Canada Goose Built a Luxury Empire by Betting Big on China

C anada Goose built its brand on extremes. It outfits movie stars, Arctic scientists, and intrepid mountaineers in fur-trimmed, goose- and duck-down parkas that are engineered for temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees and retail for up to $2,145. The company is also careful to project a socially conscious side, raising millions for polar bear conservation and amassing the world’s largest retail collection of Inuit art, which it displays in its stores. But the brand’s defining trait is a promise: to keep its products primarily Canada made, even when Western retailers have long offshored such operations. When Dani Reiss became chief executive officer in 2001, the company was worth roughly $3 million. The business expanded to the US, Europe, and Japan. It was the Chinese market, however, that propelled the company to become a $1 billion business. Since opening its flagship location in Beijing in 2018, Canada Goose now has twenty-seven stores across China, which represents nearly 40 percent of its global footprint. At the end of 2024, these stores, plus the four in nearby Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, made up 36 percent of the company’s revenue. Success in China was never a given. As tensions between Ottawa and Beijing escalated—fuelled by trade disputes and allegations of Chinese foreign interference—the Chinese government tightened its grip on international companies, making the landscape increasingly uncertain for Canadian firms trying to operate there. “While the news is bad across the board for foreign companies in China, the situation for Canadian companies is far worse,” wrote the authors of the 2022/23 Canada China Business Council—CCBC—report. In the face of such headwinds, you’d think an unmistakably Canadian brand might lie low. But Canada Goose is doing the opposite.

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F rom its beginnings, the company focused on doing one thing, and doing it well. In 1957, Sam Tick, a Polish immigrant and Holocaust survivor, founded Metro Sportswear, a Toronto-based warehouse specializing in niche outerwear like raincoats, wool jackets, and snowmobile suits. In the 1970s, his son-in-law, David Reiss, took over the company and rebranded it as Snow Goose, expanding its focus to custom parkas for outdoor adventurers, including mountaineer Laurie Skreslet, the first Canadian to summit Mount Everest, and scientists at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. Reiss also revolutionized the manufacturing process by inventing a down-filling machine that automated what had been a manual, labour-intensive task, allowing for more precise filling and faster production. As Snow Goose began selling its own parkas, it built a loyal following, though it remained a relatively small operation. Most of its business was still making outerwear for other brands. When Dani joined the family business in 1997, the then twenty-three-year-old had recently completed his bachelor of arts degree and dreamed of travelling the world. To fund his adventures, Reiss took a job cold-calling for Snow Goose—where he had spent his university summers packing boxes, mopping floors, and proofreading company letters. As he settled into the role, he realized he had a knack for sales. Reiss’s plans for globetrotting faded, and he decided to stay. Reiss thought Snow Goose had a better chance to grow if it expanded its own brand rather than producing for other retailers. In 2000, he renamed the company Canada Goose, doubling down on its Canadian identity and expertise in winterwear but refashioning itself as the ultimate purveyor of high-end parkas. (Reiss is an Ambassador Donor to The Walrus.) Today, all of Canada Goose’s core down-filled parkas and 70 percent of its product line are made at the company’s seven factories across Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba. Reiss has always pledged to keep manufacturing in the country for the “same reason why it’s important for a Swiss watch to be made in Switzerland,” he says. “It’s authentic, the real thing.” In the 2010s, Canada Goose edged itself into the cultural zeitgeist. Soccer legend David Beckham was photographed sporting its olive-green bomber jacket—which the company says was inspired by bush pilots of the Canadian north—on the roof of the Empire State Building. Drake donned a hyper-limited edition of its Lance Mackey parka (named for a champion dog musher) in his 2019 “War” music video. The brand sponsored film festivals, including Sundance and TIFF, and outfitted whole film sets. Such high-flying affiliations made the brand synonymous with social elites and celebrities. A UK school banned Canada Goose jackets, in an effort to destigmatize students who were unable to afford them, and in the US, the parkas became a hot target for theft. By 2013, Canada Goose’s sales sailed past $100 million. Reiss sold a nine-figure majority stake to private equity firm Bain Capital that year. The cash injection allowed Canada Goose to grow its store footprint and splash out on cultivating its image as an upscale retailer that signalled a “strategic shift” from being a niche outerwear player into becoming a global luxury brand, says Andreas Schotter, professor of international business at Ivey Business School at Western University. Capitalizing on that