For cold-weather adventure enthusiasts, the latest Canada Goose retail locations, such as the one in Toronto, are like a slice of heaven. They can put aside all their worries and insufficient gear, slip on some high-end Canada Goose down jackets, and venture into a totally unique experience. They enter through The Crevasse that looks and sounds like they are treading on crackling ice, between two sheer cliff faces. At the end of this hallway, they can proceed on to the Gear Room, to slip into new boots, gloves, and hats; the Cold Room (kept at –4° Fahrenheit), which tests the gear to its utmost degree and dumps snow from the ceiling; or the Elements Room, where they can watch interactive videos of remote, forbidden, and glamorous locations.
Coming back to reality, they might find that the jacket was so comfortable, they need it for their daily lives too. But to get it, they must place an order, rather than leaving with the garment in hand; Canada Goose only maintains enough inventory on hand to enable shoppers to try it while on premises. The delivery option is rapid though, reaching customers the same or next day, depending on the timing of their order.
Although only a few of these conceptual stores currently exist, Canada Goose appears confident that such options will grow in popularity and demand. Although in Canada, the expensive gear is widely popular and often necessary to combat deeply cold conditions—as an executive notes, “cold weather is part of our national identity”—the company also wants to expand its international operations, including to regions of the globe where people would rarely need goose down slippers or wolf fur–lined mittens. In those places, the key is to establish the brand as an experiential, evocative, exciting option, whose recognizable logo people will be proud to sport.
Such branding elements also might underlie Nordstrom’s efforts at stores without inventory for people to take home, and they constitute the founding principle of Bonobos. But for Canada Goose, the focus is particularly on establishing an adventure-oriented image to compete with international brands like Patagonia or North Face, where customers already can go to grab a jacket on their way to out of town to go camping.
Unlike those competitors though, Canada Goose’s reputation rarely evokes environmental sustainability. Instead, critics complain that the use of resources such as goose down and animal fur are problematic and irresponsible. Thus alongside lines of fans waiting to experience the new concept stores, PETA protesters often can be found, recommending that people avoid the brand and its stores, whether with inventory or not, altogether.
Instead, consumers appear to be embracing it. The company’s growth and revenues have increased notably in recent years, and as its offerings become more integral to consumers’ experiences, in stores and on mountainsides, it appears poised to expand even further.
Discussion Questions:
- How are some of the new Canada Goose stores different from a traditional bricks-and-mortar store?
- How would the financial ratios discussed in Chapter 6 be different for such a new Canada Goose store compared with a traditional bricks-and-mortar store like Patagonia or North Face?
- What other retailers are experimenting with similar store and merchandising design strategies?
Source: Courtney Reagan, CNBC, December 4, 2019. See also Tom Ryan, “Canada Goose Brings Snow but No Inventory to New Concept Store,” Retail Dive, December August 9, 2019