April 23, 2025 β’ 25 mins
Does your product depend on the shared cultural trends, inside jokes, and the current meme scene? On this 180th episode of the E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff interviews Simon Cadotte, Founder of Black Maple Trading Company.Β Black Maple Trading Company has found a way to keep its finger on the pulse and churn out the type of stuff that makes you say, βI gotta have that.β
In this episode, Simon lets us in on their creative process and how they stay connected with their target audience (the simplicity and authenticity in this might surprise you). Moreover, how to navigate retail product drops and fade outs, all while maintaining momentum. If you're a brand that wants to keep up with the times, then this episode is a must-listen.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Simon Cadotte (00:02):
Black Maple Trading is designed to celebrate
sort of your roots, celebratingwhat sort of being where you are
means to youβwhether that's, youknow, the mountains, the great
outdoors; whether that's yourcity, your neighborhood; whether
that's your nostalgia, yourretro brands, your
broadcastersβthings that makepeople really Canadian.
Narrator (00:34):
Music
Unknown (01:11):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of
The E-Comm Show. I am your host,as usual, Andrew Maff, and today
I am joined by the amazing SimonCadotte, who is the CEO of Black
Maple Trading Company. Simon,how you doing, buddy? Ready for
a good show?
Simon Cadotte (01:24):
100%
Andrew Maff (01:26):
Yes! Super excited to have you here. Love to have
my Canadian brethren in-house. Iknow we were just talking that
you got a yard of snow, whichis, I've never even really heard
anyone refer to it as a 'yard ofsnow.' That is insane. So I'm
glad you're warm, at least.
Simon Cadotte (01:42):
You know, Canada measures in centimeters, and so
it doesn't translate as well.
So, yeah, it's, you know, it's39ish inches we got in one sort
of fell swoop. It was a fun fourdays, I'll tell you.
Andrew Maff (01:56):
That is crazy.
Well, I'm not 100% sure whenthis episode will go out, but
I'm hopeful that most of thatsnow will be gone by then.
Simon Cadotte (02:04):
I would love that to be the case. Even if it goes
out tomorrow, I'd love that tobe the case.
Andrew Maff (02:09):
Yeah, really β you and me both. Look, I love
starting these off relativelystereotypically, so I kind of
Let's do it!give you the floor and just tell
us a little bit about yourbackground, how you got started
with Black Maple, and we'll takeit from there, right buddy?
Simon Cadotte (02:20):
We can.
So, Black Mapleis an evolution of a few
different pieces that cametogether around 20 years ago.
(02:40):
One of my original founders of aslightly different business had
the idea that everybody lovesbeer and everybody loves
T-shirts, and we should begin abeer T-Shirt Company. Which kind
of was the really long time agoversion of it all. And we sort
of did that. We developed a lineof T shirts that were a mixture
of comedy and things from aroundand got involved really early in
(03:03):
eBay, and sort of grew it big inthe early 2000s on eBay back in
the wild west. And then, like alot of eBay guys, got a little
tired of that weird environment,transitioned over to Amazon, and
then did a lot of stuff throughAmazon, and along the way, we
grew into a full fledgedmanufacturer. So we were
(03:23):
manufacturing, we were printing,we were designing, we were doing
a bit of it all. And we ended upat a gift show in Toronto back
in 2015-16, and we kept gettingtold bypeople that we had these
great products and somebodyneeded to do something better
than what was on the market tosort of celebrate Canada. And
out of all that, out of this,this demand grew Black Maple
(03:45):
Trading. So we, we started offas a wholesaler, and then COVID
Andrew Maff (03:48):
That'll do it. And so you also have Rocket Factory
came along and pivoted us backinto our roots, into a proper
D2C Ecommerce business, andwe've never looked back. We've
as well, which is a relativelysimilar brand, correct?
Simon Cadotte (03:56):
It is essentially out of the gate, Black Maple
just grown and grown and grown.
Trading is designed tocelebrate, sort of your roots,
celebrating, celebrate what,what sort of being where you are
means to you, whether that's youknow, the mountains, the great
outdoors, whether that's yourcity, your neighborhood, whether
that's your nostalgia, your yourretro brands, your broadcasters,
things that make people reallyCanadian. Rocket Factory is
(04:17):
about celebrating the things youlike to do. So it sort of
started off as a, as a nerdbrand because we have a few
nerds on board that like themaths and the sciences. And what
started off as sort of math andscience became whatever kind of
people get nerdy about. Sowhether that's craft beer or
wine or photography orbicycling, and so we sort of
call it a nerd brand, but it'sreally about, you know,
(04:38):
celebrating what you like to do.
