Canada Goose Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 30, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Q1 profitability improved significantly, with adjusted EBIT margin expanding more than 10 percentage points year over year to negative 87%, supported by gross-margin expansion, channel mix, and cost discipline.
  • Positive Sentiment: Revenue increased 9% to CAD 119 million, led by strong demand for apparel, rainwear, and windwear; these newer spring/summer categories represented nearly 40% of revenue while down-filled outerwear also grew.
  • Positive Sentiment: Wholesale revenue surged 65%, benefiting from a strong order book, reorders, and favorable shipment timing, while management said the spring-summer 2027 order book remains strong. E-commerce also posted double-digit growth across regions.
  • Negative Sentiment: Store traffic remained soft, particularly in the U.S. and EMEA, contributing to a 3% decline in D2C comparable sales; management expects first-half margins to face modest pressure from higher marketing spending and logistics and e-commerce investments.
  • Negative Sentiment: Potential U.S. tariffs could reduce fiscal 2027 operating margin by less than 200 basis points if implemented as proposed and without mitigation, although the company said it is evaluating actions to limit the impact.
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Earnings Conference Call
Canada Goose Q1 2027
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Canada Goose first quarter 2027 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Anna Raman. Anna, please go ahead.

Anna Raman
Anna Raman
VP of Investor Relations at Canada Goose

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on the Canada Goose Q1 fiscal 2027 earnings call. Today, you'll hear from Dani Reiss, our Chairman and CEO; Neil Bowden, Chief Financial Officer; Carrie Baker, President of Brand and Commercial; and Beth Clymer, President, Chief Operating Officer. We'll start with prepared remarks from Dani and Neil and then open up the call for questions. Today's presentation will contain forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions and therefore are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. We undertake no obligation to update these statements except as required by law. Further information regarding these assumptions, risks, and uncertainties is included in our press release issued earlier today and available on the investor relations section of our website.

Anna Raman
Anna Raman
VP of Investor Relations at Canada Goose

We report in Canadian dollars, the amounts discussed today are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. Please note the financial results described on today's call will compare first quarter results ended June 28th, 2026, with the same period ended June 29th, 2025, and stated percentage changes are in constant currency unless otherwise noted. Lastly, our commentary today will also include certain non-IFRS financial measures, which are reconciled at the end of our earnings press release. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dani.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Last quarter, I shared our commitment to developing profit margin expansion in fiscal 2027. We are pleased to be off to a strong start. In the first quarter, we expanded adjusted EBIT margin over 10 percentage points year-over-year, marking our strongest first quarter adjusted EBIT margin since fiscal 2020. This performance reflects meaningful progress across the business. We delivered revenue growth of 9%, driven by strong demand for our expanding lifestyle product offering, including apparel, rainwear, and windwear. We also achieved healthy gross margin expansion in the season with a greater mix of spring/summer categories, while higher channel margins and disciplined cost management further supported profitability. Together, these results demonstrate that the strategic investments we have made over the past several years are translating into stronger financial performance as planned.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

We've identified three key priorities for fiscal 2027 to continue strengthening our year-round relevance with consumers while driving sustainable growth and profitability. Our first quarter performance continues to show these priorities are working. Our first priority is to deepen brand desire through more effective marketing and translate that into increased demand. In Q1, we continued to see the investments we set in motion last year contribute to stronger consumer engagement. Brand desire strengthened in mainland China and continental Europe. This highlights the positive response to the way we are bringing the brand to life through both compelling campaigns and elevated retail experiences. While traffic across parts of our store network remained lower than we would have liked, largely reflecting a soft macro environment, we continue to see encouraging indicators of consumer interest, including strong e-commerce profit growth and healthy customer acquisitions.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

We also continue to see desirability and awareness outperform competitive benchmarks in key markets. Together, these key indicators reinforce the strength of the brand and its ability to connect with both existing and with new consumers. Our focus remains on deepening consumer engagement within the brand and expanding our relevance across more seasons and occasions. As we continue to build demand in our spring/summer categories alongside strong engagement across established categories, we believe our planned increase in marketing investment through the second and third quarters positions us well to convert that growing interest into sales. Our second priority is to scale a repeatable product playbook across seasons and drive greater year-round relevance. We are thrilled by the response to our spring/summer collection, the largest in our history.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