momentum, members of Canada Goose’s executive team flanked Reiss at the marble podium of the New York Stock Exchange—all clad in black Canada Goose puffers—on March 16, 2017. That day, Reiss rang the ceremonial brass bell with gusto: Canada Goose had become a public company. It raised $340 million, and its stock tripled over the next two years. The company appeared unstoppable. At the time, so did China. I n the 1980s, market-driven reforms and the mindset of “to get rich is glorious”—coined by China’s reform leader Deng Xiaoping—started to transform the Chinese economy from one of bamboo bicycles and rural farmhands to one where factory workers and shrewd entrepreneurs dominated. Chinese incomes and spending have shot up dramatically and consistently since the 1990s. By 2010, the country’s surging gross domestic product made it the world’s second-largest economy. It was against this backdrop that foreign brands started jostling to sell to the Chinese market. “China was the land of opportunity for many decades. It was the place to go if you wanted to grow your business,” says Jia Wang, senior fellow at the University of Alberta’s China Institute and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. International brands were largely welcomed at the time. Chinese consumers yearned for handbags and cars with non-Chinese-sounding names like Gucci and Mercedes and enjoyed dining at Western establishments like Pizza Hut (which is more upscale in China and serves food catered to local tastes, like pizza topped with stir-fried Chinese chilies and vegetables). Ten years ago, being foreign was enough to make a brand reputable, says Allison Malmsten, Asia Pacific marketing director and China strategy consultant at Daxue Consulting, a China-focused market research firm. Canadian companies, in particular, had an “extremely good image with Chinese audiences,” giving Canada Goose an instant advantage, says Jonathan Siboni, CEO of Paris-based Luxurynsight, a data intelligence platform specializing in luxury markets. In the 2010s, travel agencies dropped off busload after busload of Chinese tourists eager to snap selfies by Moraine Lake’s turquoise waters—and to shop for pricey parkas at Canada Goose’s wood-and-stone storefront on Banff Avenue. Around the same time, Chinese international students enduring winters in Toronto, Kitchener, and Vancouver snapped up jackets for themselves and for family and friends back home. The global buzz led counterfeiters in Shanghai and other cities to churn out synthetic parkas, which sometimes sported a “China Goose” logo. The jackets sold for as low as $58 (US) on Chinese e-commerce sites—even reportedly surfacing in Thai flea markets and popping up for sale in Sweden. The knock-offs were more of an irritant than a cause for any major financial loss, with Reiss conceding the fakes marginally benefited the company by growing its brand awareness. Still, Canada Goose fought back by collaborating with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and sewing a polar bear hologram into its products to make identifying fakes easier, among other measures. Then, one of China’s most influential figures made the ultimate endorsement. From late 2017 to early 2018, Jack Ma—the Chinese billionaire who founded e-commerce behemoth Alibaba—was frequently snapped bundled up in Canada Goose’s green Montebello women’s parka. On Chinese social media platforms, users delighted in the fact that Ma had the confidence to wear a women’s jacket at high-profile events, from his first meeting with now US president Donald Trump to the 2018 meeting of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland. One commenter wrote: “His strong aura is not affected at all.” By then, Reiss had made ten trips to China, starting in the mid-2000s. The pace of change and innovation, he says, made the country feel “completely new each time.” By 2018, China’s mature consumer market for the brand and what Reiss calls the country’s “pent-up demand” for Canada Goose jackets convinced the CEO to set up shop. “We entered in a very different way than we entered any other market,” Reiss says. Until the mid-2010s, Canada Goose sold its products only via high-end department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. When it expanded to Europe, it did so by opening a 5,000-square-foot flagship on London’s swanky Regent Street. In China, the company capitalized on demand by first selling through direct-to-consumer channels that Chinese shoppers favoured, making its parkas available on e-commerce portals like Tmall (which Alibaba, sometimes known as China’s answer to Amazon, owns and operates). Perhaps more important than its entry point, though, was how Canada Goose learned to stay. O n December 29, 2018 Canada Goose debuted its first store in mainland China. From morning to night, crowds stretched for blocks along Beijing’s Sanlitun street, a high-end shopping and entertainment hub. The shop’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows showcased glossy red posters of Chinese models sporting poppy-red parkas—red being an auspicious colour in Chinese culture, representing prosperity and celebration. Amid the towering storefronts and ultra-HD screens, the brand’s logo took its place alongside other global icons, from Apple’s apple to Nike’s swoosh. The opening had been delayed by several weeks. Though the company cited construction