So there are some crossovers andsome similarities for sure.
Andrew Maff (04:43):
Yeah. So, one of the things I was super curious
to ask you about, I've got,actually, several really good
friends of mine that are in asimilar space, of like,
basically screen printing andmessaging, of hitting a very
certain audience, and somehow,you know, they had their
community and were able tofigure it out. That concept
(05:03):
scares the living hell out ofme. I don't understand. How did
you? How do you scale that? Howdid you get it to a point where
you could connect with thatcommunity and be able to offer
them product that, I mean, atthe end of the day, the thing
that's always very interestingis, like apparel, it's
subjective whether someone likesthe design, if someone doesn't.
So how do you scale that ifit's, if it's something that's
(05:26):
that's got that subjectivity toit?
Simon Cadotte (05:27):
It's actually been, it's always been an
interesting reflection I thinkin-house, we, Black Maple
Trading has become a brand thatsort of took a took sort of a
fragmented marketplace and triedto put it all together into into
something. In our past, youknow, we basically looked at,
especially when you were, youknow, when you talk about the
Amazons and the eBays, thosewere less brand-oriented and
(05:49):
more more sort of keyword-drivenand so, you you know, my sort of
early path into it was to figureout things we sort of liked that
we understood enough about thatwe could sit around with the
team and and sort of make jokesabout and go, 'Hey, that'd be a
great T-shirt, that'd be a greatT-shirt and then just test it
out, you know, into these publicmarkets using certain keywords,
(06:10):
and double down on things thatsort of take off. Even the Black
Maple brands sort of startedthat way. It was listening to
people saying, 'Hey, you guyshave a kind ofa neat flair for
design. We have a store; we'dlike to carry, you know,
something that you did thatcelebrated a theme.' And so, you
know, we knew we were beingpointed in the right direction.
And as the brand has grown, Ihave to say that probably 40-ish
(06:33):
percent of what we do now is isprobably user-suggested. 'Oh,
you guys should be doing this.
I'd be fun to do that.' We'vealways been torn between whether
we're really just an e-commercebusiness or a manufacturing
business, because we sort of doboth sides of it. But we've,
we've worked out a lot oftechnology that allows us to do
a lot of testing. You know, theworld of apparel has gone more
digital in the last few years,and so it did change the
(06:56):
old-school screen printing thatwas more difficult to approach.
And, you know, you see a lot ofgrowing niche brands these days
who find something they'repassionate about, and then a
community around them that'sable to rally behind that.
Andrew Maff (07:10):
Yeah. So, when you launch new products, is the
approach to initially put it onthe website and feel it out
before you put it onto othermarketplaces? Or the opposite of
that? Like, what's, what's thatproduct launchstrategy for
something that's kind of got ashort life?
Simon Cadotte (07:27):
Yeah, it has definitely become website based,
as we grow, we are exploring alot more tools that can help
translate customer conversationsinto sort of two way
conversations we'd like to sortof solicit, you know, almost
through polling certain types ofareas before we go deeply into
(07:47):
it. But because of some of ourtechnology, we've been sort of
able to say, oh, it's maplesyrup season, let's throw out a
bunch of wild ideasabout maplesyrup and figure out, out of a
batch of 15 or 20 in a launch,you know, what's going to
resonate and then, and then,what we sort of work towards. So
usually, you know, our productdevelopmentlife cycle is
launched 15, 20, 30 ideas in oneshot, and then two months later,
(08:11):
your cream sort of rises to thetop and those products will
often become evergreen, and therest will either be discontinued
or fizzle out, you know. So Ithink, in this type of field, if
you get, you know, even a 20%success on everything you're
launching, you're alreadydefinitely going in the right
direction. And because we don'thave to import 1000 pieces, 5000
pieces from overseas, and we'reable to do most of that in
(08:33):
house, it gives us thatnimbleness and that flexibility
Andrew Maff (08:36):
Interesting. Okay, so your product launch strategy
to change around when we needto.
is basically, I know apparelbrands tend to refer to as like
a drop. So you do like 20 to 30different designs, and then you
just let them all go and thenwhichever one survive, you
reprint, and then the otherones, you just let them die off.
