Joining us for the second of several episodes recorded at the Wizeline remote podcast studio/beach cabana at Mandalay Bay during Shoptalk 2023 is Carrie Baker, President of Canada Goose, the performance luxury brand that has grown to more than 50 of its own stores, along with an expansive online and global wholesale presence.
Joining us for the second of several episodes recorded at the Wizeline remote podcast studio/beach cabana at Mandalay Bay during Shoptalk 2023 is Carrie Baker, President of Canada Goose, the performance luxury brand that has grown to more than 50 of its own stores, along with an expansive online and global wholesale presence.
In a wide-ranging interview we learn about the brand's legendary history and its unique positioning in the luxury retail world. We get Carrie's perspective on the complementary role of direct-to-consumer and whole partnerships in driving growth while maintaining a memorable and authentic experience. We learn the origin of Canada Goose's truly remarkable "Cold Rooms," the role of innovation, and how the company works to assure authenticity. We also discuss its recently launched resale program.
As usual we kick-off with a fast-paced review of the week in retail news, including the US Census Bureau's monthly sales report which suggests more storm clouds on the horizon.Then we un-pack Amazon CEO Andy Jassey's Annual Letter, which points to expected continued economic headwinds but a commitment to figuring out a physical retail strategy for grocery. Then it's a quick jaunt to the Wobbly Unicorn Corner touching on Walmart's unloading of Bonobo's, Caspers fire sale of its Canadian business, and Rent the Runway's continued profitless prosperity. We close calling BS on UBS's blaming e-commerce for the predicted shutting of 50,000 stores.
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About Carrie
Recognized as a dynamic and collaborative leader, Carrie oversees the global commercial business, as well as Marketing, Experience, and Insights. Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, she is responsible for driving the company’s growth and customer engagement. In her previous role as President, North America, she established a high-performance team and led the region’s significant business acceleration. Carrie previously held the roles of Chief of Staff and Chief Communications Officer, helping lead the company through critical initiatives including its successful IPO and development of its industry-leading Sustainable Impact Strategy. Prior to joining Canada Goose in 2012, she was a Senior Vice President at a North American communications agency specializing in coaching executives and building the brands of some of North America’s largest retail, technology and consumer goods companies. Carrie was named WXN Top 100 Most Powerful Women Canada in 2019 and serves on the Board of Directors of Trillium Health Partners Foundation.
About Us
Steve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his website. The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior contributor and on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel here.
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global eCommerce Leaders podcast, and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Be sure and check out Michael's latest venture for fun and influencer riches - Last Request Barbecue, his YouTube BBQ cooking channel!
Michael LeBlanc 00:06
Welcome to Remarkable Retail podcast Season 6, Episode 14, presented by MarketDial. I'm Michael LeBlanc.
Steve Dennis 00:11
And I'm Steve Dennis.
Michael LeBlanc 00:14
In this episode our second in a series of fantastic interviews conducted at Shop Talk in Las Vegas in the Wise Line Podcasting Studio our guest is Carrie Baker, President of Canada Goose.
Steve Dennis 00:25
Yeah it was so I felt like we were in one of the Canada goose cold rooms that they haven't their storage because it was quite chilly in the beach cabana slash remote podcast studio but, but that didn't interfere with it being a great conversation you were the wisest person in the room because you had your Canada Goose toque on, I was I was there shivering did not think to bring my Canada Goose gear to Las Vegas. Anyway yeah, it was great, great conversation and, and a lot of fun to do it beachside.
Michael LeBlanc 00:57
We are counting down the days until we're together again in person microphones at the ready in Barcelona at the World Retail Congress. Get yourself a nice discount with our offer code in the show notes. Now you're doing a double tap and Spain as well, right, because you're speaking at ShopTalk Europe. You love just coincidence right, Barcelona twice in a couple of weeks. Now you're there with a bunch of our friends of the pod, and Alyssa Gonzales and Chris Mamitak, Ken Pilot. Congratulations, by the way, to Ken on the launch of his new podcast. Deb Weinswig, of course, because she has mastered somehow the art of being everywhere. All the time. So you'll be on the stage there as well, yeah?
Steve Dennis 01:36
Yes, I will be on the stage the last day in the morning talking about outstanding retail experiences in store and the person I will be talking to there's actually gonna be another person we're about to announce, but it's not quite public. I'll be speaking with Isabelle Aberman, who's the Global Retail Director of Camper, which is a shoe brand, which has hundreds of stores mostly in Europe, but there's several in the US and other places as well. So yeah, it should be, should be a great time.
Michael LeBlanc 02:08
Fantastic. Now, let's get into the news. There's a bit of economic news, but there's a lot of retail news. So let's get right to the retail news. First of all, US monthly sales reports; up almost 3% x gas. Break that down for us like because it's there's, as you would often say mileage would, will vary.
Steve Dennis 02:26
Yeah, for sure. Well, first of all, we have to do our standard disclaimer that all the news stories have the headline that retail sales are down, because they focus on the largely irrelevant month over month, month number.
Michael LeBlanc 02:38
Yeah, or that or Twitter, you know, we should read, because it'll just save us a bit of time, right, you're just,
Steve Dennis 02:43
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 02:43
Every time somebody posts that we should just.
Steve Dennis 02:45
Exactly, exactly, but actually, in the more relevant year over year number, yeah, up 3% or 3%-ish, which is less than inflation, but yeah, you really have to go below the surface to kind of understand the dynamics and really what's relevant to our listeners here, because very few people are in every one of these product categories, right. So just really quickly, the leader is, in terms of year-over-year sales growth was grocery, which was up 5.3%, health and personal care, which has been a real leader for I don't know, I want to say close to two years now I think, up 7.1. Non-store, which is sort of pure play e-commerce, not exactly but the best proxy form for digital sales up 12.3, and eating and drinking establishments up 13%.
