ABOUT OWEN STORE
Wanting to contribute to the world with a more inclusive vision and bring greater value to customers, employees, and communities, Bavaan is an e-commerce company using leading platforms such as Magento, Shopify, Bigcommerce, and Saleor. We are expanding our areas of work related to full service delivery. Our customers are located all over the world, including the US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Japan, China, and India.
1916
THE BEGINNING
Samuel Avrith, together with his wife and 10 children, opened his first store on Mount Royal Street in Montreal selling factory samples with yellow tags which he bought from various shoe manufacturers in Quebec. His concept was so successful that he became widely known to his customers in Montreal as "Mr Yellow" and he named his store simply "Yellow"!
1946
ERNEST AVRITH
Ernest Avrith, the ninth of 10 children, began working for the family business. With his fluent knowledge of French and natural retail instincts, he soon rose to the level of senior supervisor.
1958
PASSING THE FLAME
Ernest Avrith bought out his father and took over the chain of 17 stores. The Yellow stores were well known for selling a range of basic footwear for the entire family with full service. His understanding and dedication to keeping prices low to better serve the consumer during that period, lead to a rapid expansion to 43 stores throughout the Province of Quebec. Like his father, he was famously known as "Mr Yellow".
1969
SELF SERVICE
After realizing that the traditional merchandising and full service selling model was no longer sustainable to achieve his aim of providing his clients the “best for less”, he reorganized his store concept to a self-service model, in which the consumers could serve themselves.
1986
THE CHANGE BEGINS
After realizing that the traditional merchandising and full service selling model was no longer sustainable to achieve his aim of providing his clients the “best for less”, he reorganized his store concept to a self-service model, in which the consumers could serve themselves.
1981
NEW GENERATION
After completing his study at Trinity College, Cambridge University in England, Douglas Avrith, joined his father Ernest at Yellow, where he passed a 5 year apprenticeship, until he became the Director of Operation for the Company.
1992
YELLOW HAS CHANGED
With a new slogan «Yellow has Changed… Change for Yellow» the company launched a massive publicity campaign. Along with the new campaign, four new Yellow concept stores opened simultaneously. Modeled as a shopping mall of different boutiques offering a wide range of quality products for the entire family. The new approach was extremely popular and captivated a completely new generation of Quebec families.
100 ANNIVERSARY
In 2016, Yellow celebrates its 100 year of continued operations in Quebec. Statistics and research show that Yellow is one of the most admired companies in Quebec and has the highest rate of visitation for quality footwear of any store banner in the Province of Quebec; attesting to its continued success...
“At Yellow we are simply doing what we do best since 1916”.
We would like to thank you for your 100 years of support and strength, and for all the good years ahead of us to come!