By Warren Goulding
Even with an impressive 2,500 stores in 48 countries, it seems many folks struggle with the name.
“Yisk, Wisk and Jisk” are among the better attempts at putting a name to the face of the multi-national retailer of Scandinavian home furnishings that has arrived in Duncan.
Regardless of the enunciation, officials at JYSK are pronouncing last Saturday’s grand opening an overwhelming success.
“The energy is so great,” commented store manager Robbie McMaster as she helped customers find what they were looking for. “We’re having a lot of fun and it’s very exciting,” added the Lake Cowichan resident who joined JYSK after a 10-year career in retail management.
Shoppers began lining up in front of the Duncan Mall store before dawn, hoping to cash in on the special offers and check out the newly renovated 33,000 square foot store.
“I think the community of Duncan is very excited about JYSK opening here,” said director of marketing Lynne Williams.
“JYSK has an excellent selection of home furnishings, décor, duvets, and pillows, mattresses, towels, curtains and rods and much more. JYSK has designer looks for much less and we appeal to a wide range of tastes and budgets.”
Rod Daniel of Sooke, who got up early to make the trip to Duncan for the opening and was first in line, would seem to agree.
“I like the deals and everything about JYSK,” he suggested even before district manager Lawrence Kumar told him his purchases that morning would be free.
“The products are good and the prices are really good,” said Daniel who claimed his place in line at 6:30 a.m.
The Duncan Mall store is JYSK’s second store on Vancouver Island. The Nanaimo outlet has been open for more than a decade.
Duncanite Pauline Eakins waited patiently near the front of the line, anxious to put her $25 gift card to good use.
“I’ve shopped at the one in Nanaimo and I like the prices,” said Eakins who was hoping to buy blankets and boots.
JYSK has been working with the mall management for about two years to convert what was mostly public space into the spacious store.
“There was a lot of planning with the landlord and our architects as we de-malled the space we are in, so a lot of planning went into demising the space to maximize the newly created space to its full potential,” Williams said.
The Nanaimo store, slightly smaller than the new one in Duncan, opened in 2003. There are 61 JYSK outlets in Canada including 10 in British Columbia.
Staffing the new store was expected to be a challenge but McMaster says a job fair and an intense day in which she conducted 42 interviews paid off.
“When the dates were finally released for the start of expansion, time was of the essence. I had a short time to hire up to 40 staff,” explains McMaster.
“I reached out to WorkBC who provided me with offices and conference rooms throughout my hiring process to have job fairs and to interview candidates. With the assistance of my [assistant store manager] and [operations manager] we completed two job fairs back to back.
“I hired a good quantity of my staff during this process and continued to do one on one interviews for the next few weeks. In total we have 35 staff on board, currently 10 of which are full-time employees. At first, I was worried about the employee pool in the Cowichan Valley, however, I was able to find a great group of individuals to join our team.”
And, in case you’re wondering, the most common pronunciation of JYSK seems to be Yisk, although a more Danish treatment sounds more like Yousk.
“We honestly don’t mind what you call us, as long as you call us again and again,” a company spokesperson says.