Steve Dennis 03:33
So, we've talked a bunch about the shift from a way from products to services. So, you can definitely see it there in terms of the laggards and also this kind of is a pretty consistent picture for several months here, consumer electronics and appliances down 10.3, furniture down 2.4, home and garden stores down 3.5, clothing stores down 1.8, department stores down 1.2. The thing that's interesting about consumer electronics and appliances in particular, furniture I guess as well, is that you know, these big-ticket purchases have been down for a while and we generally think of that being largely this kind of pull forward of demand that occurred in COVID.
Steve Dennis 04:14
As well as just kind of a general slowdown in the home market. It'll be interesting to see when that starts to perhaps reverse because you know you're not like it's not like you're gonna pull forward 5, 6, 7 years of demand. So that's one to watch to see when that starts to pivot but it hasn't happened yet and then the ones that were kinda you know, meh, sporting goods which has been pretty strong over the last couple years up only 3 and then general merchandise stores. So this is where Walmart target some other stores will, will be in there up just 2.4%, so quite a wide, wide range maybe a little bit more dispersion than we've seen in past months as I recall, but I think you know, it definitely points to somewhat of a continuing deceleration, but you know, definitely this this shift more to, to services and, and, you know, maybe generally speaking, not keeping pace with inflation.
Michael LeBlanc 05:06
Well, it's a big week in the retail world, or at least our analysts type retail world with the release of the letter to investors from Amazon, which is always a must-read kind of thing to a little geeky to say, but they're always interesting always. You know, it's a letter that reflects much more broadly than on the performance of one retailer or one company. It is a kind of a bit of a statement of retail and other trends. So, Mr. Jassy released his annual letter, what, lots of interesting tidbits to say the least what, what jumped out at you.
Steve Dennis 05:39
Yeah, so this is, this is Mr. Jessy's second one. These letters were started in 1997 and I would encourage people to go take a look at it, it's fairly in depth. They also include Bezos' original letter from 1997 at the bottom of the page, just scroll all the way down. I also heard him interviewed on CNBC. So, got a couple, a couple of data points here, but I would say, you know, the overall message was, and I believe Amazon's earnings will be out in about 10 days, I think, from when this episode airs. So, the key was maybe telegraphing some things that that might be in the earnings, but essentially, the big, the big message was macro headwinds continuing to affect their business overall, but he was definitely signaling that corporate customers were pulling back on cloud computing, spending and of course, Amazon Web Services is a huge and profitable division for them.
Steve Dennis 06:36
So, it was kind of telegraphing that that might be a steal would be growing, but maybe not growing nearly as quickly as it has in the past. In terms of consumer spending, because AWS is of course b2b, still seeing headwinds, they particularly talked about a lot of trading down behavior. You know, that was something we've talked about in my predictions that there's this definite trading down behavior as, as customers are trying to, or consumers are trying to stretch their dollars more, he made some general comments about where he expected growth to come from in the future. So, AWS, of course, the ad business is one that, you know, we've talked about a bunch of times, continues to grow quite rapidly.
Steve Dennis 07:19
He did say that international was going to continue to be an important area for them. That's an area where they've been growing at an above average rate, but they've also been losing a ton of money. So, maybe he needed to say that, you know, we're not, we're not slowing down there and then from a retail standpoint, the two interesting things were how he talked about grocery, and the commitment to grocery and the importance of having a physical presence, but what he pretty much said was that AmazonFresh is not it, at least in its current form. He also made some interesting comments about Whole Foods, which I thought were, to a certain degree, were obvious but he pretty much said Whole Foods is not going to be the engine that's going to get them to be successful in the mass grocery space, and basically said that Whole Foods is making progress, but you know, really, that's not the growth engine.
Steve Dennis 08:13
And I wondered whether he was signaling that perhaps Whole Foods is expendable. You know, we talked about in the predictions, my thought that perhaps Whole Foods gets spun off. I mean, he certainly didn't say that specifically, but I felt like he was setting the table a little bit there and then really, you know, healthcare and pharmacy as important growth areas as well noticeable in its omission was no discussion of Amazon's style. They've opened two stores, there is, both of them opened last year and as far as I know, they have not announced any additional locations, and there was no mention of it whatsoever in the letter.
Steve Dennis 08:51
I guess the last thing I'll just point to, again, perhaps pretty obvious, but he made some pretty strong statements, particularly in the CNBC interview about how they have been using, they've been using large language models and machine learning pretty extensively for a number of years, but he said like a bunch of other senior leaders have talked about that. He really sees the potential of generative AI and related technologies really fundamentally changing just about everything about the customer experience in the years to come and that, you know, they were already using it extensively, they would be using more of it and they have an opportunity to really leveraged it not only on their right their website, the consumer facing website, but also delivering it to clients through AWS. So I think he was trying to get a little bit of credit there for how, how involved they are in the AI arena already and how important it would be going forward.
Michael LeBlanc 09:46
All right. Well, let's get to the wobbly unicorn segment and there's lots of news in the wobbly unicorn segment. Let's start out with Bonobos.
Steve Dennis 09:54
Yeah, well, we're recording this on Friday, and I woke up to the news that Bonobos has been sold to WHP which is a holding company that owns the Toys R Us license and a bunch of other things and express for only $75 million and that was actually a pretty shocking number.
Michael LeBlanc 10:11
That’s a haircut, right.