The assortment was met with exceptional customer demand across direct-to-consumer and wholesale, with apparel, which includes fleece knitwear, shirts, and bottoms, as well as rainwear and windwear, leading category growth and expanding their share of first quarter revenue. Apparel, rainwear, and windwear accounted for nearly 40% of our first quarter revenue. To put that in perspective, these categories generated as much revenue this quarter as our entire company did in the first quarter eight years ago. That is a remarkable illustration of how Canada Goose has evolved. In fiscal 2022, these categories represented just 5% of our business. By fiscal 2026, they had grown to 15% of our total revenue, and we continue to see significant opportunity ahead. What is notable is that this growth is additive. Down-filled outerwear also grew in the quarter. In addition to strong customer response to both newer and established categories.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

This demonstrates our ability to build a more balanced business throughout the year while remaining true to what makes Canada Goose distinctive, which we believe is the right way to operate. Our third priority is to improve channel productivity and capital efficiency. We made meaningful progress against this priority in the first quarter. Customers increasingly engaged through direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels, contributing to strong growth in both parts of the business. Direct-to-consumer and wholesale channel segment margins also expanded, demonstrating that we are improving both the sales productivity and profitability of our business. Wholesale delivered an outstanding quarter and was one of the clearest proof points of the momentum we are seeing across the business. Revenue increased 65% year-over-year, driven by a strong order book and customer reorders through the quarter, as well as on shipping timing.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

We view this as an important validation of our strategy, reflecting strong partner confidence in the brand and growing demand for our expanded product assortment. That confidence is reinforced by the strength of our spring-summer 2027 order book, which positions us well as we look ahead. Direct-to-consumer revenue increased 7% year-over-year in the first quarter, led by strong e-commerce performance across all regions. D2C comparable sales declined 3% year-over-year, driven by the traffic pressures I previously mentioned. While these pressures were seen across the luxury retail industry, our teams responded with strong in-store execution. Conversion and units per transaction increased year-over-year, benefiting from actions we took to better align labor investments with customer demand, ongoing staff training, product availability, and continuing to enhance the in-store experience.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

We also continue to strengthen our retail network, opening four new stores during the quarter, bringing our permanent store counts to 92. This included our new Vancouver location, which showcases our latest design concept and further elevates the Canada Goose experience. In closing, the first quarter reflects the progress we are making to build a stronger, more diversified, and more profitable Canada Goose. We are expanding the reach of the brand, building a more balanced product portfolio, and creating new opportunities for growth across channels and occasions. The strong response to newer categories, alongside continued demand for our iconic core offerings, is helping drive both top-line growth and margin expansion, demonstrating that we can expand the reach of the brand while strengthening the profitability of the business. We are excited about the progress we are seeing, and we remain focused on building on that momentum through continued execution.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

With that, I will turn it over to Neil.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Thanks, Dani, and good morning, everyone. As Dani noted, in a year where we expect to deliver operating margin expansion, Q1 was a solid start. Growth in our D2C and wholesale channels, gross margin expansion, and an appropriate mix of investment and cost control delivered meaningful adjusted EBIT margin expansion as we navigate a mixed consumer environment. Let's get into the details. Revenue in the first quarter was CAD 119 million, up 9% year-over-year, with growth in both D2C and wholesale. While revenue in our other channel saw a planned decline. Excluding the impact of other revenue in both periods, total revenue increased 16% year-over-year. D2C was up 7% year-over-year, with double-digit growth in Asia Pacific and North America. Within D2C, both our retail and digital channels grew, including double-digit growth in e-commerce.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

D2C comparable sales declined 3% year-over-year due to lower comparable store sales, partially offset by strong e-commerce growth. Store performance was impacted by softer traffic trends, particularly in EMEA, reflecting a more challenging macro environment and lower international travel. Looking ahead, we plan to increase marketing investment and continue refining the balance between upper and lower funnel activity to drive traffic, strengthen conversion, and support growth across both our store and e-commerce channels. In wholesale, revenue grew 65% year-over-year, driven by higher in-season demand, an increase in order book shipments, and timing of shipments in the quarter. Our momentum in wholesale serves as a meaningful indicator of our brand health and partner demand for our expanded assortment. Other revenue was down 64% year-over-year due to minimal activity during the quarter as planned. Turning now to regional performance.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