Simon Cadotte (08:53):
It depends, some of them we will just put onto
our back burner and still leavearound just to create you know,
there are we discovered that aswe grew larger, the niche niche
products just wouldn't competeagainst the more national, I
guess we'd say. So, you know, aneighborhood in Philadelphia or
a neighborhood in Toronto justdoesn't have the same marketing,
(09:14):
you know, market for it, or it'sharder to justgo reach that
person. So we still, we still,you know, because of digital we,
you know, we run DTG's andembroidery and a few different
techniques that don't require usto do long production runs,
we'll keep anything sort ofaround that people have a kind
of a soft spot for, withoutbeing, you know, a runaway best
seller. But we will exactly thatyou know, we'll probably drop 40
(09:36):
or 50% of products after a threeto four months and just go, it
doesn't quite have, it justhasn't reverberated well enough
and because there's just alwayssomething new coming out, the
focus goes on to, you know,what's, what's the newest,
latest kind ofdrop, as you wedon't use the term, but it is
very, very common in theindustry.
Andrew Maff (09:55):
Yeah, so what's the, what's that creative
process like? Like, I wouldimagine, are you guys constantly
coming up with just new ideasand you have, like, a log that
you write them all down? Or isthere like, a hey,Friday is the
day we're all sitting down andhammering out huge ideas, like,
what's what's that like?
Simon Cadotte (10:10):
So we've done both. Yeah, it started as a
classic, you know, youngerbusiness with beers and a few
guys getting together andgrabbing anybody who, who you
have in your neighborhood orfriend group, and saying: "Hey,
we're having, you know, we'rehaving a few beers and a
brainstorm session, and that'skind of what started some of the
products. And then we like torun a really flat business so
(10:33):
whether you're, you know,somebody down in the production
side, or a salesperson, or thenext thing, it has become, more
formally, we'll say once amonth, but some teams are once
per week bring some ideas to thetable, get the idea going. You
know, we've got people fromdifferent backgrounds, from
different cultures, fromdifferent, you know, from
different even first languagesand it's always interesting to
(10:55):
let a brainstorm session gobecause of what people sometimes
will bring out of the blue basedon somebody else's idea. So, it
still remains really dynamic. Weusually know kind of what the
broad strokes of what we'regoing to be thinkingabout
designing are, you know, like wecould say maple syrup, we could
say poutine, we could say theAmerican eagle, and then it'll
just sort of riff and rip arounduntil there's a bunch of ideas
(11:18):
and then that'll distill down tothe design team, who we're
lucky, we've got a terrificcreative director who's got a
great, who's figured out a greatway to sort of create products
that resonate. So, you know, weare a team that's been working
together for over 15 years, andso there is a lot of trust in
the team as well. And I mean,that's a that's a blessing and a
(11:38):
gift in ways that I I wouldn'tstart a new company tomorrow,
because I think it would be hardto develop those, those trusts
and those relationships, youknow?
Andrew Maff (11:45):
Oh, yeah. Yeah it is all about the people you find
and who you can work with aftera while that's, that's really
what it becomes for anybusiness. What about, so
obviously, I'm very curious onthe marketing side, since
that's, that's my baby, what,what's the approach like? Is you
lean on the influencer side? Isit? Is it anything from social
media? Is it mostly on the emailside, like, what are you doing,
(12:07):
both from anevergreenperspective as well as
from kind of a product launchside?
Simon Cadotte (12:11):
Right! So that's going to take probably, you
know, three big prongs, and onething that's great, maybe for
the show and for a lot oflisteners, we made a big, big
decision last year, after acertain amount of growth, to
bring all of our marketing backin house. So we had been working
with agencies, and I thinkagencies are a great way to work
for you know, smaller brandsthat don't have the expertise
(12:32):
until you get to a certain size.
But we found that there was amoment where marketing is so
much about storytelling and somuch needs to resonate with that
that you know that crowd that'slistening to you, that's
interested in you, that youcan't really outsource it
effectively. I mean, there'sprobably exceptions to that
rule, but we found that bringingour marketing back in, firstly,
(12:53):
through a great chief marketingofficer who built out a team
that that does a much betterjob. We definitely have the
thrust of marketing that's stillrelated to social media
marketing. It's a great placefor, you know, that sort of
impulse, I didn't know I neededit, but I just saw it, and it's
awesome, I want one type ofmarket. But we've built a very,
very strong follow up machinethrough email marketing and SMS
(13:16):
marketing. So we do, we dodefinitely nurture and maintain
that community through, youknow, offers, first time, first
crack, different discounts thatyou can get sort of through
that. So those are the twobiggest ones, and influencers is
a growing one actually, it's onethat we're, we're definitely
working on this year, and it'sbeen interesting because we've
(13:37):
had a lot of influencers reach
out to us and sort of go (13:39):
"Hey, you guys need a more formal
program." And so, yeah, we do.
