Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 19, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Two days before the Saturday opening of the Staples Business Depot on Old Airport Road, the manager of Creative Basics paid the Staples lot a visit.

Kevin Allerston, a cashier at Staples Business Depot, takes a brief break during opening day on Saturday. He said he was busy non-stop. - Jessica Klinkenberg/NNSL photo

The parking lot was empty, but that's precisely what Gary Williams wanted - to size up the store before it became host to hordes of curious customers starting Saturday morning.

"You have to see what your competition is," said Williams.

From where he stood, the new 28,000 square foot store must indeed have seemed massive, but he wasn't intimidated. Williams said he is confident that customer loyalty is alive and well in the city of Yellowknife, where he has worked in the retail industry for 30 years.

"That makes me sound like an old dinosaur," he added, but the pride in his voice was apparent.

"I like to think we can compete by giving people a good selection and good personalized service."

Williams is well aware of the challenge ahead of him, however.

"Staples has a bigger buying power than we do. They're not in the same league as Wal-Mart, but they're getting up there," he said.

As Williams suspected, a flurry of people were in attendance for the grand opening Saturday, with Mayor Gord Van Tighem and the president of Staples, Steven Matyas, in attendance for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Matyas estimated some 500 to 1,000 people showed up at the store during its initial opening hours. He said the mayor told him he'd never seen a bigger show of public curiosity for a store opening.

"It's hard to judge, but if the first five hours are any indication, I think we're going to do very well," said Matyas.

"I took some people for a late breakfast, and when we came back, there were no parking spots left."

With Staples comes 35 new jobs, 10 to 12 of which are full-time.

The immense store - one of the biggest Staples has, said Matyas - is unique in that some 2,000 square feet are devoted to storing inventory.

The prices will be hard to beat, said Matyas.

"We will be charging the same for all items as we would in any store down south," he said. "In this day and age of the Internet, where you can check who is offering what price, you can't fool anybody, so why try?"

Yellowknife's Staples store was originally slated to open last spring, but the opening was pushed back due to construction delays caused by inclement weather and difficulty securing tradespeople.

The last Northern Staples opened in Whitehorse in late 2004.

While Matyas said the company has further plans to expand in the North, he would not specify where.