issues, some speculate the real cause was Canada’s arrest that month of Meng Wanzhou, an executive at Huawei Technologies—a Chinese tech giant some say is linked to the government and is now banned from Canada’s 5G and 4G networks over what Ottawa calls security risks. Shortly after, China detained two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were held for almost three years. Many international observers viewed Beijing’s actions as retaliation for Meng’s arrest, though the Chinese government denied that the cases were linked. Some Chinese citizens called for a boycott of Canadian products, and particularly Canada Goose—likely because of its distinct national identity—on platforms like Chinese blogging portal Weibo. Around this time, the guochao movement—meaning “national tide”—gained momentum in China. The trend refers to the burgeoning interest in Chinese culture, traditions, and homegrown brands, driven by nationalistic messaging from state media and young consumers who came of age in a strong, emerging, and modern China. Canada Goose capitalized on guochao by supercharging what it called its localization strategy, tailoring its designs, marketing, and image to suit Chinese tastes. Led by its then China president Larry Li (who is now the Asia Pacific chief operating officer), the company teamed up with Chinese designers, including Shenzhen-born Angel Chen, to create limited-edition drops. Chen, a millennial, made her name on season one of Netflix’s reality series Next in Fashion. “China is a country traditionally known for mass production at low quality. I aim to change this idea,” she said in a 2019 Refinery29 interview. Chen’s 2021 collection reimagined iconic Canada Goose styles and turned them into structural art-like pieces; the jackets were featured in a vibrant white, pink, and sky-blue ad that represented a transition from winter in Canada to spring in China (the most important season in Chinese culture). Canada Goose’s local design partners became “great ambassadors” for the brand in China, according to Siboni. The company’s second Shanghai store, which is located in a mall that encourages “night shopping”—the centre is open until 10 p.m. seven days a week—features a “Cold Room,” a temperature-controlled facility, cranked to temperatures as low as minus twenty-five degrees, that’s designed to mimic extreme weather conditions, like simulated snowstorms. At some shops, shoppers can use their phones to unlock hidden augmented reality features in window displays, like blooming flowers or mountain peaks, says Sunny Zheng, an analyst at Coresight Research, a data-driven analytics consultancy. The company’s China team developed an e-commerce strategy aimed at urban consumers, leveraging one of the country’s most popular retail trends: livestreaming. This approach, reminiscent of the TV shopping channels of the 1980s and ’90s, allows viewers to interact in real time with influencers or brand representatives as they showcase products. On Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, Canada Goose partnered with nearly 150 “KOLs”—key opinion leaders—in the first quarter of 2024 to host livestreams that helped boost brand awareness and grew sales by up to $1.5 million, according to analysis from China Skinny, a Shanghai-based market research firm. Douyin users flocked to videos posted by KOLs (some of whom weren’t officially working with the brand) that break down distinct characteristics of Canada Goose parkas, such as the coyote fur hood trim. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit China hard. Canada Goose kept most of its stores in China open throughout 2020 and 2021, betting on domestic consumers who couldn’t travel abroad. When the Beijing Winter Olympics began in February 2022, Chinese citizens, fatigued from months-long pandemic lockdowns and exhilarated by the games, increasingly started camping, hiking, and pursuing outdoor activities, boosting demand for winterwear and sportswear. It was only that spring—at the height of the pandemic in China—that Canada Goose shuttered half of its stores in the country. They all reopened by June. Around that time, Canada Goose appointed a new China president and declared an “exciting new phase of expansion,” opening an additional four stores in China that year. “I don’t know any foreign brand who opened so many stores during COVID,” Siboni says. Canada Goose was “smart enough to continue to perform at a time when other brands slowed down.” I n 2022, Swedish fast fashion giant H&M announced it would stop sourcing cotton from Xinjiang, China’s westernmost region that is predominantly home to Uyghur Muslims, where China has been criticized for its internment of Uyghurs and use of forced labour. H&M’s actions sparked fierce backlash from citizens and the state. The brand was scrubbed from Chinese e-commerce platforms, and the retailer shuttered sixty of its stores in China. And after months of threatening to sanction PVH, the parent company of clothing retailers Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, over its Xinjiang cotton boycott, the government has now blacklisted the firm and could order it to shut down stores and manufacturing in the country. “China is not a market for the faint of heart. Companies need a solid strategic plan and to consider all complications . . . and to be in it for the long haul,” Wang says. In the near-to-medium