So it's where we're at now. Youknow the absolutely there's been
a lot of change in marketing,and I think influencers take up
a much bigger space today thanthey did even five years ago. So
it's hard to ignore that,especially when people who love
our products are saying (14:00):
"Well, I have a podcast, or, you know,
I have a YouTube channel I'dlove to feature some of the
stuff." It's like, yeah, we needa good formal program. So that's
that's really been 2024 and 2025for us.
Andrew Maff (14:12):
Yeah. Yeah I mean, to your point, I mean, I own an
agency, and I can tell you rightnow, if you can bring it
in-house, bring it in-house.
Like, especially for a brandlike yours, where that that
creativity, that storytelling,that connection with the
community, it's a it's very,very difficult. You could supply
an agency with the world's bestwritten and in depth brand
guides, and it's still won'tresonate as well as you need it
(14:36):
to.
Simon Cadotte (14:38):
And we've had the joy of working with some great
industry, some great some greatagencies at different sizes and
at different levels. And Ireally think that there are
certain products where I wouldnever think about bringing it in
house, and I think an agency hasexpertise and specialty that
maybe you can't develop inhouse. When we got bigger and
the brand went forward and thestorytelling and the sort of the
(15:01):
you just, you can't expect thatsort of bespoke relationship
with an agency who's, you know,who is in the numbers business
in a lot of different ways. So Ithink there's a, there's a place
for both. And I, you know, I dothink that there's some amazing
agencies out there. I still havea few friends who own terrific
agencies and who do spectacularfor certain types of clients. In
(15:22):
our case, it was a, it was agood move to bring that back in
house. It just, I think it gaveus a truer sense of messaging
when it really came down to it.
Unknown (15:32):
Yeah. On the, on the influencer side, what's the
approach there? Are you thinkingthat you'll lean in on, like,
the micro side, so you'rebasically just gifting a
product? Or are you actuallyleaning in on, you know, let's
put a budget together and workwith some of the bigger ones?
Simon Cadotte (15:46):
Yeah, the strategy we're using right now
is going to be that blend of thetwo. We are doing the gifting,
we are looking at microinfluencers that sort of have a
demographic that already makessense for us, whether that's,
you know, poutine lovers, again,I go back to some of the common
(16:06):
themes, or, you know, mooselovers, or Canada lovers, or
some of those different things.
There is a second phase to that,which is to figure out which of
those micro influencers have abetter a better sound, a better
voice, and then lookingatconverting that into into
something that's a little bitdeeper, and probably using the
data that comes out ofthat formore paid partnerships. We,
(16:28):
through our licensing, we dohave access to some pretty neat
people around the hockey marketand around the broadcast market
in Canada. And so we've beentrying to figureout exactly what
those types of influencerpartnerships would look like
without them seeming tooadvertisy or too forced, so that
(16:49):
they remain natural. Right,there's the, we're trying to
maintain that family run growingbusiness, as opposed to the big
polished business. You know,there's grassroots as part of
our sort of DNA, I guess and soit's, how do you, how do you
keep that feeling as you grow asbeing really a big part of what
we're doing too.
Andrew Maff (17:09):
Yeah, tell me about it. So do you for from like,
your social posts or yourorganic stuff, or you or your
paid ad stuff, I should say, areyou leaning more on, like, the
user generated content, kind ofcreative, like making itlook
like someone filmed it on theirphone, or you actually like, no,
let's go do a photo shoot andget that done professionally?
Simon Cadotte (17:25):
We have definitely done both, and I my
take on it, and again, themarketing team might be
different is, I think there's aplace for both. I still, I still
really like professionally shot,stylized sort of pieces. And I
thinkwhen, you know, when youwork with some great
photographers or some some greatvideographers, you can, you can
(17:46):
get a really quality lookingproduct. And that sort of, you
know, goes for that, that sortof shiny once in a blue moon. We
also figured out thatultimately, we just, we launch
too much product to be able todo that for every product. And
so, we figure that, you know,there's these sort of, like
headline pieces, or, again,evergreen pieces, where we'll
(18:06):
collaborate with a greatphotographer, videographer and
try to bring out something morepolished. But we love the
user-generated, I'm normal andpretty in your clothing kind of
story and I think that it'strue. You know what, we're not,
we're not like an Oscar de laRenta, or we're not trying to be
high fashion with cutting edge.
