea locations.

Doug Putman, the owner of Sunrise Records, is set to open 45 locations across nine Canadian provinces and six U.S. states this weekend.

Named T. Kettle, the chain will have about 250 employees when they open, which is expected to happen this Sunday, Nov. 1. And the chain hopes to expand beyond that.

Waylaid by the COVID-19 pandemic that walloped foot traffic to malls and stores, DavidsTea went into insolvency proceedings this summer and shortly after announced plans to close about 200 locations and focus more on selling tea online. The Montreal-based tea shop says it will still have 18 locations when all is said and done, but that's a drastically reduced retail footprint.

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Retail sales overall only recently got back to the level they were at before the pandemic, and even then unevenly so, as there are wildly different situations in different areas and sectors.

But while the carnage is continuing in some sectors of retail, Putman sees an opportunity.

"When we found that they were filing for bankruptcy we were thinking about it, and then when they said they were closing all their stores, I started reaching out to landlords," Putman told CBC News in an interview. "Sure enough everyone was pretty interested."

Putman has a track record of turning around retail chains in sectors others think are doomed. In 2014, he purchased music store chain Sunrise Records. In 2017, he bought up the leases of 70 HMV locations across Canada when that chain went bust and converted them to Sunrise locations.

In 2019, he bought the HMV chain in its home market of Great Britain, and while several locations were closed, nearly 100 are still in operation. Then late last year he spent $10 million US to buy For Your Entertainment, a music, film and pop culture outlet that operates across the U.S.

 

[lenaitch]

I know virtually nothing about retail operations and even less about tea, but a couple of years ago I was helping our daughter get ready for a fundraising event and was doing a pick up at a David's in a small city who had 'comped' her some product. I was surprised how busy the store was. I wish him luck.

 

[AlbertC]

Entrepreneur Doug Putman Discusses His Newest Venture, T.Kettle, Opening in Former David's Tea Storefronts: Interview

Doug Putman's takeover of Canada's David's Tea locations to start T.Kettle, a new player in the retail tea industry.

www.retail-insider.com

“I think in any tough times – and this is certainly one of them – there’s opportunities that present themselves. Back four or five years ago, Sunrise Records presented an opportunity for us when HMV left the market and I think this is an exact example of that where it’s in an industry I really like, which is tea. I think people who are into tea are very passionate about it and it’s part of their ritual and routine,” said Putman.

“So obviously when DAVIDs decided to leave the market to a large extent – they have a few stores left – it just signalled to us that this could be one of those opportunities worth looking into. The further we looked into it the more we liked the business model, the more we liked the business itself. Very quickly it was just a check mark for us to say okay we’ve got to do this.”

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Putman said the tea market in Canada has been growing for years and continues to grow.

“Of course, it’s nowhere near the size of coffee but that’s okay. Businesses can be different sizes and they can grow. And so we just really like tea. We like the health benefits of tea. We like the enjoyment of drinking tea. I mean it is similar to listening to vinyl in our other business. There’s an experience there with it so we really enjoy that. We think there’s something great about it. Although it’s ‘niche’ it’s still a very big business. We’re at 45 stores right now but every day we’re signing more stores. I still believe in Canada we can get up to 100 stores in the next six months.”

T.Kettle stores will be in malls in provinces across Canada, with six US stores in California, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.