International retailers are selecting Vancouver as their launch pad for North American operations in part because its multicultural mix and culture make it an ideal testing ground for companies from the Asia-Pacific region.
“Most furniture stores, when they want to launch into the North American market, they usually go to Los Angeles,” King Living CEO Anna Carrabs told Business in Vancouver by phone from Australia. “The reality is that we wanted to test the market, and we felt that doing that in Vancouver was a better way for us to do it.”
She explained that economic and living conditions in Vancouver are similar to those of Australian cities and that Vancouver gives her company a feel for the U.S. market without venturing south of the border.
Lululemon Athletica Inc. founder Chip Wilson told BIV in October that he similarly feels that Vancouver's active, and outdoor-oriented, culture is similar to that of Australia, and that was partly why he opened the first Lululemon store outside Canada and the U.S. in Melbourne in October 2004.
King Living is a fast-growing furniture designer, manufacturer and retailer that has 16 stores in Australia. Because it custom designs furniture, its stores are showrooms where customers view products and order them to be delivered.
The company first branched out internationally in 2015 with a store in New Zealand – a country that Carrabs believes is extremely close culturally to Australia.
A couple of weeks later, the company opened a store in Singapore. Co-founder David King moved to Singapore to ensure that the company’s first Asian store would be a success. Stores in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai followed, making Vancouver the company’s fifth international location.
Things have gone well so far, with Carrabs estimating that the store generated nearly $500,000 in sales in its first two weeks.
Australian companies have launched North American operations out of Vancouver for decades. Brisbane-based Flight Centre launched in Vancouver in 1995 and made the city its headquarters for North America until 2009, when Flight Centre split off its U.S. operations to be managed separately.
Cobs Bread similarly launched its first North American store in the Lower Mainland, at North Vancouver’s Edgemont Village in 2003, two weeks before it opened a second store on West 4th Avenue in Vancouver.
The chain, which is a division of Australia’s Bakers Delight, could not use the parent company brand in Canada because the name was already copyrighted.
Bakers Delight founder Roger Gillespie told media at the time that he chose to launch North American operations first in Vancouver mostly because of business factors such as the retail price for bread, the cost of rent and ingredients, available labour and the similar values of the Canadian and Australian dollars.
Australian eyewear retailer Bailey Nelson also followed the trend of making Vancouver its first North American location in 2017, when it opened stores on Robson Street and in Gastown.