We're into, you know, comfort,quality, affordability and sort
(18:28):
of like wearing your roots. Andso, it's we find definitely
great results off of, off ofuser-generated type of content
with others who go (18:36):
"Hey, that looks like me. That Looks comfy.
I want that." You know?
Andrew Maff (18:41):
Yeah, exactly. On the, so obviously that's, that's
from an off marketplaceperspective, that's all the D2C
side of things, it makes a lotof sense, folks in the UGC, the
influencer stuff. So you'reeducating that market to
eventually, or basicallybuilding that community to get
into the site. Common sense,gotcha! Amazon, though, how are
you doing that? Because youmentioned that, you know, you do
(19:03):
launch some stuff on themarketplace side, and it's more
keyword-driven. And forsomething where it's more
community-driven, and you kindof have to present it to them,
there's not a lot of like, in myopinion, there's not really a
lot of window shoppers onAmazon. They're actively looking
for things. So how are you doingon the keyworkd perspective?
Simon Cadotte (19:19):
Correct. Amazon remains a tricky, tricky, in my
opinion, a tricky tricky marketfor brands. Particularly brands
that aren't an Amazon brand. AndI say this because I've done
some projects where we were anAmazon brand, and you don't have
to worry about off Amazoncompetition, because it doesn't
exist. We are working very hardat trying to figure out how to
(19:41):
cohabitate on a premium sort ofour own website, our own markets
and some of our touchpointsellers. And at the same time,
also access the far deeper sortof pools that you do get on
marketplaces. Whether that's,you know, whether that's Etsy at
a smaller level, whether that'sAmazon at a bigger level,
whether that's Walmartmarketplaces and some of those.
(20:03):
And so we're generally trying tofigure out how to create either
unique product for thatmarketplace where you can't it's
not part of our regular line,it's still a Black Maple Trading
product, but it won't be foundon the website so that we don't
create comparatives, because theAmazon is a, it's a different
competition than your socialmedia or than, you know, than
(20:25):
your search engine type ofshopee market. It is a very, you
know, it's a price sensitivemarket. It's people looking for
good deals, it's people lookingfor speed. And so we're trying
to figure out how to do whatsome of the bigger retail brands
have managed to do too whilestaying you know, I won't
mention it, but I think, youknow, from Carhartt to Dickies,
(20:47):
some of these companies havedone great jobs of being this
primary primo product in somemarkets. And affordable with a
slightly different product in asecondary kind of market stream.
And so, but I do think that it'ssuper challenging to try to sell
the same product in two marketsand not cannibalize yourself.
Andrew Maff (21:07):
Yeah, I know a pretty good amount of like
apparel brands that kind of do asimilar approach to what you do
on the D2C side. So, you know,they'll, they'll do a launch of,
you know, 20-30, plus differentstyles, and then figure out
which of these is the clearwinner, that's just a top seller
forever. And then they'll justput that on Amazon and have that
be like the product that'sbasically building customer
(21:28):
acquisition, and then they focuson, okay, how do I get them back
to the site? Is that a similarapproach that you're thinking or
are you thinking like, no, we'rejust gonna create completely
exclusive stuff for Amazon?
Simon Cadotte (21:37):
For the time being, we have created exclusive
stuff for Amazon. We've playedaround with it, with a few of
our licensed brands that thatthat have unlicensed items on
Amazon. So we did want to, wedid want to basically say:
"Well, you know, we're thelicensor, when you're buying a
Heartland product from us,you're actually supporting
(21:58):
Heartland, the TV show,Heartland the production
company." And it, you know,there's we're, I can tell you
that we're still in theexploration phase. There is the
aspect of doing what you justsaid, which is taking your
winners and putting them out onAmazon. There's also the other
side, which is, you take yournot as winners, perhaps, and run
a mo (22:19):
"Hey, we over produce this portion, and it didn't sell
quite enough, so here it is as adiscount." And we have some
retailers that have thatinterest with us as well. It is
probably the biggest challengeis, how do you how do you manage
an inventory which was designedto have a certain quality and a
certain price point and maintainthat value without eroding some
(22:41):
of that value by having tosometimes maybe move some, you
know, whether that's a big orderthat's gotten canceled by a
retail. I mean, you know, everyclothing brand ends up with
sometimes a little too much ofsomething, and then it's the how
do you sort of get rid of it,but still maintain the value? So
we, we are looking at Amazon asa possible liquidation. We do
(23:04):
have an outlet store on ourwebsite, which, which is the
idea that you're getting thisgreat product that we we have
too much of right now, and we'rewilling to, you know, part with
it at a different price. We arelooking at similar licensed
products on a different piece,and so that the comparitons
aren't really there. I'd sayit's a work in progress,and the
(23:26):
days of, you know, the days ofAmazon being easy, are over.