In Asia Pacific, revenue increased 35%, led by strong D2C and wholesale performance. Mainland China led the region's growth with continued strength in e-commerce and improved conversion across several key stores. Wholesale revenue was also strong in the region, benefiting from shipment timing in the quarter and strength from our wholesale presence on Hainan Island and in Korea. Demand was supported by both local consumers and regional travel flows, with Chinese consumers continuing to shop in nearby destinations across Asia. In North America, revenue declined 6% year-over-year, but increased when excluding other revenue. We achieved double-digit growth in each of our critical channels, D2C and wholesale. Positive performance in Canada did not offset softer store traffic in the U.S., resulting in D2C comparable sales decline of 1%. EMEA revenue declined 7% year-over-year as strengthened wholesale and e-commerce was offset by softer store sales.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

D2C comparable sales declined as challenging macro conditions continued to weigh on the region, consistent with the broader industry trends. Now turning to the income statement. Gross margin expanded by 100 basis points year-over-year to 62.4%, favorably impacted by channel and regional mix. Pricing was positive and offset modest cost inflation. SG&A expense decreased 21% year-over-year. In Q1 of last year, we had two items that materially increased our SG&A expense and did not recur. In Q1 of this year, we benefited from the collection of receivables from customers that we had previously determined would not occur. Normalizing for these items, SG&A expense increased 6% year-over-year, translating to SG&A leverage, which reflects progress across three areas. First, marketing spend as a percentage of revenue decreased 490 basis points year-over-year.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

This reflects both improving marketing efficiency and a deliberate approach to pacing investments throughout the year, aligning spend with periods where we expect the strongest customer demand and return on investment. Second, higher revenue across our wholesale and D2C channels drove meaningful operating leverage, allowing us to absorb fixed costs across a larger revenue base. Finally, we managed corporate spending as planned to support our key growth initiatives. We recorded an adjusted EBIT loss in our first quarter of CAD 104 million versus a loss of CAD 106 million in Q1 of last year, resulting in an adjusted EBIT margin of negative 87%, an improvement from negative 99% in the same period last year. This improvement was achieved despite softer D2C comparable sales. Continued progress in channeled productivity and more effective store labor management helped drive operating leverage and support margin expansion during the quarter.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Critically, we've made investments in our business over the first quarter, including several stores that will open either later this year or in fiscal 2028, and in our logistics network in EMEA. Balancing these investments while expanding margin remains our key focus. Adjusted net loss attributable to shareholders was CAD 87 million, or CAD 0.89 per share, which improved from a loss of CAD 88 million, or CAD 0.91 per share, in Q1 of fiscal 2026. Turning to the balance sheet. Inventory was CAD 490 million, up 11% year-over-year, reflecting our expanded product assortment, a larger wholesale order book, and the building of a stronger stock position to support anticipated demand for fall/winter 2027. Inventory turns was one times sales, up 11% over Q1 of last year and 25% over two years ago.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

We feel very good about the quality and composition of our inventory, which positions us well to support expected wholesale demand, maintain flexibility across channels, and execute the planned upgrade of our EMEA logistics network while continuing to serve customers and partners effectively. Net debt at quarter end was CAD 628 million, compared to CAD 542 million at Q1 last year, reflecting an increase in store lease liabilities.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

We took advantage of favorable market conditions late in the quarter to reprice our term loan, delivering a 50 basis point reduction to our credit spread. Before closing, I'll briefly touch on our early view of the second quarter. Following a stronger than expected start to the year, we expect first half growth to moderate somewhat from the pace delivered in Q1. The consumer environment remains mixed in the early weeks of Q2. Store traffic trends are consistent with Q1, while e-commerce remains strong.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Improving store productivity continues to be an important area of focus. Against that backdrop, wholesale demand continues to track in line with our expectations. As a reminder, the first quarter benefited from executing a stronger wholesale order book than the prior year. While consumer demand remains uneven across markets, we are encouraged by the underlying strength of the brand, continued product momentum, and the progress we are making across our strategic priorities. As we told you in our fourth quarter, we are making upgrades to our logistics network in EMEA and our e-commerce capabilities, with most of these investments expected to be completed in the first half of the year. We believe these investments will strengthen the customer experience and improve operational efficiency.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

