Dani Reiss
Analyst · Jay Sole
Thank you, Allison, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to share that our second quarter concluded a strong first half for Canada Goose. Last week, we held our annual global conference, where we brought together employees from our offices around the world to celebrate our achievements and to get inspired about our plans for the year ahead. I am so proud of the team's passion, commitment and disciplined approach to executing our growth strategies. With strong results across channel, geographies and categories, we continue to drive awareness and market penetration while also inspiring those who already know and love our brand. Here are some highlights from the business. As a function-first brand, it all starts with products. Across categories, demand remained strong, and our three seasons relevant is resonating. With a clear connection to our heritage and an unwavering commitment to authenticity, we are giving our fans more ways than ever before to experience our brand across styles, uses and climates. Our award-winning lightweight collection, which is renowned for its unique combination of comfort, movement and versatility, continues to grow significantly. In August, we launched our highly anticipated knitwear collection, our first non-outerwear category. Feedback from consumers has been extremely positive, and the collection is undeniably authentic Canada Goose in both aesthetic and performance. As a brand, we will always build demand ahead of supply, and we are very pleased with the sell-through of the initial assortment in both our wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels. Building on this momentum, we look forward to thoughtfully expanding our offering and our distribution for future seasons. Our direct-to-consumer channel enables us to give our fans around the world the ultimate Canada Goose experience. And it continues to surpass our expectations, both online and in-store. In e-commerce, which we view as our global flagship, we are now in 11 countries, and we have opened all seven of the new e-commerce sites planned for this year, which, as a reminder, are Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden. Performance in our Canadian and U.S. sites continues to be strong, and results from our more recently launched European sites are also very encouraging. Profit growth is compelling in all of our major markets, and we are continuously improving our online experience to drive conversion and better position future site launches. Moving on to our retail stores; we recently celebrated the first anniversary of our Toronto store in Yorkdale Shopping Mall, and we continue to be very pleased with the contributions of our Toronto and New York stores. We have great brand ambassadors, who are consistently delivering an exceptional and immersive customer experience. With great teams in place, we are well on track with our new store openings. I was really, really excited to be with the team in Chicago last month for opening day. We are very pleased with the store's performance to date and encouraged by the positive response from customers in the Windy City. Similarly, consumer demand for our brand continues to be high in Japan. And we have heard stories of 100-or-so person lineup, which started 5:00 A.M. on opening day of the new Tokyo store. In addition to that, we opened our London flagship store in Regent Street just today, this morning, and we're really excited about that. We're excited to build on this momentum with our next three store -- next two store openings, Boston and Calgary, in the coming weeks. And we remain highly disciplined in identifying and securing the best locations for future store rollouts. In our wholesale channel, we continue to be a bright spot for our retail partners. Across geographies, we're delivering high-quality growth by driving traffic and full price sell-through. This channel, which played a central role in brand awareness and reach, will always be an important part of our strategy. In the current retail landscape, we have a singular focus on going deeper and broader with the world's best retailers. From recommended assortment and merchandising to in-store events and digital marketing, I'm really encouraged by how well our team is working with our partners to best position our brand and continue strengthening existing relationships for the long term. In operations, we continue to support a rapid trajectory and build capacity for future growth. I recently came back from visiting our two facilities in Winnipeg, and I'm impressed by how quickly we are expanding there as well as also in our factories in Ontario and Québec. We are hiring and training a significant number of sewers each month, and we continue to innovate and implement process improvements to drive efficiencies at all six of our sites. And finally, I'd like to take a moment to thank our employees for delivering such a strong performance in the first half of the year across functions that are working together and delivering on our ambitious growth strategies on time and on budget. We are building an enduring brand for the long term, and none of this would be possible without their contributions. As John will discuss shortly, given our results in the first half of the year and our outlook for the remainder, we are pleased to update our guidance for fiscal 2018. With that, I'm now going to turn it over to John, who'll review our financial results with you in more detail.