Amazon is very competitive, verycompetitive, both both
domestically and overseas. Youknow, I mean, you've got, not so
long ago, Amazon had a slightlymore rigorous vetoing of who
could sell, how you could sell,and what you had to correct. And
so along with that came a mixedbag of, you know, good and bad,
(23:49):
I guess, for it.
Andrew Maff (23:53):
Yeah, that's we could do that on a whole other
Simon Cadotte (23:56):
We could! Not going to stop there.
Andrew Maff (24:01):
But yeah, this was Simon. I really appreciate your
time. This was amazing. Weobviously learned a lot today.
I'd love to give the opportunityplease let everyone know where
they can find out more aboutyou, and, of course, more about
Black Maple Trading.
Simon Cadotte (24:11):
Sure you've got most of it at
blackmapletrading.com and youhave our sister company, which
is shoprocketfactory.com whereyou can get more of the nerdy
side of what we do and the hobbyside of what we do.
Andrew Maff (24:27):
Beautiful! Simon, thank you so much for joining
us. Everyone who tuned in, ofcourse, thank you as well.
Please make sure you do theusual rate, review, subscribe
all that fun stuff on whicheverpodcast platform you prefer, or
head over to the ecommshow.comto check out all of our previous
episodes. But as usual, thankyou all for joining us. See you
all next time!
Narrator (24:46):
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(25:09):
information. Make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E-Comm show.
(26:11):
podcast, talking about that allday.
Black Maple Trading is designed to celebrate
sort of your roots, celebratingwhat sort of being where you are
means to youβwhether that's, youknow, the mountains, the great
outdoors; whether that's yourcity, your neighborhood; whether
that's your nostalgia, yourretro brands, your
broadcastersβthings that makepeople really Canadian.
Narrator (00:34):
Music
Unknown (01:11):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of
The E-Comm Show. I am your host,as usual, Andrew Maff, and today
I am joined by the amazing SimonCadotte, who is the CEO of Black
Maple Trading Company. Simon,how you doing, buddy? Ready for
a good show?
Simon Cadotte (01:24):
100%
Andrew Maff (01:26):
Yes! Super excited to have you here. Love to have
my Canadian brethren in-house. Iknow we were just talking that
you got a yard of snow, whichis, I've never even really heard
anyone refer to it as a 'yard ofsnow.' That is insane. So I'm
glad you're warm, at least.
Simon Cadotte (01:42):
You know, Canada measures in centimeters, and so
it doesn't translate as well.
So, yeah, it's, you know, it's39ish inches we got in one sort
of fell swoop. It was a fun fourdays, I'll tell you.
Andrew Maff (01:56):
That is crazy.
Well, I'm not 100% sure whenthis episode will go out, but
I'm hopeful that most of thatsnow will be gone by then.
Simon Cadotte (02:04):
I would love that to be the case. Even if it goes
out tomorrow, I'd love that tobe the case.
Andrew Maff (02:09):
Yeah, really β you and me both. Look, I love
starting these off relativelystereotypically, so I kind of
Let's do it!give you the floor and just tell
us a little bit about yourbackground, how you got started
with Black Maple, and we'll takeit from there, right buddy?
Simon Cadotte (02:20):
We can.
So, Black Mapleis an evolution of a few
different pieces that cametogether around 20 years ago.
