Ce Soir Lingerie - News, articles and cooperation

https://winnipeg-chamber.com/chamber-blog/150-stories-ce-soir-lingerie/

Written by Autumn Fehr, RRC Polytech, Creative Communications Intern

3-minute read 

As we celebrate our 150th birthday, The Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce is excited to celebrate our rich history by sharing the stories of our members. We hope that by sharing these stories, we can inspire and engage current and future members to continue building a strong and vibrant business community in Winnipeg. 

Join us for the next 150!

When she was young, Carol Yaschuk struggled to find bras that fit comfortably, and she spent a lot of time and money purchasing incorrect bras. When she finally found good bras in her mid-30s, they were expensive. Carol went through two pregnancies with no nursing bra that fit her. Not having adequate support when nursing inspired her to share good bras with others. And it’s where her mission started.

Ce Soir Lingerie, a size-inclusive boutique with an extensive selection of lingerie, swimwear, loungewear, and more, was founded in November 2001 to find more affordable, stylish bras for everyone.

“Being a ‘busty’ kind of girl, I shopped for plenty of bad bras and spent a lot of money and time doing so, and being disappointed my whole life,” said Carol. 

Carol has worked in women’s retail clothing since she was 16.

“I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I wanted to have my own store, but I couldn’t figure out what the commodity would be,” said Carol.

When she and her business partner opened their shop in 2001, they faced challenges. They didn’t have much money to spend on products because they spent their money on building their store.

“It took a long time for it to develop and grow, but we had really great neighbours on either side of us, so we had lots of walk-in traffic from them, and the business grew quite fast,” said Carol.

At Ce Soir, they are dedicated to fit. Carol and her team are information providers, educating people on everything they need to know about bras and giving them options to choose the right one. 

“We would rather have them walk away empty-handed than with a bra that wasn’t great for them,” said Carol. 

Ce Soir has a small selection of about 30 suppliers they work with, each with their niche clientele, but there are about seven brands she does the most business with. 

In 2002, shortly after she opened the business, Ce Soir Lingerie joined The Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. Carol said The Chamber was a great networking opportunity when she was starting up. Joining The Chamber allowed her access to appropriate resources and information. During the pandemic, The Chamber helped her learn about the options available to business owners. When learning to write grant applications, Carol said The Chamber inspired her and gave her guidance.  

Being a Chamber member for over 20 years has allowed Carol to keep up-to-date with the economy and gauge how the community was doing. 

“As a business owner, it is crucial to connect with other business people and know what’s happening in the community and our country,” said Carol. 

Carol said they are grateful that everybody in Winnipeg shopped locally and have continued to shop locally, keeping the money in our economy instead of going elsewhere.  

The business has grown through ups and downs and varying economies for the past 22 years with the community’s support. 

*Images provided with permission from Ce Soir Lingerie and taken by Malina Tillberg (product photos) and photo of store staff taken by Rollan Temporosa. 

At the end of the day, it’s all about your business. You want to see your business succeed and grow, and that’s why we’re here.

Providing a platform to help local businesses in Winnipeg thrive is what we stand for – whether it’s advocating for you, connecting you with the right people at the right time or setting you up with the support and programs you need to grow.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/2023/10/30/small-businesses-face-massive-fallout-as-ceba-loan-deadline-looms

By: Carol SandersPosted: 7:16 PM CDT Monday, Oct. 30, 2023

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The Manitoba government is calling on Ottawa to extend deadlines for federal loan repayments after business insolvencies in the province in August jumped 40 per cent since the start of the year.

Premier Wab Kinew joined fellow provincial and territorial leaders to ask Ottawa to give small businesses until Dec. 31, 2024, to pay back Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) loans currently due Jan. 18, in order for a portion of it to be forgiven.

“The same loan that was once a lifeline during the (COVID-19) pandemic is now threatening to sink the small businesses that are only just getting by,” says the Oct. 20 letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and signed by all premiers.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Ce Soir Lingerie owner, Carol Yaschuk (right) and store manager, Malina Tillberg face dire circumstances after running a successful small business for over 20 years.

