Canada Goose Holdings Inc.’s (TSX:GOOS) Vancouver flagship store opened at Pacific Centre on November 2 and fans of the winter-wear brand lined up to take a look inside the 3,900-square-foot store.
The store is the Toronto-based company’s first store on the west coast of the Americas, and its 10th store globally.
Canada Goose chief commercial officer Rick Wood told Business in Vancouver at a launch event a day earlier that the company planned to use the store to display its full collection of products and have corporately trained staff who will be able to answer consumers’ questions.
Across the hallway from the store is a Harry Rosen store, which sells some Canada Goose garments. Canada Goose products are also sold at many other Metro Vancouver stores. The rationale to have a corporate store, Wood said, was to increase sales but also to provide education on the 61-year-old brand that was exclusively a manufacturer until 2016, when it opened retail stores in Toronto and New York City.
Other manufacturers-turned-retailers, such as Apple, Mackage and Bose, are doors away from Canada Goose’s location just north of West Georgia street through the Pacific Centre atrium.
(Image: A security guard stands outside the Canada Goose store at Pacific Centre | Glen Korstrom)
Through its history, Canada Goose was likely best known for making bright red parkas that were very warm and popular in Canada’s Arctic.
The company also announced on November 1 that it will pay $32.5 million to buy the shoe-maker Baffin Inc., which makes durable footwear popular in the Arctic and in other cold climes.
Baffin, he said, would operate as a separate subsidiary and its products will not for the foreseeable future be stocked at Canada Goose-branded stores.
The Vancouver store is Canada Goose’s third store in Canada, and ninth store globally. Other stores are in Toronto, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, London, Boston, New Jersey and Hong Kong.
Canada Goose is also slated to open stores in Montreal and Beijing later this year.