(02:40):
One of my original founders of aslightly different business had
the idea that everybody lovesbeer and everybody loves
T-shirts, and we should begin abeer T-Shirt Company. Which kind
of was the really long time agoversion of it all. And we sort
of did that. We developed a lineof T shirts that were a mixture
of comedy and things from aroundand got involved really early in
(03:03):
eBay, and sort of grew it big inthe early 2000s on eBay back in
the wild west. And then, like alot of eBay guys, got a little
tired of that weird environment,transitioned over to Amazon, and
then did a lot of stuff throughAmazon, and along the way, we
grew into a full fledgedmanufacturer. So we were
(03:23):
manufacturing, we were printing,we were designing, we were doing
a bit of it all. And we ended upat a gift show in Toronto back
in 2015-16, and we kept gettingtold bypeople that we had these
great products and somebodyneeded to do something better
than what was on the market tosort of celebrate Canada. And
out of all that, out of this,this demand grew Black Maple
(03:45):
Trading. So we, we started offas a wholesaler, and then COVID
Andrew Maff (03:48):
That'll do it. And so you also have Rocket Factory
came along and pivoted us backinto our roots, into a proper
D2C Ecommerce business, andwe've never looked back. We've
as well, which is a relativelysimilar brand, correct?
Simon Cadotte (03:56):
It is essentially out of the gate, Black Maple
just grown and grown and grown.
Trading is designed tocelebrate, sort of your roots,
celebrating, celebrate what,what sort of being where you are
means to you, whether that's youknow, the mountains, the great
outdoors, whether that's yourcity, your neighborhood, whether
that's your nostalgia, your yourretro brands, your broadcasters,
things that make people reallyCanadian. Rocket Factory is
(04:17):
about celebrating the things youlike to do. So it sort of
started off as a, as a nerdbrand because we have a few
nerds on board that like themaths and the sciences. And what
started off as sort of math andscience became whatever kind of
people get nerdy about. Sowhether that's craft beer or
wine or photography orbicycling, and so we sort of
call it a nerd brand, but it'sreally about, you know,
(04:38):
celebrating what you like to do.
So there are some crossovers andsome similarities for sure.
Andrew Maff (04:43):
Yeah. So, one of the things I was super curious
to ask you about, I've got,actually, several really good
friends of mine that are in asimilar space, of like,
basically screen printing andmessaging, of hitting a very
certain audience, and somehow,you know, they had their
community and were able tofigure it out. That concept
(05:03):
scares the living hell out ofme. I don't understand. How did
you? How do you scale that? Howdid you get it to a point where
you could connect with thatcommunity and be able to offer
them product that, I mean, atthe end of the day, the thing
that's always very interestingis, like apparel, it's
subjective whether someone likesthe design, if someone doesn't.
So how do you scale that ifit's, if it's something that's
(05:26):
that's got that subjectivity toit?
Simon Cadotte (05:27):
It's actually been, it's always been an
interesting reflection I thinkin-house, we, Black Maple
Trading has become a brand thatsort of took a took sort of a
fragmented marketplace and triedto put it all together into into
something. In our past, youknow, we basically looked at,
especially when you were, youknow, when you talk about the
Amazons and the eBays, thosewere less brand-oriented and
(05:49):
more more sort of keyword-drivenand so, you you know, my sort of
early path into it was to figureout things we sort of liked that
we understood enough about thatwe could sit around with the
team and and sort of make jokesabout and go, 'Hey, that'd be a
great T-shirt, that'd be a greatT-shirt and then just test it
out, you know, into these publicmarkets using certain keywords,
(06:10):
and double down on things thatsort of take off. Even the Black
Maple brands sort of startedthat way. It was listening to
people saying, 'Hey, you guyshave a kind ofa neat flair for
design. We have a store; we'dlike to carry, you know,
something that you did thatcelebrated a theme.' And so, you
know, we knew we were beingpointed in the right direction.
And as the brand has grown, Ihave to say that probably 40-ish
(06:33):
percent of what we do now is isprobably user-suggested. 'Oh,
you guys should be doing this.
I'd be fun to do that.' We'vealways been torn between whether
we're really just an e-commercebusiness or a manufacturing
business, because we sort of doboth sides of it. But we've,
we've worked out a lot oftechnology that allows us to do
a lot of testing. You know, theworld of apparel has gone more
digital in the last few years,and so it did change the
(06:56):
old-school screen printing thatwas more difficult to approach.
And, you know, you see a lot ofgrowing niche brands these days
who find something they'repassionate about, and then a
community around them that'sable to rally behind that.
Andrew Maff (07:10):
Yeah. So, when you launch new products, is the
approach to initially put it onthe website and feel it out
before you put it onto othermarketplaces? Or the opposite of
that? Like, what's, what's thatproduct launchstrategy for
something that's kind of got ashort life?