This, in addition to the ramp up in marketing investments in our second quarter, is expected to modestly pressure margins in the first half of fiscal 2027, consistent with what we told you in May. A brief comment on the current trade and tariff environment. Our outlook assumes the tariff environment remains consistent with fiscal 2026. The announcement from the U.S. government on July 20th indicates that a portion of our products would be affected if the proposed measures were implemented. The situation remains fluid and we continue to monitor developments between Canada and the U.S. and assess potential implications for our business. As a global business, we have successfully managed tariff and trade-related changes across our supply chain and cost structure over time while materially expanding gross margin.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

If the announced duties were implemented as proposed and assuming no mitigating actions were taken, we estimate that the impact to our fiscal 2027 operating margin would be less than 200 basis points. We are actively evaluating mitigation measures and believe we have a range of options available to help minimize potential impact. Our first quarter revenue growth, margin expansion, and the progress we made across our strategic priorities reinforce our confidence in the year ahead.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

We remain on track to deliver our fiscal 2027 guidance and are focused on investing behind our brand, driving product innovation, and strengthening DTC execution as we continue to build sustainable, profitable growth. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you're muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Brooke Roach from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Brooke Roach
Brooke Roach
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Good morning, thank you for taking our question. Neil, Dani, I was hoping that you could help us identify the initiatives that you have in place to improve the store comps that you're seeing across geographies and narrow the gap between the traffic trends that you're seeing in your business versus the improved e-com and conversion results that you're seeing in the rest of your DTC business. How should we be thinking about bridging those gaps? Can you give us a little bit more detail on what you're seeing quarter-to-date across geographies and how that bridges into your expectations for DTC growth for the rest of the year? Thank you.

Carrie Baker
Carrie Baker
President, Brand, and Commercial at Canada Goose

Hi, Brooke. It's Carrie. I'll take that first one. In store-- Let me start actually with e-com. As you heard us talk in the remarks, e-com was extremely strong this quarter, and that reflects deliberate work, not just in the quarter, but over the last few years. There's a few things driving that. One, you heard Dani talk about our expanded lifestyle assortment, apparel, rainwear, windwear. That's really giving consumers a new chance to come in and shop us this season. Second, the brand building and customer acquisitions investments we've made, those are showing up with more traffic, more engagement. Third, we've just made the digital experience better and easier to shop. Some of that is also translating in-store. You heard us talk about the training programs that we've launched in-store. We've launched clienteling and really boosted that.

Carrie Baker
Carrie Baker
President, Brand, and Commercial at Canada Goose

That is driving significant amount and a different behavior in the way we're engaging our consumers. Again, when they're coming through the stores, even though we're seeing a little bit of softer traffic, when they come through, it's working. They're converting. They're responding to the products. They're loving what we have to shop right now, wear now. That is driving meaningful difference in terms of just how people think about Canada Goose as a relevant brand in the season. There's a lot of things coming together, both the product is working well, the marketing is driving people to discover different Canada Goose, and then when they come in, they're loving what they're seeing. All of those coming together are working quite well for us. The second question on bridging traffic and conversion trends. That's our job, right?

Carrie Baker
Carrie Baker
President, Brand, and Commercial at Canada Goose

Our job is to make sure that the underlying demand, what we're driving is healthy, that we're acquiring more customers, we're engaging with customers in a different way for different products. In stores, they are converting. We're not worried at all about a demand issue. This is really a softer traffic, and we can do something about that. We have levers. Clienteling, as we said. You heard Neil talk about how we are going to step up marketing in Q2 and Q3. That makes sense. It's aligning activity against the highest demand season. That's what we're focused on, and that's what we believe will deliver.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Just as it relates to the performance across the regions, Brooke, I'll just put some context around, first of all, around the first quarter and then sort of echo some of the comments that we made in the prepared remarks. We exit the first quarter with basically flat performance in Asia, negative one in the U.S., and much more significant decline in Europe, which is probably not unexpected. That's pretty consistent with what we're looking at in the very early days of Q2. As a reminder, we're at the build phase, July relative to August relative to September, it's just much, much lower, I'm not drawing any conclusions from that. Aside from the actions that Carrie outlined, I think we're really trying to focus on where we see definite positives, what were those in the first quarter?

