Glimbora Insights
Where Beauty Shoppers Go After Hudson’s Bay
“So where do I buy my serum now?”
On June 1, 2025, Hudson’s Bay closed its remaining stores and ended 355 years of trading, taking its Canadian Saks banners along. The liquidation that began in March emptied more than 80 department stores, and with them some of the country’s largest prestige beauty halls. The counters, the testers, the gift with purchase seasons: gone. Millions of Canadians who defaulted to the Bay for fragrance and skincare now have to pick a new home.
Where those beauty shoppers go next is the most interesting question in Canadian retail this year, and for independent retailers it is also the biggest opening in a generation. A department store closing is not just a real estate story; it is a redistribution of habits, baskets and loyalty. In this guide we map where the Bay’s beauty spend is heading, why the obvious winners all share the same blind spot, and how a Canadian retailer can use the next few months to become the new default. We watch this market daily as a Vancouver based distributor of Korean cosmetics, and the pattern is already visible from the shop floor.
The Hudson’s Bay name and stripes sold to Canadian Tire for $30 million in late May 2025. The brand found a buyer; its beauty shoppers are still up for grabs.
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The Shoppers Did Not Disappear
Demand does not liquidate with the fixtures. The prestige beauty spend that once flowed through the Bay is splitting three ways, and each destination has a real pull and a real weakness:
Specialty chains: Sephora and its peers inherit the prestige shopper by default. The pull is service and brand depth; the weakness is that every location stocks the same wall of legacy Western prestige brands, in the same order, at the same prices.
Drugstore and pharmacy aisles: loyalty points and convenience capture the replenishment trip, the cleanser and the mascara on the way home. The weakness is discovery; almost nothing on that shelf feels new, and nobody is there to explain it.
Online carts: the price hunter heads to the marketplace. The weakness is trust: no tester, no advice, and no way to know how a product was stored, shipped or dated before it arrived.
Habits are resetting
Department store loyalty was built on routine, and that routine just broke. A shopper choosing a new store is open to a new assortment in a way she has not been in years. Polling this winter found about 4 in 5 Canadians already changing what they buy in response to the tariff fight, part of the Buy Canadian shift we mapped in February, so the reset runs deeper than one retailer’s exit. Every week that passes, more of the Bay’s former shoppers settle into a replacement routine. The stores that move this summer meet them while they are still choosing; the stores that wait will meet a habit that has already formed somewhere else.
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Korean Skincare Is the Open Lane
If the chains all sell sameness, differentiation comes from the categories they have barely touched. Korean skincare is the loudest example. Korea exported a record $10.2 billion of cosmetics in 2024, up 20.6%, and overtook France as the top source of US cosmetics imports. The first quarter of 2025 set another record at $2.6 billion, with shipments to the US up 14.2% to $440 million. Canadian availability has not kept pace. Sephora added Biodance only in February, and most large retailers still stop at a handful of names, so shoppers who read about a serum online often cannot find it in a store. That gap is exactly what an independent can own: a curated K beauty wall, staff who can explain it, and stock that is actually on the shelf.
The price math points the same way
Since March 4, Canada’s counter tariffs have added 25% to US made cosmetics crossing the border. Korean cosmetics have entered Canada duty free under the Canada Korea Free Trade Agreement since 2015. Run that on a real order: a US made moisturizer with a $20 landed cost now carries a $5 surtax before freight, while a comparable Korean SKU clears customs with zero duty. On a shelf where the shopper is already primed to look past American labels, the Korean product wins on margin and on sentiment at the same time.
Timing matters more than usual
Tariff policy south of the border keeps shifting, and nobody can price American supply with confidence this season. The Korea to Canada lane is the stable one: duty free by treaty rather than by news cycle, with a decade of settled trade practice behind it.
Insight: Since March 4, 2025, Canada’s counter tariffs have added 25% to US cosmetics, while Korean products enter duty free under a free trade agreement in force since 2015. One shelf just got pricier; the other did not.
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A 90 Day Plan to Win the Bay’s Beauty Shopper
Windows like this one close. The big chains will deepen their Korean assortments eventually; the retailers who win the Bay’s former beauty shoppers will be the ones who own the category while it still feels like a discovery. Here is the sequence we walk new partners through:
Weeks 1 to 2, curate: pick 3 to 5 brands that cover a full routine instead of twenty scattered heroes. Our wholesale catalogue spans 17 brands and about 390 products, including Skin1004, Numbuzin, Mixsoon, Dinto, Muzigae Mansion and Eqqualberry, and a tight opening order beats a broad one every time.
Weeks 2 to 4, clear compliance: every SKU needs its Health Canada notification and compliant bilingual labelling before it reaches the shelf. We explained how the Cosmetic Notification Form works in April; when the products come from our warehouse, that paperwork and labelling are already done.
Weeks 4 to 8, build the display: shelve by routine rather than by brand, with testers and one line shelf talkers naming the hero ingredient. The full playbook is in our guide to merchandising Korean beauty in store.
Weeks 6 to 12, tell the neighbourhood: local social posts, influencer seeding and staff picks turn a new section into a destination. Eqqualberry’s Canadian launch followed exactly this arc and now sits in eight H Mart locations across Metro Vancouver and Alberta.
Ongoing, measure: track sell through by SKU monthly, cut the bottom of the assortment, and reorder the heroes before they gap. Owning a category is a habit for the retailer too.
We are a Vancouver based distributor of Korean cosmetics, and we handle regulatory intake, labelling, import clearance, warehousing, distribution and localized marketing so a Canadian retailer can move in weeks, not seasons. The plan above is not theory; it is our standard onboarding.
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Questions Retail Buyers Are Asking Right Now
Will the big chains simply absorb the Bay’s beauty shoppers?
They will absorb the traffic first, because they are the visible default. Loyalty is a different contest. A national chain sets its shelf centrally and moves slowly; an independent can build a Korean skincare destination this summer and own the habit before a head office finishes its next planogram review.
Do Korean cosmetics face any of the new tariffs?
No. Canada’s 25% surtax applies to US made goods. Korean cosmetics enter duty free under the Canada Korea Free Trade Agreement, in force since 2015, so whatever next month’s tariff headlines bring, this lane is set by treaty.
How fast can a store actually add a Korean skincare section?
With a local distributor holding cleared inventory, weeks. Curation takes days, compliance is already handled for catalogued products, and a starter display needs one bay and a tester tray. The slow path is importing directly and learning the paperwork alone.
Is a department store closing really a lasting opportunity?
The Bay’s name and stripes were worth $30 million to Canadian Tire. The routines of its shoppers are worth more, and they are being handed out right now to whichever stores show up with something worth switching for.
An institution older than the country has left the field, and the beauty spend it anchored is looking for somewhere to land. The retailers who treat this as a category decision rather than a news story will still feel the difference years from now.
Ready to give displaced beauty shoppers a new home?
Let’s talk.
Glimbora Insights