Steve Dennis 10:12
That's a huge haircut. Walmart bought Bonobos five or six years ago, I guess now, for a reporter, I think $310 million. So yes, that is a very, very significant markdown, but also in the scheme of things given that Bonobos has I think it's around 60 stores, they have some wholesale partnerships as well as what they sell online. I mean, that is not, I'm assuming, not even a multiple of one-time sales. So, I assume the business must be quite negative on a cash flow basis, which I've kind of known or suspected. I mean, it was certainly when Walmart bought them, but yeah, that was a pretty shocking number and I think at this point, you know, given that Walmart's closed down Jet and have sold off a couple of other things, I mean, they're, they're experimentation into pure play online retail, I mean, I think they've yielded a bunch of benefits, but in terms of it is a investment strategy, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 11:11
They got some good people out of those, out of those things, but it's hard not to see them as right now is anything more than a distraction to the to the core business, the core growth business. Speaking of haircuts, Casper sells their Canadian business to Sleep Country, which is a very great retailer here in Canada for $20.6 million. So, to put that into context, sleep country bought a startup called Endy pre-pandemic, which is another mattress in a box for 80 million and you'll also find Purple mattresses in their showroom. So, they bought them for $20 million, which is, you know, nickels, basically and so what do you make of all that?
Steve Dennis 11:54
Well, I mean, again, I try not to be too hyperbolic about it when talking about a disrupter apocalypse, but some of the most high-profile brands and both Bonobos and Casper, certainly were ones that five years ago, we're kind of considered on the very short list of brands that could be multibillion dollar brands are really getting sold at fire sale prices. I mean, I can't quite equate Casper’s prior valuation, you know, other than saying, well, Canada is probably about 10%, you know, the rule of rule of thumb, but yeah, to me, that's a that's a shockingly low number and I think it really suggests that Casper, which is now private, is really looking to, to focus and stop the hemorrhaging of cash, I assume. I mean, again, not a lot of details on the specifics, but given that price, I would assume it's a, it's a business. I mean, it's really just buying the assets and not buying the business per say.
Michael LeBlanc 12:46
Buying the rights to the brand, basically, it's like a licensing deal for $20 million. You know, I had, a funny story, I was, I was hosting a panel at a small conference, here in Canada, just pre-pandemic and it was right when Casper is really hot, right, and we were just talking about they're disrupting the whole sleep industry, and they're gonna be huge and I looked down, as one of my panelists was talking and in the front row, there's these people scowling, like, you know, they were not enjoying the content. I later learned they were from Sleep Country, and they're like, yeah, this is not, this is nonsense and turns out a couple years later, they were right. Let's talk about some other earnings that came out. Let's talk about Rent the Runway earnings.
Steve Dennis 13:27
Well, another wobbly unicorn here, here's a, here's a company that has fallen from a very high valuation. They reported just this week, that the good news part, I guess, because you know, this is a business where they rent people don't know, they rent, higher end fashion items, basically for for special occasions and the like and so that was a business that was very, very challenged during the peak of the COVID times for sure. So, they've been starting to run some good sales increases. So, they were up 18% year over year, one of the things that really struck me was how small a business this is.
Steve Dennis 14:00
It's, it's $270 million in sales, which honestly is like, you know, a good Neiman Marcus store and a Nordstrom store together, like that's not a massive business in the scheme of things. So, that was a little, I hadn't really focused on that. They have their active subscribers growing. So those are positive trends, but their net loss, which was cut is still quite significant, I mean, a negative 35% operating margin, and they've set a goal for reducing their cash consumption, which has been quite high by 50% over the next year, but this is a business that's really, really pretty, you know, quite far from breaking even and I think their stock is down like 95% or something over the last year or so. So, we're continuing to see a lot of, a lot of struggles from these ones, high flying brands, to, to get to profitability, even when they've got positive sales growth.
Michael LeBlanc 14:57
Last thing I saw this click-baity headline and I, you had to react to it the UBS predicting 50,000 stores to close blaming e-commerce by 2027, I mean, any quick comments on that?
Steve Dennis 15:09
Well, two things. One is UBS, I think it was two or three years ago, predicted that 80,000 stores would close by, I think, this year and that was not even remotely close to being correct. They, I think they missed that by about 70,000. So, one can question.
Michael LeBlanc 15:29
Random number generator.
Steve Dennis 15:29
Nothing against UBS, but they do not have a very good track record of predicting store closings. The other thing I mean, I do think quite a lot of stores will close, I don't have any real ability to predict the exact number, but I think it is not really because of e-commerce, it is because of the collapse of the middle, you know, which the stores that are struggling, for the most part are not struggling because of e-commerce. Number one, nothing prevents them from participating in e-commerce.
Steve Dennis 16:02
So, you know, if, if JC Penney is struggling, it's not because they don't have JC, you know, JCpenney.com, right, it's because their value proposition isn't, isn't strong enough and their real estate strategy is in, you know, their stores aren't where people are buying, you know, the lack of e-commerce for, say TJ Maxx, has not, you know, kept TJ Maxx from peeling off billions of dollars of sales from department stores. Yeah, primer, you know, so. So, you know, e-commerce, generally speaking, does suggest you need less space, but I think it's much more about the mediocrity of the value proposition where the real estate is located and you know, in the US, we're still greatly over storage. So, some of this is an ongoing, you know, 20 years plus capacity reduction, but anyway, I'm willing to bet that that number will not be nearly as high as they predict.