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

First, increase in basket size, people buying more stuff from us. Second, the pricing that we implemented at the beginning of the year flowing through, and so we're getting more CAD on a per consumer basis. We love the acquisition rates of new customers, whether that's e-commerce or in stores. While we're kind of navigating lower traffic, we love what we're seeing in terms of conversion up everywhere. In the early days here of the second quarter, those trends continue.

Brooke Roach
Brooke Roach
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Great. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Rick Patel from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Josh Reiss
Josh Reiss
Analyst at Raymond James

Hi, this is Josh Reiss on for Rick. Thanks so much for taking the questions. Is there any way that we can parse out the shift in timing of wholesale orders for Q1? Just trying to understand what that contributed to Q1 growth and what spikes should we expect to get that back in Q2 or later in the year? Thank you.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Yeah, sure. Q1 was 65% growth in wholesale. A lot of that is real order book increase year-over-year. Certainly early adoption of or broad adoption of spring. We got some of that in kind of in the early part of our quarter, we started as given the inventory position, the real quality work done by the supply chain team here at Canada Goose. We got product in the hands of wholesale consumers earlier than expected, that's good. I think our view is less than half the growth is really timing related, that will balance out over the year. We are really encouraged about the response to the product. Obviously, we knew what the order book was coming in season reordering demanded in some pockets as we heard, Hainan Island, Korea.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Some nice underlying growth that is obviously more than just timing.

Josh Reiss
Josh Reiss
Analyst at Raymond James

Thank you. If I could, one more. Can you talk about how much of the growth in Q1 was driven by pricing versus units? Was that pricing benefit more uniform across geographies, or was it more centered in certain regions?

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Yeah. We implemented the pricing at the beginning of the quarter. I think the assumption and the effect was about a mid-single-digit increase. Obviously, there's a lot of newness difference year-over-year, it's not quite a pure mid-single-digit growth coming from products. We had good, healthy unit sales. Some benefit from pricing, really not a meaningful mover of the revenue.

Carrie Baker
Carrie Baker
President, Brand, and Commercial at Canada Goose

I can just chime in, just from a consumer response perspective. To me, it's like when a brand is desired, there isn't price resistance, and we're not seeing that. Customers see the value. They see the newness. They see the style that's much cooler. It's a different Canada Goose, we're just not seeing any resistance to that, which is a great sign from a consumer experience.

Josh Reiss
Josh Reiss
Analyst at Raymond James

Yeah. Much for the comment. I'll pass it on.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Yes.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Oliver Chen from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Oliver Chen
Oliver Chen
Analyst at TD Cowen

Hi. Thank you. Regarding China, what are you seeing with traffic relative to conversion? You had some nice momentum there, and brand desirability looks solid. Then as you think about traffic, would love your thoughts on the traffic trends in Europe relative to the U.S. As you look forward with the marketing spend and marketing techniques, can those be catalysts to help traffic? How are you thinking about regionally, perhaps marketing spend and/or top of funnel versus more transactional marketing? Thank you.

Carrie Baker
Carrie Baker
President, Brand, and Commercial at Canada Goose

Hey, Oliver. Okay, I'm going to take them one at a time. Traffic in China. We're feeling really good about the Chinese consumer, both at home and when they travel. Inside mainland China, momentum stayed encouraging, obviously supported by improving brand awareness and desirability against some of our competitive set, which is great. We love to see that. A lot of that demand obviously travels with the customer. You heard Neil talk about markets like Korea, Hong Kong, healthy driven travel demand across APAC, as well as really strong wholesale order books. Whether they're shopping at home, whether they're shopping abroad, the through line is the same, that it's resonating with the consumer. They love the product, and that gives us a lot of confidence in our trajectory. Outside of APAC, I would say tourism levels continue to be a little softer at the macro level.

