Winters in Canada can be brutal, so at Canadian Tire, officials need to be nimble and flexible to best accommodate their customers. It is exactly that flexibility that differentiates the customer experience at Canadian Tire.
Canadian Tire CEO Michael Medline discussed this key customer loyalty aspect of the business during the company’s May 13 first-quarter earnings call.
“In Q1, in certain areas of the country we saw the true power and flexibility of our dealer business model shine through,” Medline said, according to Seeking Alpha. “As weather patterns across central Canada fluctuated quite a bit during the quarter, our dealers on the ground can respond immediately by switching up assortments on the floor to changing weather and customer needs. If they saw a week of warm spring like weather ahead, they brought out the patio sets, gardening supplies, and backyard categories. Then, when the weather turned again a week or so later, they would put us switch back to bringing the winter-related merchandise back out. Clearly, it took some time and resources to keep making these nimble shifts, but their ability to get ahead of the trends and be flexible drove sales at their stores and contributed to our performance during the quarter. This was truly a fantastic effort by our dealers and testament to how our model is a core differentiator for us.”
Medline discussed the company’s WOW Guide, a digital catalog that launched last month.
“I don’t like that word catalog because it sounds old school, but let me tell you our catalog, our WOW Guide, is far from old school,” Medline said. “We created the guide as a pivotal marketing tool that serves to educate our customers on our wide seasonal assortment and on our digital capabilities. And it is an important investment in driving traffic to our website. It is a big step forward in bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds and absolutely exemplifies the importance that we place on being innovative in how we reach out and connect with our customers. We are to date extremely pleased with the results of the catalog.”