I went to Giant Tiger for the first time — These 6 surprising things sold me for good
It's not the prices 💰
Giant Tiger Canada finds.
I have a confession to make that might get my Canadian citizenship revoked: until my most recent visit, I had never set foot inside a Giant Tiger. Not once.
Growing up in Vaughan, Giant Tiger wasn't particularly close to me, so it never made it into my regular shopping rotation (after one visit, I can see it is a broke teen's dream). In my head, I created a fictional version of the store, and, truthfully, it wasn't pretty.
I was imagining something between a dollar store and a discount bargain rack. Endless racks of cheap clothes, random household knick-knacks, and aisles of endless chocolate bars. But in the name of good, honest journalism (and an assignment from my editor), I finally went.
And I'm a woman enough to publicly admit on the internet that I was wrong (about a lot).
From an entire grocery department to trendy home goods, there was much more happening at Giant Tiger than I expected, and these are the six things that surprised me the most during my first-ever visit.
They're pretty on trend
"Trendy" was not a word I associated with Giant Tiger before walking in. Cheap? Sure. Practical? Absolutely. Trendy? Not particularly.
Then I found the candle section.
There were espresso martini candles, as if taken from TikTok's viral videos of 2023, plus beautiful glass pumpkin candles already lining the shelves in mid-August.
Apparently, Giant Tiger is ready for a season before I am.
The store had tons of those little pieces that make it easy to participate in a trend without spending a fortune on something you might be sick of in six months.
It's a grocery store too
This was probably the biggest shock for me. I was under the impression that Giant Tiger was primarily clothes and knick-knacks with maybe some dry food thrown in.
But to my pleasant surprise, this is a grocery store.
There are pantry staples, frozen foods, snacks, drinks, produce, and a mix of recognizable name brands alongside Giant Tiger original store brand — that can rival even the store-brand tycoons like No Name and President's Choice.
Giant Value is more of a traditional budget line, covering everyday pantry staples and household basics, while Marché has a more elevated selection of foods.
At the top of my list in the Marché lineup are mac and cheese bites, General Tso's chicken, and cheddar-and-bacon-stuffed baked potatoes.
I love that there are essentially two tiers of store-brand food depending on whether you’re trying to save as much money as possible or want something a little more fun.
And yes, you can also buy produce there.
Who knew? Apparently, everyone but me.
The beauty section is full of dupes
My Giant Tiger education did not end when I left the store.
Did everyone else know there's an entire corner of the internet dedicated to Giant Tiger finds? Because there is.
I quickly discovered videos of shoppers testing Giant Tiger beauty products against their much more expensive counterparts, and some of the dupes are not exactly subtle about what they’re duping. The packaging will have you doing a double-take.
There are enough Giant Tiger beauty-dupe discoveries online to send you down a very long rabbit hole of "this versus the real thing" comparisons, and in an economy like this one, this is the kind of media I'm looking to see.
My next mission? Finding the Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask dupe.
Giant Tiger is Canadian
Well, starting off strong with perhaps my most embarrassing revelation: Giant Tiger is in fact Canadian.
How I missed this, I'm genuinely not sure. In retrospect, it's not a secret by any means. There are "Proudly Canadian" decorative wall signs throughout the store.
Apparently, I just wasn't paying attention. Giant Tiger was founded in Ottawa’s ByWard Market and has grown into one of the country’s best-known Canadian-owned discount retailers.
The easiest way I can describe it to another Giant Tiger novice is that it feels a little like a Canadian Walmart, except smaller, and with an attempt at pleasing their customers lingering in the air.
The kids' section won me over
I do not have children, and yet somehow I still found myself lingering in the kids’ clothing section.
The clothes are adorable. There were cute matching sets, seasonal pieces, and plenty of basics that didn't immediately scream "discount store."
It was also one of the sections that really made Giant Tiger's whole concept click for me.
You could theoretically come in for groceries, pick up clothes for your kids, grab some household basics, find a birthday present, and leave with a decorative pumpkin you absolutely did not need.
They have brand names too
Going into a discount store, I expected a lot of brands I had never heard of.
And yes, Giant Tiger has plenty of stuff from its own label and bargain alternatives, but it also carries a surprising amount of recognizable name-brand products.
That's especially obvious in the grocery aisles, where you'll find familiar snacks and pantry staples alongside the cheaper alternatives, but it extends into other departments too.
That was probably my biggest misconception about the store as a whole.
I thought Giant Tiger's appeal would be finding the cheapest possible version of whatever you needed. Instead, it's a haven that somehow manages to please everyone. You can grab the recognizable brand you already buy, try the cheaper alternative, or wander off and discover something completely unrelated that you didn’t know Giant Tiger sold in the first place.
After 28 years (age drop alert 🚨) of somehow avoiding Giant Tiger, I finally understand why it has its loyalists.
It’s a strange little combination of grocery store, department store, and dollar store, and I mean that affectionately.
Considering there’s apparently been a Giant Tiger practically under my nose this entire time, I have a lot of lost shopping time to make up for.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.