Steve Dennis 16:06
All right now, just before we get to our great interview with Carrie Baker from Canada Goose, a quick thanks to Carrie, Alex and Courtney from Canada Goose for being open to the experience of a different location for our podcasting studio and now let's hear from our presenting sponsor.
Michael LeBlanc 17:08
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Michael LeBlanc 17:34
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Michael LeBlanc 17:56
Carrie, welcome to the Remarkable Retail podcast here at Shop Talk in the Wise Line Podcasting Studio. That's a bit of a mouthful. How are you?
Carrie Baker 18:03
I'm great. Thank you for having me.
Michael LeBlanc 18:05
Well, thanks so much for joining. I mean, I’m really looking forward to this. I've been a big fan of the brand for a long, long time. I wish we had a few more of the brand's items here on the somewhat colder day.
Carrie Baker 18:15
Today we need those.
Steve Dennis 18:16
The remote cold room.
Michael LeBlanc 18:20
You got the cold room here. Maybe you could sponsor the podcast next year and just outfit the podcasts up, you'd be a great outfitter.
Carrie Baker 18:25
Me and mother nature. We're close, I asked for this weather.
Michael LeBlanc 18:28
Yeah, sometimes we are blessed. Well, let's, let's, let's jump right in. Tell us a little bit about who you are, your background and what you do for a living. Sure.
Carrie Baker 18:36
So, Carrie Baker and I'm the President of Canada Goose and I've been with the brand for, now, almost 11 years and so I started actually, Canada Goose was a client of mine. So, I was on, I came up through the communications world and Dani, our current chairman and CEO, he was my client and one day convinced me to come to the dark side, internal, in house and it's been tremendous. It's been a rocket ship.
Michael LeBlanc 18:59
Yeah.
Carrie Baker 18:59
So, 11 years ago when I started, we were less than 100 million. I remember celebrating that milestone, like it was the biggest thing we were ever gonna see and last year, we crossed a billion so firmly established as a performance luxury brand, which is kind of a fun space to be in because there's not a lot of other brands there.
Michael LeBlanc 19:15
Yeah, well, you know, more than a familiar name for many but not everyone and not everyone knows your scope and scale and you know, you've got stores around the world now. So, so give us, give listeners a 411 about Canada Goose.
Carrie Baker 19:27
So, Canada Goose as I said, we're a performance luxury brand and that's a space that we have carved out for ourselves. It firmly fits in Functional, we, you know, you've seen our jackets, you've seen you're wearing our tuque. You've seen what we do, we make, we make products that work but they're of the highest quality. They're made in Canada, high craftsmanship, high touch, manufacturing and that dictates have very luxury experience and so we're kind of in the sweet spot that really there's not a lot of other players to beat so we get to create our own story and what does that matter, how does that show up. Whether it's retail, whether it's online, whether it's at a wholesale partner, so we've really taken that by, you know, by the horns and really gone for it and made it turned it into something that nobody's really seen before there, if you think about it, there's not a lot of Canadian luxury brands that are coming out of Canada and so that's a really unique space that we get to define.
Michael LeBlanc 20:16
Well, it's a unique space overall, whether it's coming out of Canada or not, right, and, you know, from the heritage of the blue jacket in the polar expeditions to you know, the top movie sets around the world and now you have a mix of wholesale and direct to consumer. So, how many stores in how many countries?
Carrie Baker 20:31
So, today, we're gonna end this year with 51 of our own stores. So yeah, that has been over the, we opened our first store in 2016. So it's been, we're still very early in our journey, but it's been a fast journey on the DTC growth and that is definitely key to our growth as a brand.
Michael LeBlanc 20:46
Right on.
Carrie Baker 20:46
So, 51 stores around the permanent stores, of course, we have pop ups and temporary stores and activations, but you're right, we had a really interesting start of, you know, being an authentic brand, that probably only a handful of people in the North Airline pilots up in Nunavut knew about to then showing up on movie sets around the world.
Steve Dennis 21:02
So, I've got some, some background, the luxury industry, I was at Neiman Marcus for, for many years. So, I have some sense of kind, of the magic and the storytelling, of pulling together a luxury brand. You mentioned a performance luxury brand. So, that is an interesting way to think about brand positioning. So, can you just give us a little bit about how you think about all the ways you pulled together this remarkable branding, the whole experience, just like what's the secret sauce to making it all work together, particularly now that you've moved out of that more niche category to not a broad market, but I brought our market?
Carrie Baker 21:37
Yeah, it's a great question and I think there isn't one thing, I think if there was just a playbook that every company would do that there. You know, lots of brands want to be luxury, but for us, it starts with product, you have to, no luxury company goes out there and just makes stuff and we take that to heart because we started in the performance and functional, we've never lost that. So even though you know, price points move up, even though we're our adjacencies change, even though the style might evolve, we make things that work, they're going to protect you in an environment, whether it's wind, rain, cold snow, they have to work and so when you that is something that we absolutely hold ourselves to no matter how we grow, no matter what new category we get into. That is something that it's a promise that we will deliver to every customer, every time.
Steve Dennis 22:20
And how do, you know one thing that's, somet-, I don't know if you've heard this, but sometimes when we think about luxury brands or historically about branding, you know, there's the sense of there's the functional part of it, and then kind of everything else, and I'm exaggerating a little bit to make a point, but kind of everything else is image, you know, any, the $50 handbag carries around stuff just as well as the $2,000 handbag, right, but because you bring in this performance dimension, does that change the way you think about marketing or the way you think about how you go to market?
