After 132 years of selling stationery, Grand & Toy shuts down stores

“We are concentrating our efforts on ways to better serve our customers in response to their changing business needs,” Simon Finch, general manager, OfficeMax Grand & Toy, said in a release.

“Our customers overwhelmingly prefer an online experience because it offers more products, a constantly growing selection, and convenient door-to-door delivery,” he said.

Over the past several years, the company says it has experienced “tremendous growth” in its online channel, with only 3 per cent of the company’s current sales coming from retail walk-ins.

The remaining stores located in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba, will begin closing over the next few months. Approximately 160 employees of the 1,300 staff will be affected by the store closures, the firm said.

“These store closures are a response to a shift in the purchasing preferences of our business customers,” said Finch, noting it remains one of the largest business-to-business office products providers in Canada.

Grand & Toy was taken over by U.S.-based office supplies distributor OfficeMax Inc. in 1996, and Office Depot bought the firm last year in a $1.2 billion (U.S.) deal.

Often mistaken for a school supplies and toy store, the company was actually founded in 1882 by Toronto printer James Grand – who soon after partnered with his brother-in-law Samuel Toy – as a stationery printing business out of his home, and eventually from the back of a horse-drawn carriage, says the company website.

The first Grand & Toy catalogue was published in 1904, and the first storefront opened at 332 Bay St. in 1926. Grand’s eldest son Percy joined the business in 1899, and nearly 30 years later invented the Roundedge pencil — still the most popular pencil in use today.

Today Grand & Toy sells computer supplies, office furniture and professional services including printing and web design.