Canada Goose Holdings Inc. managed to soar above the pandemic and post its biggest sales quarter ever over the holidays.
Now, Dani Reiss, president and chief executive officer, is looking to keep the altitude and go higher, building out the parka-maker’s lifestyle offering with new product categories and continuing the digital momentum that has helped propel the brand — and fashion — during the pandemic.
Canada Goose’s revenues for the fiscal quarter ended Dec. 27 increased 4.8 percent to 474 million Canadian dollars — a new record — up from 452.1 million Canadian dollars a year earlier.
Direct-to-consumer revenues in mainland China rose 41.7 percent as Canada Goose’s global e-commerce revenues increased 39.3 percent. Physical retail is still hamstrung by COVID-19 and seven of the company’s 28 stores are currently closed due to the pandemic.
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Canada Goose was profitable in the quarter, but saw its comprehensive income slip 8 percent to 105.5 million Canadian dollars from 114.7 million Canadian dollars.
That was more than enough for Wall Street, which pushed shares of the parka-maker up 22 percent to $42.90 on Thursday.
“The third quarter is always our biggest quarter, this is our largest quarter on record — in the middle of a pandemic,” crowed Reiss in an interview with WWD. “We delivered against our strategy and outperformed our expectations.”
Reiss’ overarching plan and message has been remarkably consistent before and through the pandemic.
He sees Canada Goose as a brand based in function — first and foremost the company’s parkas keep the wearer toasty — and builds from there.
The company came into the pandemic with a lot of sales momentum and a new business in China that has continued to grow as that country opened back up from its COVID-19 shutdowns.
But even where consumers are locked down, the brand has been able to continue to grow.
“We were able to strategically deploy resources and change course in season to really bolster our digital platform,” Reiss said.
When the world opens back up — fingers crossed this year — Reiss said more resources can go back into stores. “Going forward, it’s going to be really important to have great synergies between brick and mortar stores and between our online platforms.”
Asked about the impact of the near-complete travel shutdown, Reiss steered back to the power of the brand.
“Consumers are going to buy our products wherever they are and if they’re able to travel, great. And if not, they’ll be able to buy them at home,” he said.
Soon there’ll be more Canada Goose to buy, with the brand launching footwear in the fall.
Reiss said more categories were coming after that.
“People want real products, people want authentic products, people want things that work and we’re a function-first brand,” Reiss said.
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