Carrie Baker
Carrie Baker
President, Brand, and Commercial at Canada Goose

Of course, we're monitoring, but as I said earlier, the brand signals are strong. We feel really encouraged by that. When you look at EMEA, it's different than North America, right? Each region is quite distinct picture that we saw in Q1. North America, a little traffic issue. In EMEA, the operating environment itself is just more challenging, and I think that's pretty consistent with what you're hearing from other companies across the industry. It's a cautious consumer. Store traffic dynamic is still there. Again, the underlying brand signals to us, it feels strong. The conversion is improving. Clienteling, there's progress that we've made with that. The improved brand desirability against our competitive set in continental Europe. Those are all reasons that we feel very good that this is not a brand issue. This is just a traffic.

Carrie Baker
Carrie Baker
President, Brand, and Commercial at Canada Goose

You heard us talk about all the mitigating effects that we will put into place Q2. When you think about marketing, can it be a catalyst for traffic? Sorry, I'm just going to address marketing specifically. Of course. We had a deliberate lower spend in Q1 that's aligning, just making sure every dollar works for us. It did. We saw improved ROAS this quarter. To me, that says we can spend more efficiently while still driving up customer acquisition and really strong brand engagement. Yes, it will be a factor in how do we drive more store traffic, as we step up that marketing in Q2 and Q3, we think it will have positive results.

Oliver Chen
Oliver Chen
Analyst at TD Cowen

Thank you for that. A follow-up on the non-heavyweight down progress. What are your latest thoughts or parameters around pricing? Because there have been moments when you've calibrated or priced too low in some cases in the past. Finally, as we look at that model, AI's impact across the industry, just highlights on where AI will have the earlier impact and what you're testing. Thanks a lot.

Carrie Baker
Carrie Baker
President, Brand, and Commercial at Canada Goose

Pricing on We look at pricing kind of the same way, whether it's newness, whether it's carryover in our icons, whatever category it is, it's making sure that it's the right price for the right product. I know it could sound a little trite, but it's looking at the value that it offers. I love that you think maybe our prices are too low. We monitor it carefully. We monitor our consumer response. That's not just globally, but it's also by category. We know exactly where we want to be positioned against the competitive set and what the value that we are offering. It's something we continue to monitor. As I said, we have not seen any price resistance in those categories, which we feel really good about.

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

Oliver, it's Beth. I'll take your question on AI. We are experimenting with AI in a number of different places across the business. I'll share a few highlights. Certainly, there's a lot of opportunity in customer-facing ways. The way we engage with consumers through our call center, through warranty, the way we analyze consumer data to identify opportunities to speak to consumers differently in a more relevant way. There's a tremendous amount of opportunity in those customer-facing ways that we're experimenting with, seeing really great traction, scaling, and we're really excited about the momentum there continuing. We're also seeing plenty of ways it's enabling our business behind the scenes. The way we create product, finding moments to accelerate the workflow as we're really focused on bringing product to market with greater speed.

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

We can use AI to help speed up aspects of the development process or the merchandising data analysis, et cetera. There's a lot of opportunity in that product creation ecosystem. Of course, operational efficiency. The way we look at our daily, weekly reporting, the way we look at our daily, weekly decision-making across the business, using AI to kind of speed up those insights and allow our team to spend more time on the so what and actions and less time on the root cause analysis. We're seeing great AI traction across multiple parts of our business and really building it into the muscle that we have as a business, and we're excited to see how that continues to drive impact in the quarters and years to come.

Oliver Chen
Oliver Chen
Analyst at TD Cowen

Thanks a lot. Best regards.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Thanks, Oliver.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ike Boruchow from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Ike Boruchow
Ike Boruchow
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Hey, morning everyone. Neil, I think this question is for you. It's on the expense line. First quarter expenses in CAD seem kind of flattish. It's a big step down in growth from last year, showed scale. It's great to see. Implied margin in 2Q, based on the 1H comments, seems to imply margins are going to delever a few hundred basis points year-over-year. I know there's seasonality and everything, but I guess the main question is, what spending levers are being pulled harder in the second quarter versus the first quarter? Can you help frame the 2H profit plan and how you're planning flow-through in margin in the back half of the year as well that kind of ties to your full year plan, please?

