Consumers Distributing

Consumers Distributing (known in Quebec as Distribution aux Consommateurs, and informally as Consumers) was a catalogue store in Canada and the United States that operated from 1957 to 1996. At its peak it operated 243 outlets in Canada and 217 in the United States, including stores in every province in Canada and in the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, California and Nevada.

Consumers Distributing aimed to reduce costs for customers by stocking merchandise in a warehouse-type stocking system instead of displaying them in a costly showroom. Customers made their selections from a catalogue, filled out a form listing the items they wanted, then waited for stock staff to retrieve the items from the warehouse. The business model of Consumers Distributing has been described as "internet shopping before the internet".

The first Consumers Distributing store was opened in 1957 by Jack Stupp and Sydney Druckman in Toronto. The company was taken public in 1969. In 1978, Oshawa Group sold the 50% interest it had acquired. In 1988, revenues topped $1-billion.

Consumers Distributing purchased the 42-store Cardinal Distributors catalogue chain from Steinberg Inc. and the 70-store American chain Consumers from May Department Stores, bringing its total store count to approximately 400 in 1981.

During the 1980s, Consumers Distributing built a chain of toy stores called "Toy City". In 1990 and 1991, some stores became Toy City/Consumers Distributing stores. They closed in the mid-1990s.

Consumers Distributing was bought by the Quebec-based grocery retailer Provigo in 1989, then was sold in 1993 to a group controlled by Ackerman Van Haaren, a Belgian holding company.

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