On Tuesday, May 6th, CHPTA and COPA held an amazing event that featured insights and discussion amongst Canadian retailers, vendors and retail data experts on the growing rise of “patriotic purchasing” and the “Buy Canadian Movement”.
The morning started with an interesting fireside chat between CHPTA/COPA President Sam Moncada and Steve Murphy, Director of Strategic Sales Initiatives National Accounts at Global Furniture Group on being a successful Canadian furniture manufacturer for the workplace, education and healthcare markets. The discussion touched upon how the company has needed to adapt to changing market conditions, such as during COVID with the shift to Work from Home and now the Buy Canadian Movement which has spurred interest from potential new customers as they seek Canadian product options. We would like to thank Steve and Global for their hospitality and hosting of the event at their beautiful head office facility in North York, Ontario.
Next on the agenda was an excellent presentation from Sophie Marai, VP, Client Strategy from Environics Analytics who shared valuable insights on the current retail climate in Canada and the rise of “Patriotic Purchasing”. She showed info on various demographic groups and what their purchasing drivers are and how it is likely to impact their purchase decisions in regards to buying Canadian products. Her presentation showed how foot traffic is changing among key retailers in our industry and how best to reach out to different consumer demographic groups if advertising/marketing various products to them.
The final part of the morning session was a very insightful panel discussion with some Canadian retailers that was moderated by Hardlines’ own Michael McLarney. On the panel was Shawn Ettinger, Senior National Procurement Manager for TIMBER MART; Alison Fletcher, Founder and Owner of Cookery, a specialty kitchenware store & cooking class studio with 7 locations in Toronto and Montreal; Chris Parsons, Senior Director for Omnichannel Marketing & Strategic Insights at Home Hardware; Tracy Pratt, Associate Vice President, Product Development Style & Home, Consumer Brands Division at Canadian Tire; and Chris Saniga, Chief B2B Officer at Staples Canada. The Q&A period covered a number of aspects of the Buy Canadian Movement/Tariff-Trade Dispute Situation that demonstrated it is very much a day-to-day, changing situation.
Unknown and/or changing costs is making it difficult to plan for. The impact of rising prices is just starting to be felt so will have to see how consumers make their purchase decisions in the future in regards to committing to buying Canadian product if it means paying much more for them. The panel discussion talked about how the “Buy Canadian” initiative has some similarity/cross-over with the “Green Buying” environment experience. It was also mentioned that vendors/retailers be careful and accurate when identifying as Canadian to avoid the situation of “Maple Washing”. The recent tariff/trade environment should be a spark within Canadian companies to make their businesses more efficient and competitive and able to look at other global markets to sell product in. The panel discussion closed with some thoughts from the retailers on the importance of the vendor-customer relationship and what the key requirements that retailers are looking for from vendors to make them stand-out.
We would like to thank all the speakers and panel participants for sharing their insights and views on what is happening with the Buy Canadian Movement and how it is impacting Canadian retailers and consumer purchasing decisions. It was much appreciated by those in attendance and was an event that truly should not have been missed by CHPTA and COPA members.
Once again, thank you to Global Furniture Group for sponsoring and hosting the event at their facility.
