Eaton's

In 1869, Timothy Eaton sold his interest in a small dry-goods store in the market town of St. Marys, Ontario, and he bought a dry-goods and haberdashery business at 178 Yonge Street in the city of Toronto.

The first store was only 7 m × 18 m (24 ft × 60 ft), with two shop windows, and was located a fair distance from Toronto's then fashionable shopping district of King Street West. In its first year of operation, with Timothy Eaton responsible for buying the goods to stock the store, and a staff of four, expectations were low that a store with a no-credit and no-haggling policy would succeed.

The business prospered, and Eaton moved the store one block north in August 1883 into much larger premises at 190 Yonge Street. The new store boasted the biggest plate-glass windows in Toronto, the first electric lights in any Canadian store, three full floors of retail space featuring 35 departments, and a lightwell that ran the full length of the store. The store's first telephone, with phone number 370, was installed in 1885. In 1886, the first elevator in a retail establishment in Toronto was installed in the Eaton store (although only customers going up were invited to use the elevator, thus requiring them to pass by the various store displays on their walk down).

Eaton maintained the lease on the empty store at 178 Yonge Street until its expiry in 1884, in order to delay the expansion plans of one of his competitors, Robert Simpson. Over time, the competition between the Simpson's and Eaton's department stores, facing each other across Queen Street West, became one of Toronto's great business rivalries. The pedestrian crosswalk on Queen Street West, just to the west of the intersection with Yonge Street, was for years one of the busiest in Canada, as thousands of shoppers a day comparison-shopped between Eaton's and Simpson's.

By 1896, Eaton's was billing itself as "Canada's Greatest Store". The store continued to expand in size, and new buildings were constructed to house the mail order division and the Eaton's factories. The number of people employed in Eaton's operations numbered 17,500 in 1911. In 1919, the Eaton's buildings in Toronto contained a floor space of over 24 ha (60 acres), and occupied several city blocks between Yonge Street and Bay Street, north of Queen Street West.

The Winnipeg store

At the beginning of the 20th century, Eaton's conducted a large business in Western Canada through its catalogue. Eaton's considered Winnipeg, Manitoba, as the most logical location for a new mail order warehouse to better serve its western customers. A store was not originally part of the plans.

John Craig Eaton, the son of Timothy Eaton, became an early proponent of building a combined store and mail order operation in Winnipeg. Although Timothy Eaton initially had misgivings over the difficulties involved in managing a store 2,100 km (1,300 mi) from Toronto, John Craig was eventually able to convince his father. Eaton's acquired a city block on Portage Avenue at Donald Street, and the five-storey Eaton's store opened to much fanfare on 15 July 1905. Timothy Eaton and his family were on hand for the opening of the second Eaton's store, with the Winnipeg Daily Tribune noting in its front-page headline: "The Canadian Napoleon of Retail Commerce Reaches the Capital – Views His Great Store for First Time – Well Pleased".

The landmark red brick store, known as "the Big Store" to Winnipeggers, was a success. The initial staff of 750 grew to 1,200 within a few weeks of the opening. By 1910, three more storeys were added to the store and other buildings were constructed. By 1919, the Eaton's operations in Winnipeg covered 8.5 ha (21 acres) and employed 8,000 people.

For many years, the Winnipeg Eaton's store was considered the most successful department store in the world, given how it dominated its local market. As late as the 1960s, Canadian Magazine estimated that Winnipeggers spent more than 50 cents of every shopping dollar (excluding groceries) at Eaton's, and that on a busy day, one out of every ten Winnipeggers would visit the Portage Avenue store.

In September 1999, Sears Canada purchased all the shares of T. Eaton Co., eight of its stores, with the option to buy five more, and the Eaton's name, trademarks, brands, and website in a $30-million deal. In October 1999, Sears Canada added five downtown stores to the suburban locations it had purchased earlier in September with an option to buy yet another Eaton's outlet. The acquisition of Eaton's assets by Sears Canada was officially approved in November 1999. The ten suburban locations that Sears Canada acquired would be converted to its nameplate while the six downtown stores would operate under the Eaton's banner. However, it was later decided that the suburban Yorkdale location would be run as an Eaton's store instead of a Sears contrary to what had originally been stated, thus bringing to seven the number of Eaton's-branded outlets. Most of the locations that Sears Canada acquired were closed down in October 1999 by the T. Eaton Company itself before getting renovated and eventually reopening as Sears or Eaton's stores. However, five of the suburban locations would directly be rebranded as Sears stores without closing. Moreover, the suburban locations at Scarborough Town Centre and Halifax Shopping Centre were acquired to actually relocate existing Sears stores with their employees to the much larger former Eaton's spaces of these same malls (this was also the original plan for Yorkdale). Finally, it was announced in December 1999 that two leases formerly occupied by Eaton's at Guildford Town Centre and Don Mills Centre would become Sears stores but these two were separate arrangements with the landlords of the respective shopping malls and, as such, not part of the 16 locations acquired by Sears Canada from T. Eaton Company.

Through its new Eaton's chain, Sears held a number of prime locations in Toronto (Eaton Centre and Yorkdale), Vancouver (Pacific Centre), Victoria (Eaton Centre), Winnipeg (Polo Park), Ottawa (Rideau Centre), and Calgary (Eaton Centre). Sears had intended to obtain the former downtown Montreal store, although it lost out to Les Ailes de la Mode. Sears had great ambitions for its seven Eaton's stores which included staffing them with spas, entertainment, food, personal-shopping assistants and brand-name merchandise. The Eaton's catalogue and website would be relaunched as well. However, Sears had trouble securing name brand merchandise consistent with the image of the new chain. This was mainly because of Eaton's bankruptcy. It was also because of doubt in Sears' ability to manage an upper-end chain, since until recently their merchandise was of lower price and quality compared to the old Eaton's and The Bay. George Heller, then-president of rival department store The Bay, publicly warned vendors not to supply the new Eaton's with merchandise. Many mid-to-upper tier brands, particularly in clothing, feared reprisal and avoided the new Eaton's.

The new Eaton's was scheduled to open 1 September 2000, but was pushed back three times, eventually opening 25 November. Consequently, Eaton's had missed much of the lucrative holiday season and opened with merchandise already marked down. Construction was haphazard; all stores opened unfinished and renovations would continue well into 2001.

The seven-store experiment was not successful, and Sears Canada President Paul Walters was forced to resign. He was replaced by a former rival and Sears Roebuck executive from the U.S., Mark Cohen, who prioritized Sears over Eaton's and cut back aggressively on markdown strategies. By March 2001, Sears announced they were ceasing publication of the newly resurrected Eaton's catalogue "due to a lack of interest". Although Mark Cohen officially announced that the Eaton's chain had seen an impressive rebound in June 2001, by 2002 he retired the "Eaton's" name.