Trends For Men carries on a family tradition
WATERLOO REGION — When Sam Visram and his extended family were forced from their Ugandan homes in 1972, they left virtually everything behind.
Outsiders in their own country, thanks to a decree from dictator Idi Amin that ordered all ‘foreigners’ — including Ugandans of South Asian descent like the Visrams — deported, the family arrived as refugees in Canada.
They’d abandoned their homes, their businesses, their possessions. But one of the few things they could bring with them was their retail experience.
Sam, a brother and their father had run successful textile and shoe stores in Uganda. And within a few years of their arrival in Canada, three of the brothers were able to open a clothing store in downtown Kitchener in 1977.
They would move and expand before going their separate ways, running separate stores under the Just For Him banner. Today, Sam and his son, Moe, run a pair of stores under the Trends For Men name, at Kitchener’s Sunrise Shopping Centre and at the St. Jacobs Outlets.
Sam is the first to admit it wasn’t always easy, especially in the early years. “For 10 years when I started, I struggled,” he says. And every year, his wife and his parents encouraged him to keep going.
“My future was business. My life was business,” Sam says.
In 2005, shortly after Moe joined him in his business, then located at Kitchener’s Highland Hills Mall, they moved to the new Sunrise location. The new store offered a fresh start, with a new name and a focus on a more upscale product line. A few years later, they opened the Outlets store, and have since moved to a larger space there.
The Sunrise store is 2,700 square feet, while the St. Jacobs location is 3,600 square feet. Trends For Men has nine employees in total, including Moe’s sister, Zahara, who’s based at the Outlets.
“She’s worked retail with my Dad in the past. She knows the business,” Moe says. “She takes care of it like it’s her own.”
The two stores have different price points and cater to different clienteles. The Outlets sees more casual walk-by traffic and tourists; Sunrise is more of a destination and has a more regular clientele.
But quality and service are a common thread.
“One thing I learned from my Dad — you can’t be pushy when you’re helping customers,” Moe says. “That’s not the type of mentality that we have here.”
The Visrams consider it a success “if you’ve truly been happy with what we’ve sold you.”
In the past, when Sam was running his Just For Him store at Kitchener’s Highland Hills Mall, he could be more competitive on price. But with online sales and deep discounts transforming the retail world in recent years, they had to shift their focus.
After they opened the Sunrise shop, “we kind of traded up with our price points,” Moe says, with middle to higher-end men’s dress and casual fashion, accessories and footwear. They also offer made-to-measure custom suits, shirts and tuxes.
Now 36, Moe has been helping his father since his youth, working part-time in his early teens. He got more involved in his 20s, and saw the writing on the wall when renovations at Highland Hills meant their days there were numbered. It was time to find a new home.
Shortly before the Sunrise location opened, they were told they’d soon have to vacate their space in the mall. “The timing had just worked out,” Moe says.
Having been close to the business for so long, Moe realized just how hard his father had worked, and had seen what he’d needed to do to get to that point. “Thankfully, my Dad allowed me to implement some ideas that I had as well, which kept me even more interested.”
At the age of 72, Sam still comes in to the stores five, sometimes six days a week. “I can’t live without the store,” he says.
“Myself, I consider that I was a lucky person to establish my business. We are in the best country in the world.”