What I Built with ABco (2018–2024)… and Why It Closed
Editor's note: ABco operated from April 2018 to May 2024. All locations are closed. This is my personal reflection as the founder after the company's closure.
TL;DR: ABco grew from a tiny pop-up with six pairs of shoes into a multi-location sneaker and streetwear business that sold over 40,000 pairs and paid out over $3M to consignors. We had big wins: a flagship in West Edmonton Mall, a community built on trust, and moments I’ll never forget. But in the end, external threats (a robbery) and internal ones (cultural unravelling) caught up with us. What I learned is simple: protecting a business isn’t just about locks and insurance; it’s about people, culture, and trust.
An 18-Year-Old with an Idea
I didn't plan to run a sneaker business. In March 2018, injuries ended my hockey career, and I had to reinvent myself fast. The first idea was a paywalled club called The Authentics Club. It lasted one month, one subscriber, Rylin. That's how I learned a paywall doesn't fix scarcity.
So, I rented a city-subsidized pop-up (~$50/month), threw open the doors with six pairs of shoes, four Supreme tees, and about $125 worth of vintage clothing. It wasn't pretty, but it was real. The moment it clicked was consignment: earn trust within the community with their grails; do the work to authenticate; price fairly; and then pay out on time. By October 2018, we had over $100,000 on the floor, and other Edmonton stores had adopted this consignment model. Then came a $14,000 robbery, and the pop-up closed. It took me 7 months to find someone to take a chance on me and to sign a retail lease to a 19-year-old kid; Amith was that guy.
From there, it was a climb
Fort Road (Edmonton): Opened July 2019; niched down into sneakers and some apparel, started phasing out vintage.
COVID (Mar 2020 → May 2021): The lights were off for months. We tried to move online, but the brand was built on in-store energy.
124 Street / Jasper Ave: July–October 2021. Rebranded to Authentics Boutique. Even more sneaker-focused.
West Edmonton Mall: November 2021. We rebranded to ABco and opened beside luxury brands. The opening line was insane, one of those "we did it" moments.
Kelowna: September 2022.
We kept the money simple: two Shopify Capital loans, about $700k in Sept 2022 (repaid in ~6 months) and ~$400k in Apr 2023 (still being paid down when I sold). No credit cards. Rent scaled as we did: roughly $50 (pop-up) → $2,500 (Fort Road) → $3,800 (124 Street) → ~$35,000/month (WEM) + ~$4,200/month (Kelowna). You can see how quickly debt can pile up when your systems begin to fail… This starts with the people you put to work within these systems. Lesson: People work within systems; a single wrong fit can start pulling at the threads until the whole system begins to unravel if not addressed.
What we did best
Trust. To my knowledge, we never sold a fake pair of shoes. We built processes, leaned on a strong network, and later used CheckCheck when volume spiked. A few counterfeit clothing pieces slipped through... when they did, I tried to make it right (View Here).
Payouts & volume. We paid consignors every Monday and consistently achieved a 30-day sell-through rate of ~80% on core items.
Community. We sold 40,000+ pairs of shoes. If you're reading this in Edmonton, you or someone you know has probably bought a pair of shoes from ABco. Along the way, we served everyone from everyday collectors to Alphonso Davies, Josh Beauchamp, members of the Edmonton Oilers, Team Canada World Juniors (2022), MLS and the CFL.
The beginning of the end…
I had two great partners in sourcing and pricing discipline for a time (Jul 2021 - Sep 2023). A final partnership helped us secure the WEM location, bringing our total to four. However, as we scaled, our culture began to drift. The new partners’ family-first mindset (Family above: work ethic, morals, accountability, etc) didn't fit; standards slipped, accountability turned into arguments, and the in-store vibe I’d built the entire company on slowly disappeared. This didn’t become evident to me until we opened our fully renovated WEM location (~$950k spent on the build-out) in July 2023. I remember thinking to myself, “Where is everyone? I had a bigger opening on Fort Road 4 years ago.” Something was seriously wrong, and I had no idea what… After taking my head out of the sand, I realized what was happening.