“Nobody seems to realize the massive fallout from this,” said Carol Yaschuk, owner of Ce Soir Lingerie, who is staring down a deadline to pay back $40,000 in the coming weeks.

The Winnipeg shop is one of 898,271 Canadian small businesses that received loans of up to $60,000 to help them survive during pandemic shutdowns and restrictions, with $20,000 forgivable if its repaid by the deadline.

Yaschuk said she’s scraping together all her working capital to pay pack $40,000 on time, otherwise the entire $60,000 she borrowed through the CIBC is rolled over into a loan at around five per cent interest.

Yaschuk, who started her business in 2001, said there’s been ups and downs and it would be doing just fine now if not for the pandemic shutdown that forced her to temporarily close the doors and the impacts that followed.

“I’ve borrowed so much money since the beginning of COVID, it’s ridiculous,” she said.

Before the federal government rolled out CEBA, she needed to borrow through the bank to survive. “I still have these loans and can’t get rid of them.”

With an economic slowdown, rising costs and higher interest rates, Yaschuk said she is struggling but knows she’s not alone.

Her shop of eight employees is one of nearly 250,000 small- and medium-sized Canadian businesses that face potentially going bankrupt in the next year, with between one and 500 job losses per business, industry reports say.

In Manitoba, 19 per cent of small businesses surveyed said they are actively considering either bankruptcy or closing their doors unless further changes were made to the CEBA repayment deadline, said Brianna Solberg, Prairie region provincial affairs director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

“For a lot of us, it may appear the pandemic is over, but the repercussions are long-lasting and small businesses have a long way to go to recover,” said Solberg from Regina.

“Only about half of them are back to their normal sales levels. Many of them have found customers are slow to return and are spending less on average. That’s just a reflection that inflation is squeezing everybody,” she said of the survey of membership.

“A lot of them continue to deal with pandemic-related debt and stress.”

In August, the latest numbers from the national Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy showed a 40 per cent increase in business insolvencies since the start of the year in Manitoba. Eight declared insolvency in August, reaching a total of 28 for the year thus far.

There were 34 in 2022, and 28 in 2021.

University of Manitoba economics Prof. Gregory Mason said seeing the number of active businesses paints a clearer picture.

Statistics Canada data for the Winnipeg census metropolitan area show strong pre-pandemic growth in the number of active businesses — increasing to 18,000 in December 2019 from 17,500 in March 2016, he said.

After the global pandemic hit in March 2020, the number of active businesses plummets to 16,500 by June 2020. That number climbed steadily to just over 19,000 in December 2022, before tapering off.

“The slowing of the number of businesses is the number to focus on,” Mason said Monday.

“What we’re seeing after the pandemic is a really strong recovery in the number of businesses, and part of it may been CEBA loans and it was fairly easy to get money,” he said. “What’s biting now is interest rates — regardless of the CEBA loan forgiveness.”

Meantime, Yaschuk is calling for total forgiveness of the CEBA loans, saying her business (which she said provides an essential bra service) was forced to close at the same time big-box stores were allowed to open and rake in record profits.

“If the federal government needs the money back to that degree, they should be exponentially taxing those companies that were able to be to open during the COVID lockdown while we were so penalized — all of us.”

Small independent businesses in Manitoba that experienced “some pretty severe restrictions compared to multinational corporations” were at an “extreme disadvantage,” agreed Solberg.

The CFIB has campaigned for people to shop local, saying 66 cents of every dollar stays within the community, compared to just 11 cents spent shopping at a multinational business.

She applauded Kinew and the others for calling on Ottawa to postpone the CEBA repayment deadline to the end of next year. “It was great to see all premiers sign the letter.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

After 20 years of reporting on the growing diversity of people calling Manitoba home, Carol moved to the legislature bureau in early 2020.