Archambault

Archambault, a Quebecor Media company, is the largest music retailer in the province of Quebec, as well as a major retailer of books, DVDs, periodicals, musical instruments, sheet music, games, toys and gift ideas. Its e-commerce site, www.archambault.ca, is the largest French-language retail site in North America. The company’s Zik.ca site also earned the distinction of being the world’s first French-language music download service. Archambault currently operates 16 stores in Quebec.

History

Archambault was founded in 1896 by Edmond Archambault, who had originally wanted to open a sheet music store. In partnership with J.A. Hurteau, a major retailer of pianos, instruments and music accessories, Mr. Archambault opened his first store on the corner of Saint-Hubert and Sainte-Catherine streets in Montréal. In 1919, Edmond Archambault became the store’s sole owner, and in 1930, he decided to move to the corner of Berri and Sainte-Catherine streets, where he built a seven-storey building, which he dubbed the “House of the Future”. To this day, this building remains the home of Archambault Group’s head office.

In 1947, Mr. Archambault’s sons, Rosaire Sr. and Rosaire Jr., took over the reins of the business and pursued their father’s dream of substantially expanding the range of cultural products offered by the store. In 1995, Archambault was purchased by QUEBECOR MEDIA and became the flagship of QUEBECOR’s Archambault Group Inc. division.

With 16 stores in Quebec, Archambault is the province’s largest music retailer, as well as a major retailer of books, DVDs, periodicals, musical instruments and sheet music. Paragraph Bookstore, an English-language bookstore, and Camelot-Info, a computer bookstore, are also part of Archambault Group.

External links

* [http://www.archambault.ca/ Official Archambault web page]