Looking to buy or sell a pre-owned Canada Goose jacket or sportswear item?
Canada Goose, the Toronto-based lifestyle company, will introduce Canada Goose Generations, a re-commerce platform today in the U.S., to be followed by Canada later this year and an eventual global rollout. The platform will allow consumers to shop and trade in women’s, men’s, youth, kids and baby pre-loved Canada Goose products, keeping quality pieces in circulation.
Vintage pieces from the brand’s 65-year-old archive will drop frequently, complementing trade-ins from consumers and refreshed products from Canada Goose. The site will launch with 2,500 items across men’s, women’s and kids.
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More and more brands are taking charge of their own resale market. Lululemon has its own resale channel, and brands such as Madewell, Patagonia and Eileen Fisher have re-commerce programs. The U.S. secondhand market is expected to more than double by 2026, reaching $82 billion, according to GlobalData.
“It’s been a big passion project for our team. We see this as the pinnacle of who we are. We’re a performance-luxury brand and make products that last for generations, and this is the perfect platform for us to keep those products in circulation, and extend their lifetimes,” said Carrie Baker, president of Canada Goose. She called this “a unique brand-owned place” for consumers to authentically buy and sell their Canada Goose products.
The re-commerce platform is being tested online first.
The way it works is twofold: The consumer can go online (Generations.CanadaGoose.com) and shop for pre-loved, vintage products and limited-edition pieces or trade in their own Canada Goose products. If trading in, the garment is assessed for quality and the consumer gets a gift card they can use in-store or online.
Right now, Canada Goose is accepting men’s, women’s and kids’ outerwear and clothing, but aren’t accepting hats, gloves, mittens, scarves, face masks, hood trims, home accessories or footwear. There’s no age limit to the garment.
“It can be last season, you might have only wanted to wear it for a certain time, but we’ll also be accepting things that are 20 years old. Some of the inventory is from deep into the archives and people have been wearing it for that long,” she said.
The condition of the garment is judged on the following scale: fair, good, very good and excellent. Eligible items would receive up to 60 percent of today’s retail price based on that scale of condition, Baker said. For example, take the Mystique long heavyweight down parka, which retails for $1,250. If a customer sent in one and it was deemed in excellent condition, they would get a gift card worth $750.
A parka purchased through Generations contributes 70 percent less carbon dioxide emissions, when compared to buying a new product, and Generations supports the brand’s Sustainable Impact Strategy, helping to achieve its annual warranty waste goal, the company said.
The team is trained on how to evaluate the garment and make sure it’s authentic. “It’s a big value-added when you’re going direct to a site like Canada Goose Generation because we know how to tell if it’s authentic or counterfeit,” Baker said.
The customer gets a gift card no matter what condition the item is in because Canada Goose now owns it. There is a one-year warranty for items bought on Canada Goose Generations. (With their mainline products, Canada Goose gives a lifetime warranty.)
“If for some reason a zipper fails [on Canada Goose Generations], the customer has a chance to send it back and they will repair it. I think that’s a good benefit,” Baker said.
Baker said it will be interesting to see who’s using the platform — usually when one thinks about resale, everybody thinks Gen Z. “Of course, they are vintage shoppers and sustainability is high on their list, but I do believe this will appeal to a really broad audience,” she said.
She said she’s excited to see the styles that will come in. For example, there’s the Squall Jacket that was previously only available to people in law enforcement.
“It will be a nice glimpse into our archives from a consumer perspective,” Baker said.
Canada Goose intends to be transparent about product imperfections, such as discoloration.
For customers who want to sell their jackets, they register the style number, and the site walks them through the steps, what to expect and when they’ll get updates once they send it in. Within 10 days, they’ll get a gift card.
“I’m excited about the product part but I’m also excited for people to see this element of this Sustainable Impact Strategy in action,” Baker said.
Canada Goose Generations is driven by the brand’s purpose platform, Humanature, which unites its sustainability and values-based initiatives and underscores its purpose to keep the planet cold and the people on it warm. Canada Goose first entered the circular economy through its Resource Centre Program and has donated and delivered excess fabrics and materials to communities in Canada’s North since 2009. The company partnered with re-commerce solutions provider, Trove, for its Generations platform.
In its last fiscal year ended April 3, Canada Goose posted sales of 1.1 billion in Canadian dollars. For this fiscal year, sales were are projected to reach between 1.2 billion and 1.3 billion Canadian dollars.