Carrie Baker 22:50
It does, because we're it's, and it goes back to our values. So, one of our values is authenticity. So, we know who you are. We know where we come from, we know why we exist and I think that makes, you make different choices, whether it's product, whether it's how you go to market, whether it's where you go to market, we're not trying to be something we're not and so I think that is something that comes from the top, we talk about it all the time, we don't cut corners, we don't make cheap choices, we don't sure you're gonna get a t shirt, is it the best t-shirt in the world, it better be, it doesn't necessarily mean it needs to reinvent the t-shirt category, like we have with jackets or with footwear.
Steve Dennis 23:24
Yeah.
Carrie Baker 23:25
But it has to be high quality, has to be made in the best place, it has to have the craftsmanship and the quality of material. So, that is something that's just unwavering in our commitment.
Steve Dennis 23:35
Since you've been with the brand for a while, and you've grown so much. From a leadership standpoint and a culture standpoint, has it been challenging to carry that culture through as you get more spread out and you just have, you know, 10x, the number of employees, I imagine you had five or six years ago?
Carrie Baker 23:51
Absolutely. I wouldn't say it's a challenge. It's a, it's a focus for us, for sure. It comes from the top, Dani, our CEO, is very much about culture. He knows the business, you know, it's his grandfather that started this business. He's done every part, well he hasn't been a seller, but he's done almost every part of the of the company and but for him, it's all about this must be a great place to work and so again, when based on who he hires, the way we hire, the idea that back to what I was saying about authenticity, we're not trying to be something else, but it is a big focus for us to make sure that like we're developing, especially as we came out of the situation that we all came out of with pandemic. It wasn't, it was a conscious effort to make sure that we're bringing people in, they understand our values, they have an opportunity to live our values. Even though we're all remote or separate. You might find different flavors in different countries or different markets, but at the baseline, a candidate, this employee is very similar around the world and there's something special and magical about that.
Steve Dennis 24:49
Well, I think also, I find sometimes cultures, they build on when you have great success. It's fun, to be part of such an exciting story and the growth and the innovation and, and all those kinds of things. I wanted to go back to, you were talking about your direct to consumer strategy and there's been so much I know you're just getting to the conference here, but it seems like over the last few years, but in particular already, at shop talk people are talking about is D2C a business, is it a channel, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera and I'm curious the evolution of getting more into your own stores, I assume really dialing up your online presence as well. Can you just kind of take us through that journey, how you're thinking about it going forward and I guess the tradeoffs between you know, it's not wholesale versus direct to consumer, right, so how do you think about that at Canada Goose?
Carrie Baker 25:38
The way we think about the channel, whether you're gonna call it an ecosystem, channels, a business, we believe that they have distinct, meaningful and complementary roles to play. So wholesale, obviously as a manufacturer until 2014 and we only went through wholesale.
Steve Dennis 25:53
Right.
Carrie Baker 25:53
And they helped build our brand. They were instrumental, and they still are today and we see that being a very key part of our business, but as we are introducing, online, we started in 2014, as an e-commerce business, then in 2016, added our first two stores, Toronto, New York, and then since then have obviously grown immensely, but it's, you're right, there are tradeoffs, but it's not one versus the other. It really is that complementary, and depending on the market that you're in, it may be different. Where is demand, where's awareness. So obviously, you can imagine a brand like Canada Goose has very high awareness in Canada.
Carrie Baker 26:25
So the opportunity to grow DTC faster than in say EMEA or in Asia where, you know, they didn't know us as well, at the time, you have an opportunity that's different. So, it might be just on a different time scale, but I would say wholesale is always going to play a meaningful role for us, it just needs, we need to know why we're with them, it can never just be a volume play. So either they're giving us geographic reach, or they're introducing us to a customer that we don't see for our own channels, or we haven't been able to attract yet or they're giving us an opportunity and license to test a new product, because they already had, you know, for footwear, they haven't have people coming to shop for footwear, that gives us an understanding of what the customer is looking for.
Carrie Baker 27:00
How can we play in that space, so we'll always be meaningful. It's just our focus, as most brands, I think, especially in luxury, when you look at what the consumer wants, we want to be able to be available, how and when and where-
Steve Dennis 27:13
Sure.
Carrie Baker 27:14
the consumer wants and so that's online, that's also omni channel. I know, we've been talking about that for years, but it really, it's table stakes, but we're, you know, we're just starting on that and that to me, so it doesn't really matter whether e-commerce is growing as fast as stores or vice versa. It's about ‘how do we make sure that we're delivering on that experience that we want customers to have’.
Steve Dennis 27:32
Sure, but it's also I would imagine, it's a huge advantage to be able as a coming out of a manufacturing origin to have a direct relationship with the end consumer, you know, way back when, when I, when I worked in manufacturing, and I would just say casually talking about our customers, people would say, 'Oh, you mean like consumers like no', our customers, our customers are not the consumer, like we care about creating demand from the end consumer, but our customer is grocery stores or whatever it might be. So, I imagine that that's giving you data maybe that you don't have and a different way of interacting with, with customers. That's quite powerful.
Carrie Baker 28:07
100%. It's powerful and I think the one thing that we have been always lucky at, not lucky, fortunate I would say is that even though as a wholesaler, or even as a manufacturer, that sold only to wholesale, we did things that engage the consumer, because we had to build the demand to show wholesalers that we were a brand that consumers wanted.
Steve Dennis 28:25
Right.
Carrie Baker 28:25
And so I mean, I'm going back way, way, way, way back, but I mean, Dani, again, our CEO, he used to put outfit seed people that were in cold places, so that when you walked, you know, if you were walking up to a hotel, and the Bellman was everyone else was freezing, and he's wearing a Canada Goose jacket, it builds demand in a different way. So, we were fortunate that we always understood our customer is the consumer and so that we built it that way and of course, it gives us lots of data and understanding what they're buying, how they're buying what they want to see next from us.
