Loblaw unpacks a new Box in Hamilton

Loblaw is opening up another “Box” store, this time in Hamilton.

The No Frills spinoff was introduced in Calgary just over a year ago. A second pilot opened last summer in Windsor (sign pictured).

Box stores tend to be around 10,000 sq. ft., which is about half the size of a standard No Frills, and they carry about a third less merchandise. They also don’t do any traditional advertising, such as flyers.

READ: Loblaw thinks outside the "box" with new banner

Hamilton’s Box, which was to open in that city’s east side on Friday, will offer customers “a convenient shop for products they need on an everyday basis at low prices,” Loblaw spokesperson Kristen Hunter told the Hamilton Spectator.

Experts have compared the Box to the hard-discount, limited assortment stores run by German grocers Aldi and Lidl.

Aldi is already well established in the U.S. and Lidl has long-term plans to open up there. About a decade ago Lidl looked at coming to Canada but for undisclosed reasons did not.

Both chains have been especially adept lately at stealing market share from big-chain conventional grocers in markets such as Australia and the U.K.

In the U.K., for instance, Lidl's sales up are 20% in the past year and Aldi's up are 32%, according to an article published in that country's supermarket trade journal, The Grocer. Both chains' market share is small however, at less than 5%.

In an interview with Canadian Grocer earlier this year, Loblaw officials said they were still fine-tuning the Box, talking with customers in order to understand what changes needed to be made. At the Box in Windsor, for instance, the produce section had been expanded and a greater emphasis was put on fresh.

That tinkering appears to be still underway in Hamilton, notably on the branding side. The logo has been slightly altered using a combination of red, yellow and blue colours rather than black and yellow.

And the store is simply called "Box". The "By No Frills" subtitle used at earlier stores was dropped because "we wanted to establish Box as its own unique banner with its own unique offerings," Hunter explained to Canadian Grocer in an email.

There are no plans at the moment to open any more Box stores this year.