With one of the widest selections of shopping venues in North America, Toronto is a shopping haven. Malls, department stores and boutiques stock a huge variety of brands and products from all over the world, and if you are not sure where to start for what you need, the Yellow Pages – available online at http://www.yellowpages.ca – is a good place to start.
While some stores are found in strips of commercial land along main routes, many are located in plazas or malls. Plazas are small groups of stores that are contained in the same building with entrances to the parking lot outdoors. Malls are an indoor shopping experience with stores opening into long corridors without separate access to the outside. Box stores are large retail outlets owned by a single company that often offer a better selection and sometimes better rates than smaller outlets. Often box stores are located in groups, almost like a plaza but far larger and spread out.
Most shopping malls in Toronto have one or more anchor stores, usually a large department store or box store. The majority of stores in shopping malls are clothing and fashion stores, although there is usually a food court where shoppers can stop for lunch and rest their feet.
Operating hours for most stores in Toronto is 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Mondays to Wednesdays, 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, Thursdays and Fridays, and 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM on Saturdays. While some private stores choose to close on Sunday, the majority of stores in Toronto keep Sunday hours from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM.