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Sure thing. I'll start with just sort of a reiteration of where we're trying to get to. We fully expect to deliver margin expansion this year. As you said in the guide, 11%-12% is the range that we're looking at. First quarter started off nice. That's the job to do for us in the first quarter. In a year where we intend to deliver margin expansion, getting gross margin expansion, getting operating leverage out of the channels through the corporate costs, that's the job. Check mark there for the way we started. Your read on the second quarter, as you said, is reasonably accurate. We've got probably three areas where we're going to pull some expense, for sure, marketing step-up will happen.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

We're just starting to scale into peak. That's exactly the right time for us to start to lean into that. We can't do it to outside of traffic or drive some of the desirability and awareness metrics up. We've got a great plan there for the second quarter on marketing. Obviously that will continue over the balance of the year. We expect to spend more CAD in the marketing line over the year. Perhaps harvest just a little bit of leverage there. Other second quarter sort of one-timers. You heard us talk a little bit about logistics network upgrade in the second quarter. That was a little more muted in the first quarter. The activity is ramping up here. There's a little bit more spend there. As a reminder, that is expected to deliver some meaningful cost savings once up and running.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Probably not net for the full year fiscal 2027, but over time. There's some meaningful investment in our e-commerce business, in the e-commerce platform, which there's some more spending to go here in the second quarter. Those are the key areas of investment. As it relates to sort of normal running costs on things like corporate headcount and other forms of investment, we're keeping the lid pretty tight on those things, which we expect to give us some leverage over the balance of the year. Our view is unchanged of where we want to get to. We think we're started well along that path.

Ike Boruchow
Ike Boruchow
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Binetti from Evercore.

Michael Binetti
Michael Binetti
Analyst at Evercore

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking our question here. Maybe would you mind unpacking a little bit your comments on the industry trends in Europe? How much do you think logistics changes there are causing some impact, maybe some self-inflicted versus comments you made on tough operating environment? I thought it was also interesting, your comment that you're not seeing store traffic pressure in EMEA. I'm assuming the pressure is on conversion there. Again, do you think that's self-inflicted around logistics upgrade that can improve in second half? Or is it consumer coming in, you've got inventory in store, they're just converting at a lower rate or something macro related different than you're seeing in other markets?

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

Michael, this is Beth. I'll take that one, and I'll just clarify a few things in case we didn't share it clearly. We are definitely seeing traffic pressure in EMEA. That is the primary driver of the negative comps.

Michael Binetti
Michael Binetti
Analyst at Evercore

Okay.

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

We believe as we look at the peer data we have, that what we're seeing is more or less in line with others. We are also seeing more pressure on conversion in EMEA than we are in other markets. Your conversion generally is a bright spot for the business. I think the macro pressure we're seeing in EMEA, particularly in markets like the U.K., we are just seeing it more in our stores. A lot of consumer interest in the product, a lot of excitement, but just getting them to convert to that final transaction, we're seeing more pressure there than we are in other markets. We are seeing the effects of the kind of macro pressure, whether it be from oil prices, complex, et cetera, that we are seeing that manifest. We do not believe that there's any disruption from the EMEA network.

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

The nature of the way that transition was happening, it actually had very minimal impact on the quarter. Most of the quarter, we were operating under our old logistics facility, and so we are not seeing that. We are obviously monitoring very closely what that looks like in Q2, because as we ship a tremendous amount of wholesale volume in Q2, et cetera, we need to stay very close to that. You're right to raise that transitions like this can always create operational complexity, but no impact to speak of in the quarter. We're pretty confident that this is more just related to the way the consumer is engaging due to macro factors. We're focused on doing the things that are within our control.

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

Executing incredibly strong in the store in the way Carrie described before, continuing to market to European consumers, to engage clienteling, to operate as well as we can, albeit in a challenging macro environment.

Michael Binetti
Michael Binetti
Analyst at Evercore

Okay. Then you said, you mentioned a couple of times the pressure in the U.S. is with traffic. As you look at that, think about how to put the marketing plan to work to make some improvements there, is that a customer dropping out of the channel? Is it slower new customer acquisition, or is it maybe slower frequency from recurring customers? What are you seeing in the demo work that helps inform you on how to attack the marketing to improve that?