I tried to make employment changes to the family in place at ABco. I was blocked. I tried assigning them to different, higher-titled roles that we didn’t really need, but kept them on payroll because… family is first and more importantly, they wouldn’t impact the culture I was trying to bring back. Also blocked. Finally, I tried to buy out my partner. The offer was countered: "...anyone can run this business, I’m buying you out." I was told. That's when I knew it was over for me; they couldn’t see the writing on the wall. I accepted a buyout and I exited in January 2024.
After I left… and why ABco closed
After my exit, Kelowna closed shortly thereafter (although it had been barely breaking even since it opened… personally, I saw it as a cheap form of brand awareness with a great GM that people seemed to love). West Edmonton Mall closed in May 2024. ABco filed for bankruptcy sometime in the spring of 2024. I wasn't in the room for those decisions, but from my seat, it was clear: misaligned incentives, irreplaceable staff that weakened standards, and short-term decisions over long-term health at the highest level of leadership. In consignment, cash flow is a trust machine, and if the culture corrodes, then payouts slow, intake hesitates, and the system grinds to a halt. You can still show strong top-line days or even months while the engine starts seizing underneath.
If I'm honest about what I got wrong
I didn’t fully understand that what you build can be taken from you in more ways than one. Sometimes it’s obvious, like a robbery or competitors copying your ideas. At other times, it’s quieter, like when the wrong people pull at those same threads of culture until they finally come apart. Insurance can protect you from the obvious, but not from that. I believed culture didn’t need daily work… that you could set it once and move on. That was wrong. Culture, like business itself, only grows if you keep building it. Ultimately, what I realized was that protecting a business isn’t just about locks and insurance; it’s about guarding the threads of culture and trust through daily work with the right people.
What I'd do again
I'd still open day one with six pairs and a rack of vintage.
I'd still over-invest in consignor and customer experience.
I'd still take the shot at WEM... but not fast-track it with partners that don’t align with company values.
Three lessons I’d hand to any consignment founder
People are the whole game. The wrong hires, or the wrong partner, will kill a good business from the inside out.
Trust compounding > capital compounding. If consignors trust you, you’ll never be short on inventory or opportunity.
Choose partners for values, not just opportunity. Alignment early prevents chaos later.
What I'm proud of isn't just the stores. It's the 100+ jobs we created, from full-time careers to very first jobs. Over $3M paid to consignors, ranging from one-off sales to sellers who made a living from our brand. The people who lined up, and the DMs who said, "Thank you for helping me find my grail." It's walking into one of the world's largest malls and seeing the glass, the lighting, the shoes, and thinking, “this is making Edmonton a better place.”
A thank-you
If you ever bought, sold, lined up, worked a shift, or sent a message… thank you. If you were a consignor who trusted us with your grails, thank you. If you watched us grow from a six-item rack to a flagship beside luxury brands, thank you. I learned more in six years than I could have at any university. ABco didn’t last forever, but what it gave me will. Lessons in people, culture, and trust that I’ll carry into whatever I build next.
—Nate
Timeline
Apr 2018: The Authentics Club (subscription) → pivot after 1 month
May–Oct 2018: St. Albert pop-up (break-in; ~$14k loss)
Jul 2019–Jun 2021: Fort Road, Edmonton
Feb 2020–May 2021: COVID shutdowns
Jul 2021: Two partners join Nate
Jul–Oct 2021: Jasper Ave (Authentics Boutique)
Oct 2021: Final partner joins Nate and 2 other partners
Nov 2021–May 2024: West Edmonton Mall (ABco)
Sep 2022–Jan 2024: Kelowna
Sep 2023: Two early partners bought out
Jan 2024: I sold my stake to the final partner and exited
Spring 2024: ABco closed WEM and filed for bankruptcy
This site is an independent archive maintained by the founder. It isn't affiliated with the final ownership of ABco.