Giant Tiger

Giant Tiger Stores Ltd. is a Canadian discount store chain which operates over 200 stores across Canada. The company's stores operate under the Giant Tiger, GTExpress, and Scott's Discount banners in Ontario; under the Tigre Géant and Chez Tante Marie banners in Quebec; and under the Giant Tiger banner in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan.

The chain employs over 7,000 people. The headquarters and main distribution centre are located on Walkley Road in Ottawa, Ontario.

In the mid and late 1950s, Giant Tiger founder Gordon Reid, who was then in his early twenties, was a travelling salesman for an importer in the United States. In the American Midwest, Reid first saw discount stores. Discount stores were a new concept at the time. He was particularly impressed by Uncle Bill's, a chain headquartered in Columbus, Ohio., which was one of his clients. The discount store concept did not yet exist in Canada, and it therefore represented a business opportunity.

Reid reports that he was also inspired by Frank Woolworth’s continent-wide success, half a century earlier, in creating hundreds of profitable Five-and-Dime stores. Reid’s own retail experience, dating back to his first job as a teenager, had been in department stores rather than in discount, but his mother had worked behind the luncheon counter at a Woolworth’s in downtown Montreal.