Steve Dennis 28:51
Yeah.
Carrie Baker 28:52
Where do we have permission to play, but it also, I think the one thing especially in luxury is, we know our story best was you might have the best wholesale partner in the world and they're doing a great job, but they're not going to carry your full assortment, they're not going to present it in exactly the right way for us because they're looking at their consumer and customer. So, for us, it's we're trying to we're trying to redefine or define a different type of luxury and we think that we're the best at that, so that's why there's interest in building out our stores and when you come to a Canada Goose store it's a very different experience than finding us at Nordstrom or another one of our partners.
Michael LeBlanc 29:26
Harry Rosen or wherever, yeah.
Carrie Baker 29:27
Right, exactly.
Steve Dennis 29:28
I was showing you before we got on mic that I love to feature your cold rooms and often in my, in my keynotes because I think it's and, and the reason I do it, I mean I just love it. I think it's a cool idea. But I love it for two reasons, one is to me it's, I talk about Remarkable Retail, which is literally something you know, that's distinctive, relevant, and people talk about it. So, it's one of those things that I think just creates a lot of buzz and you know, morality or whatever, good for the gram, etc. But the reason I in particular include it is because it's also a really great way of demonstrating the value of the product, it's not just a gimmick. It's a very tangible thing. So, I'm curious in general, the process for innovation at Canada Goose, but in particular, how, if you were willing to share how that idea came about and what it's meant for you?
Carrie Baker 30:13
Yes, I love it. So cold rooms and snow rooms now that we have, some that produce snow overnight and people, people, you know that people are coming from climates and environments where they've never touched and seen snow to so to come into one of our rooms and to have that experience, you're right, yes, it's good for the gram, they have some fun, they take some pictures, but that is a memorable experience that you're not getting another, especially not luxury, you know, typical traditional luxury, you can be very cold, very austere and pompous. Whereas we are the opposite we want. We want it to be inclusive, although we want to be exclusive as a brand, but it's not exclusionary.
Steve Dennis 30:48
Exclusively, inclusive.
Carrie Baker 30:49
Inclusively exclusive.
Michael LeBlanc 30:49
There we go.
Carrie Baker 30:49
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 30:49
I like that.
Carrie Baker 30:50
So, we want people to come in, we invite them into our store, you're greeted warmly, when you come into the, into the door, even if you have to wait. You know, God forbid, you have to wait that one of our doors to get in, you're going to be greeted by somebody, they're going to ask you what you're here for, they're going to set that all up and then they're going to walk you through the store, you're going to see the Inuit art collection that we have, you're going to be invited into a cold room.
Michael LeBlanc 31:13
Or the heritage jackets up on the wall or whatever, right.
Carrie Baker 31:15
That's right, storytelling, because we're an experiential storytelling brand and so back to the, the idea was that we used to do, again, as I said, I came from the communications world and so we used to do these events where you'd get to test and get to try whether it was a rain room. So, it really was an authentic way to bring it into the brand for anybody whether it was a foreigner, whether it was investor, to again touch and feel that is a very powerful experience when you if you've never been truly warm and you put on a candidate use heavyweight down jacket, like that blows your mind. It really and so we wanted to have that aha, feeling that moment, as we went into the retail and do it in, you're right, not a gimmicky way, not in a schlocky way, we wanted to do something that was real, they really people make decisions based on how they feel in that room. They're standing in there for, whether it's footwear, whether it's a knitwear now, jacket, they have so many choices, but they get to make that choice, and leave the store feeling very confident in their purchase.
Michael LeBlanc 31:22
I wanted to tap into your communications background, I'm going off script here a little bit. So, I spent a bunch of time on Hudson's Bay Company and, and we used to think a lot about the connection between Brand Canada and Hudson's Bay, because they were very closely aligned. So, how do you think about that, I mean, you know, Can-, Brand Canada different parts of the world trades higher or lower on any given day. Like, you both benefit from all the associations with Canada, you know, cold, and they know how to handle the cold, but at the same time, there is potentially some downside and being so closely named or, how do you think about that?
Carrie Baker 32:43
It's been, we talk a lot about it, it's been, by far in large, a positive thing for us. I think there's also it's not just the cold, it's the idea of the Canadian, so forget the country in the environment, which is natural, and everyone gets that, but it's also the warmth of Canadians, the personality, that welcoming nature of Canadians and so that reputation around the world has by like, foreign large, been positive. Sure, you're always looking at it going, okay. Is this going to be an upside or downside, yeah, but again, generally the people forget the, you know, politics and all that.
Michael LeBlanc 33:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carrie Baker 33:20
But generally, people understand that, you know, they've never met a Canadian that they didn't like, so it's been pretty good. I mean,
Michael LeBlanc 33:26
Steve, is that true?
Carrie Baker 33:27
Yeah.
Steve Dennis 33:27
I'm not gonna say anything on mic.
Carrie Baker 33:28
He might say something different after today.
Steve Dennis 33:29
Yeah, that’s right. Off mic we'll, we'll chat.
Carrie Baker 33:32
Oh, but I think the other part of that is because we're also it's not just Canada Goose as in the name, it's made in Canada, right, that is a
Michael LeBlanc 33:38
Yeah, you're deeply entrenched into the brand.