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

Yeah, great question. We don't see it as a customer issue. Really, when you look at the industry trends, customer traffic is down everywhere. In certain markets, we're maybe more impacted, and maybe the marketing, the choices that we made deliberately had a slight amplification of that. Nothing that we're concerned about. It's our choice to how we allocate the marketing dollars in the funnel. We chose to stick to our strategy of spending in the upper funnel to drive that brand heat, brand awareness, making sure that we're acquiring customers as we build into our biggest season in Q2 and Q3. Those are choices that we have made deliberately, saw good results in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of those choices.

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

As we move towards the Q2 and Q3, we'll be looking at what other choices can we make in terms of where we spend in the funnel. Still want to maintain that discipline and every dollar returning for as well to drive that customer acquisition, but how do we drive some more of that traffic into our stores? If we weren't seeing the great results that we're seeing in e-com, we would have a different story. The customer acquisition is strong, the conversion is strong, the engagement is strong across channels. A little lighter store traffic in a few markets doesn't concern us.

Michael Binetti
Michael Binetti
Analyst at Evercore

Okay. Thanks a lot for the help. Appreciate that.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

Michael.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Adrian Yee from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Angus Kelleher-Ferguson
Angus Kelleher-Ferguson
Analyst at Barclays

Hi, this is Angus Kelleher-Ferguson on for Adrian Yee. Congrats on the solid wholesale quarter. You noted a greater mix of down-filled outerwear. I kind of wanted to ask a longer-term question about product mix and wholesale's role in de-seasonalizing the business. How are your partners embracing new categories like rain, wind, and apparel, and how do you expect that mix to evolve over the next few years? Thank you.

Dani Reiss
Dani Reiss
Chairman and CEO at Canada Goose

Yeah, thanks for the question. Wholesale is really important to our business. It historically has always been important to us, and over the last few years it receded a little bit, and we're really happy to see it grow again and be a leading indicator of the strength of our brand. Our wholesale partners, they're adopting the full range of our products. It's really demonstrating how our consumers are leaning into our new diverse product offering, which is a much higher percentage of our non-core products, much higher percentage of lifestyle apparel and of lightweight down. We see wholesale growing and continuing to grow, and it's additive to our business.

Beth Clymer
Beth Clymer
President and COO at Canada Goose

If I can just jump in. We just were in market for spring next year. Again, we had good response this year, they've seen what we're going to bring to market next year, the response has been very strong. Customers are loving, whether it's the color palette, the actual styles, the innovation that we're bringing to the table, they're really on board. That results not only in bigger order books, but just changing the way we show up in their stores. That's what we like to see, the right adjacencies, the right marketing support. They're really on that journey with us, it's been a really healthy response.

Angus Kelleher-Ferguson
Angus Kelleher-Ferguson
Analyst at Barclays

Excellent. Thank you. Just to follow up, you opened four stores in Q1 and are investing behind additional openings, though comparable store traffic remains a bit pressured. I guess, how are new store productivity and returns tracking, has the current environment changed your appetite for further expansion in the out years?

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

I think for sure the answer to the second question is absolutely not. We know there's a lot of white space for the brand in a number of the markets that we operate in today and in places where we're probably less penetrated. We keep a pretty tight view of capital allocation and evaluate store performance both against our own high benchmarks as well as the rest of the industry. A little bit of our view short term. Traffic pressure does not give us any pause for what we view to be a significant opportunity to drive growth and profitability over the long term.

Angus Kelleher-Ferguson
Angus Kelleher-Ferguson
Analyst at Barclays

Great. Thank you.

Neil Bowden
Neil Bowden
CFO at Canada Goose

Thank you.

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back to Anna Raman, Vice President of Investor Relations, for closing remarks.

Anna Raman
Anna Raman
VP of Investor Relations at Canada Goose

Yes, thanks everybody for your questions, and as always, feel free to follow up directly with us should you have further questions. Thanks so much.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Anna Raman
      Anna Raman
      VP of Investor Relations
    • Dani Reiss
      Dani Reiss
      Chairman and CEO
    • Neil Bowden
      Neil Bowden
      CFO
    • Carrie Baker
      Carrie Baker
      President, Brand, and Commercial
    • Beth Clymer
      Beth Clymer
      President and COO
Analysts
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