term, Canadian businesses’ prospects in China have diminished due to geopolitical tensions, “especially for large companies exposed to China,” and are affected by Canadian public opinion, says Howard Lin, a management professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Though Canada Goose bounced back from the initial backlash after Meng’s arrest, it was never immune to attacks. In 2021, a state consumer council called the company’s return policy “discriminatory” toward Chinese consumers, since it didn’t offer the same thirty-day refund policy in mainland China as it did in other jurisdictions where it operated. The council also accused Canada Goose of “misleading” consumers: the company’s ads had stated that its jackets contained Hutterite goose down, “which is the best and warmest Canadian down.” China’s stringent advertising laws prohibit businesses from claiming to be “the best” or better than a competitor, in an effort to protect consumers from false and misleading claims, according to the government. One local media headline read: “Catching the lying Canada Goose.” Economic Daily, a Chinese state-run media outlet, published commentary that encouraged domestic companies to grab market share and profit from Canada Goose’s scandal. (It also noted that the warmth of down isn’t linked to its country of origin.) “All enterprises should take this as a warning,” the editorial warned. “As long as they operate in China, they must abide by Chinese laws.” Yet Canada Goose emerged largely unscathed. Reiss credits Canada Goose’s team in China with helping it navigate local rules and regulations, from advertising and marketing laws to political realities. To this day, Canada Goose evades any issue China might perceive as sensitive. While it has been vocal on environmental and social issues on its home turf—responding to activist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, by reducing its use of animal-derived products—it has steered clear of taking any stance or action that might offend the Chinese government. For Reiss, “business and politics are often conflated.” And politics, he says, is best left to the politicians. Siboni explains: “It’s a question of trade-off. You decide what your biggest priority is—whether that’s making money in China or taking a moral stand that could go against the government.” R eiss has vowed that the company will become a $3 billion business by 2028. But it’s not a sure bet. As Trump pursues a global trade war, exposure to potential tariffs on Canadian goods could crimp the company’s bottom line if it has to absorb the resulting costs or raise prices, which might dampen demand. (The US market accounts for a quarter of the company’s sales.) Canada Goose maintains that it is unaffected by US tariffs, since it qualifies for tariff relief under the current United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, or USMCA. But any reprieve sits upon a shaky foundation given Trump’s volatile trade moves. “Even the best-crafted strategies can be thrown off course by inconsistent trade policy,” Schotter says. Tariffs aren’t the only question mark. Retail analysts say the demand for expensive winter jackets may have peaked. China is mired in a prolonged post-pandemic economic slowdown that has wiped hundreds of billions of dollars from the global luxury sector. Chinese shoppers’ more careful spending is forcing Canada Goose to compete with homegrown rivals like Yaya Down Jacket and Bosideng, which also specialize in goose-down jackets and are gaining traction among young consumers. A 2023 Wells Fargo report stated that Canada Goose faces waning “brand heat” as consumer engagement across social media platforms plunged. In February, company shares traded at around $10 (US), roughly 44 percent lower than the day the company went public and down 86 percent since its peak, in November 2018. Last year, Canada Goose laid off 17 percent of its global workforce, amounting to roughly 800 employees. One of the biggest threats to the extreme-weather parka maker might be climate change. The winter season, normally the time when it makes the most sales, looked grimmer than usual as warmer temperatures had shoppers rethinking major purchases. Milder winters and the need for year-round sales have pushed Canada Goose to offer a growing line of multi-season items. In 2023, it launched its inaugural sneaker line and bought a Romanian knitwear supplier—its first ever European manufacturing facility. In 2022, it launched a $695 fleece, its popularity boosted by Canadian influencers flaunting the fuzzy jacket on TikTok. Canada Goose can keep growing if it reinvents itself, assuring shoppers that its new products are just as luxurious and exclusive as its winter jackets, says Schotter. “Not evolving is its biggest risk. Success won’t come from clinging to a winterwear-only strategy.” To fend off competition, Coresight’s retail analyst Zheng argues the company should focus on attracting “top-tier luxury shoppers” over mass-market consumers. Still, Siboni says, “it’s always easier to grow when you’re doing $2 million to $3 million in business,” than when you’re already a $1 billion company trying to hit multi-billion-dollar growth. For Reiss, it may be time for another massive gamble. The era of extremes is just beginning. The post Canada Goose Built a Luxury Empire by Betting Big on China first appeared on The Walrus.