Carrie Baker 33:40
Deeply entrenched and people understand, especially from, it's interesting, where people understood the value of made in Canada was not Canada first. It's externally so we will be going to trade shows in Europe where people understood, ‘Oh, yeah, okay.’ So, they think of the great white north, they think about Canadians, craftsmanship, of course, they know cold. So, the idea that this jacket would be made in Canada. Beautiful instantly got it.
Steve Dennis 34:04
Not to be too much of a digression, but don't you think there's also a point where people don't take brands so literally, like, I always, I always say, Pottery Barn.
Carrie Baker 34:13
Right.
Steve Dennis 34:14
Sells neither pottery, nor barns,
Michael LeBlanc 34:16
It's not in a barn.
Steve Dennis 34:16
It's not in a barn, Crate and Barrel. You know, there's names that you may know, have. I mean, there's an origin as to why they were originally called that that made some sense, but over time, like, I've never I've said this to people, and they're like, I've never thought about that or Banana Republic, you know, I mean, there's lots of these names where the literal name not only isn't relevant, but like actually doesn't make any sense
Carrie Baker 34:37
They're not trying to find meaning in it.
Steve Dennis 34:38
Yeah, but, but clearly, they have established brands that people understand and you know, you like, or you don't like but, but they're powerful brands. So, I do think there's a point at which it becomes so powerful, that it is the overall experience and nobody's sitting there to say, well, Canada, yes or Canada, no.
Carrie Baker 34:55
No, exactly. And especially when you think about geographically as we've grown people, I don't think People are walking into a store in Nanjing and thinking, oh, Canada, right, it's just they know Canada is the brand and they have certain associations and they fall in love with our product or experience, but they're not actually thinking.
Steve Dennis 35:10
But then for the people that spend the time to think about it, it makes perfect sense.
Carrie Baker 35:13
Absolutely, absolutely.
Steve Dennis 35:14
And there's a lot to leverage, now.
Michael LeBlanc 35:15
Let me flip that narrative or flip the script a little bit. So off mic was saying, I had the pleasure of being on a panel with Harris from your team and we didn't talk about too much on that panel, but we were thinking about counterfeit product and how you authenticate product, talk a little bit about that, because the downside of being so popular is that people start to kind of try to knock the product off and I know, from the past, you've spent a lot of time and you know, mental energy protecting your IP. So, I'll just share a little bit of that for us.
Carrie Baker 35:45
We do and I think it's one of the times when, you know, imitation is not the greatest form of flattery. Yeah, we do we take it very seriously and I think that's no matter what brand but particularly like brand does everything in your experience and so if people are seeing, you know, fakes out there, and it just starts to erode at the brand and so we do a lot of education with the consumer to say this is a fake, this is what you can go on our website, either slide or there's tools, there's verification tools.
Carrie Baker 36:11
So, we want people to have confidence in what they're buying and what, know the signs of what that is and then we also spend an inordinate amount of time working with government officials, training. Yeah, just training them also, it's education, but training them on when they're seeing labels come from China to Canada, no we ship from Canada to China or vice versa. So, it's, it's something we do, we want to make sure that we're protecting, lots of brands do it, I think the thing for us is that you have to watch it, but you can't, you could, you could go broke trying to protect it.
Michael LeBlanc 36:39
Chase every single one.
Carrie Baker 36:39
Right, and so you have to be strategic with it, where, what are the points of entry, but it's yeah, we spend a lot of time significant time.
Michael LeBlanc 36:46
I mean, there's some practical like, if it's $100, Canada Goose jacket online, it's probably not
Carrie Baker 36:50
It's not for real, man.
Michael LeBlanc 36:51
It's not the real thing, too good to believe.
Carrie Baker 36:53
No, and that's part of our education too, right to be talking about, we don't go on sale, if you're seeing a candidate whose website that looks exactly like ours, but there's big price discounts and that is not Canada Goose and so it's that education in different markets that we go to that we try and make sure that people understand what they're buying.
Michael LeBlanc 37:09
Let's talk about a new initiative you've launched, which is the resell or resale market. So, tell us about that. Why, why now, is there a momentum that you perceived, I'm sure, you're very customer focused, I'm sure customers have been asking for it.
Carrie Baker 37:20
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 37:21
So talk about that.
Carrie Baker 37:22
I'm very excited. Thank you for asking, because it's my favorite thing, CG Generations. So Canada Goose Generations, we launched in, at the end of February, or sorry, at the end of January, with just online in the US market and so that's our chance to really live our purpose and it's yes, of course, it's a sustainable way to give access to people and unlock some new products, not new, new to them products that the you know, we are very exclusive, you can't get us our products everywhere and so for them to find a special piece, and only have one of one. It's exciting. I think we're now; we've been watching the market for a while watching what people are doing while they're looking at third parties, you know, the best years, the real-reals of the world.
Carrie Baker 37:59
And I think, again, back to the idea that it's a way for us to engage and present the best story versus somebody else doing it. So often we get questions on, why didn't you just go through somebody else, I think for us, it's powerful to have that whole ecosystem to be able to engage with people to understand why they're buying refurbished goods and I think you'll see, I'm not speaking, I'm sure you've heard this before, but it's also a very heavy Gen Z, they care about those things, they care about thrifting, they care about not adding new "waste to the environment" and so for them to be seeing us and finding something that's great that a value maybe at a little bit a lower price point. That's not why we're doing it, but-
Michael LeBlanc 38:41
Sure, sure.
Carrie Baker 38:42
For them, it's a little more accessible, and it just speaks to their values and so I think that's a huge part for us of why now. So, I'm really excited. I think this can be a very powerful tool, how to engage with them, how to engage with them differently, seeing how customers are buying. I think lots of people don't know what the, what the end state is going to look like, but you have to try and so.
Michael LeBlanc 39:00
It's such an interesting initiative and I'll pass the mic back to Steve in a second, but I mean, for years, I was like, I want you guys to tell me which dry cleaners are authorized to dry clean my jacket and finally you posted that.
Carrie Baker 39:12
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 39:12
And now you know, my jacket, which is probably 10 years old now, it looks brand new, right. So, thank you for doing that.
Carrie Baker 39:17
You’re welcome, it’s just for you.
Steve Dennis 39:18
It might be time for a new one though, Michael, I think.
Michael LeBlanc 39:21
Nah, well, maybe, but I-
Carrie Baker 39:23
Well, this is the inter-, it's very interesting and this is both the power but the interesting part about a resale is like our jackets are our products, but particularly our heavyweight down jackets. They're made for a lifetime, they come with a very powerful warranty and so it's not like you're you need a new one because it's not it stopped functioning-
Steve Dennis 39:42
Right.
Carrie Baker 39:42
Or it stops looking good, but it's the opportunity to get into something new to maybe try a different color or a different pattern without sort of starting from scratch, but it's I'm, I can't. I could talk about it for a long time because I'm really excited about it.
Steve Dennis 39:54
So, that makes me think one other question before we start to wrap up is what is the role of fashion, you know, I was just thinking about, you know, when you sell such durable investment quality, you know, however you want to think about that. That's awesome from the customer standpoint, and there's lots of great things about it, but at the same time, getting that frequency, so do you think about fashion as a way to do that, do you think about product line extensions waited, like, what, what's that next their of growth, I guess?
Carrie Baker 40:23
It's, it's not, we would never say fashion. We're definitely not a fashion company. We don't do fashion shows. We don't have a new collection that you say, oh, here's the spring summer collection.
Carrie Baker 40:32
And I think that it, it's obviously purposeful, but it's very powerful for us to have a business model where lots of your products 70% of our products, carryover season after season, how we think about newness is, of course, we want to add freshness, we want to give people a reason to come back, and store come look online. Colors, prints. We, when you look at some of our iconic pieces that are heritage pieces that have been around for a long time, we'll work with a collaborative partner, and we'll launch a new version of it. It's still the same jacket. We're not reinventing the wheel, but-
Steve Dennis 40:32
Right.
Steve Dennis 41:03
Yeah.
Carrie Baker 41:03
It's got a crazy print.
Michael LeBlanc 41:04
What did you do with the Inuit, the Inuit collection?
Carrie Baker 41:07
That's a little bit different. With Atigi. Yeah, Project Atigi, but yeah, more. This is more on the colabs front, Atigi is a way to bring people in from a different angle and a different reason, I love that project. It was one of the things we launched a couple of years ago and it's so near and dear to my heart, but so newness, we definitely think about freshness, but category extensions, absolutely. That's a key part of our growth strategy for the next five years is introducing new categories faster. So, we, our first category that we launched in 2012, 2013, was lightweight down and that has, is now a very meaningful part of our business and now as we've introduced knitwear, apparel, footwear.
Michael LeBlanc 41:44
Rain jackets, yeah, yeah.
Carrie Baker 41:45
Rain jackets, wind jackets, and so that's because people love our brand, and they know that what we're going to make is going to work for them.
Steve Dennis 41:52
Right.
Carrie Baker 41:52
They ask us and listen to them a lot of, 'okay, you kept my body warm, how about my feet, I know you guys will deliver on warmth'. So that's also a way for us to extend and bring people back into the store.
Steve Dennis 42:04
Sure. Makes a ton of sense. So, anything else before we let you go anything else on the horizon, any news you want to break or the things that you're working on that we haven't covered yet?
Carrie Baker 42:15
Re-commerce is, the brand new for us. So again, I'm very excited to see how that, that goes. We're looking at launching that in Canada in June and July the summer and I think it'd be very interesting to see how people come back to the ecosystem. The other new thing that we're working on this fall is launching travel retail and so we know our customer, they travel and they travel a lot and that's a luxury consumer and so that's a brand new area for us to, how do we get people when they're in transit, rather than before they leave or when they arrive at the destination and so that'll be a really, that'll be a fun project, starting with sort of international hubs where people are traveling the most and so that's a new venture that will happen in the fall.
Steve Dennis 42:52
Well, plenty of exciting things going on, obviously. Thanks so much for joining us.
Carrie Baker 42:56
Thank you.
Steve Dennis 42:57
Canada Goose has been, I love talking about the brand, because I think it's you know, it's one of those brands for you know, from my perspective, that just really knows, and you've said this, who you're about, who the product is for, what makes you remarkable, and you've got that discipline, but at the same time willing to push the edges a little bit as well. So, thanks so much, Carrie, for joining us. Hope you have a great rest of Shop Talk, and we'll see you out in the world.
Carrie Baker 43:21
Appreciate it.
Michael LeBlanc 43:22
If you liked what you heard, please follow us on Apple, Spotify, your favorite podcast platform, and be sure to drop us that five-star review. New episodes of Season 6, presented by MarketDial. We'll show up each and every Tuesday. Be sure to tell your friends and colleagues in the retail industry all about us.
Steve Dennis 43:37
And I'm Steve Dennis, author of the bestselling book, ‘Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption’. You can learn more about me, my consulting and keynote speaking at stevenpdennis.com.
Michael LeBlanc 43:52
And I'm Michael LeBlanc, consumer retail growth consultant, keynote speaker. You can learn more about me on LinkedIn and you can catch up with Steve and me at the World Retail Congress April 25 in Barcelona, until then, safe travels everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
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