Simon Cadotte (07:27):
Yeah, it has definitely become website based,
as we grow, we are exploring alot more tools that can help
translate customer conversationsinto sort of two way
conversations we'd like to sortof solicit, you know, almost
through polling certain types ofareas before we go deeply into
(07:47):
it. But because of some of ourtechnology, we've been sort of
able to say, oh, it's maplesyrup season, let's throw out a
bunch of wild ideasabout maplesyrup and figure out, out of a
batch of 15 or 20 in a launch,you know, what's going to
resonate and then, and then,what we sort of work towards. So
usually, you know, our productdevelopmentlife cycle is
launched 15, 20, 30 ideas in oneshot, and then two months later,
(08:11):
your cream sort of rises to thetop and those products will
often become evergreen, and therest will either be discontinued
or fizzle out, you know. So Ithink, in this type of field, if
you get, you know, even a 20%success on everything you're
launching, you're alreadydefinitely going in the right
direction. And because we don'thave to import 1000 pieces, 5000
pieces from overseas, and we'reable to do most of that in
(08:33):
house, it gives us thatnimbleness and that flexibility
Andrew Maff (08:36):
Interesting. Okay, so your product launch strategy
to change around when we needto.
is basically, I know apparelbrands tend to refer to as like
a drop. So you do like 20 to 30different designs, and then you
just let them all go and thenwhichever one survive, you
reprint, and then the otherones, you just let them die off.
Simon Cadotte (08:53):
It depends, some of them we will just put onto
our back burner and still leavearound just to create you know,
there are we discovered that aswe grew larger, the niche niche
products just wouldn't competeagainst the more national, I
guess we'd say. So, you know, aneighborhood in Philadelphia or
a neighborhood in Toronto justdoesn't have the same marketing,
(09:14):
you know, market for it, or it'sharder to justgo reach that
person. So we still, we still,you know, because of digital we,
you know, we run DTG's andembroidery and a few different
techniques that don't require usto do long production runs,
we'll keep anything sort ofaround that people have a kind
of a soft spot for, withoutbeing, you know, a runaway best
seller. But we will exactly thatyou know, we'll probably drop 40
(09:36):
or 50% of products after a threeto four months and just go, it
doesn't quite have, it justhasn't reverberated well enough
and because there's just alwayssomething new coming out, the
focus goes on to, you know,what's, what's the newest,
latest kind ofdrop, as you wedon't use the term, but it is
very, very common in theindustry.
Andrew Maff (09:55):
Yeah, so what's the, what's that creative
process like? Like, I wouldimagine, are you guys constantly
coming up with just new ideasand you have, like, a log that
you write them all down? Or isthere like, a hey,Friday is the
day we're all sitting down andhammering out huge ideas, like,
what's what's that like?
Simon Cadotte (10:10):
So we've done both. Yeah, it started as a
classic, you know, youngerbusiness with beers and a few
guys getting together andgrabbing anybody who, who you
have in your neighborhood orfriend group, and saying: "Hey,
we're having, you know, we'rehaving a few beers and a
brainstorm session, and that'skind of what started some of the
products. And then we like torun a really flat business so
(10:33):
whether you're, you know,somebody down in the production
side, or a salesperson, or thenext thing, it has become, more
formally, we'll say once amonth, but some teams are once
per week bring some ideas to thetable, get the idea going. You
know, we've got people fromdifferent backgrounds, from
different cultures, fromdifferent, you know, from
different even first languagesand it's always interesting to
(10:55):
let a brainstorm session gobecause of what people sometimes
will bring out of the blue basedon somebody else's idea. So, it
still remains really dynamic. Weusually know kind of what the
broad strokes of what we'regoing to be thinkingabout
designing are, you know, like wecould say maple syrup, we could
say poutine, we could say theAmerican eagle, and then it'll
just sort of riff and rip arounduntil there's a bunch of ideas
(11:18):
and then that'll distill down tothe design team, who we're
lucky, we've got a terrificcreative director who's got a
great, who's figured out a greatway to sort of create products
that resonate. So, you know, weare a team that's been working
together for over 15 years, andso there is a lot of trust in
the team as well. And I mean,that's a that's a blessing and a
(11:38):
gift in ways that I I wouldn'tstart a new company tomorrow,
because I think it would be hardto develop those, those trusts
and those relationships, youknow?
Andrew Maff (11:45):
Oh, yeah. Yeah it is all about the people you find
and who you can work with aftera while that's, that's really
what it becomes for anybusiness. What about, so
obviously, I'm very curious onthe marketing side, since
that's, that's my baby, what,what's the approach like? Is you
lean on the influencer side? Isit? Is it anything from social
media? Is it mostly on the emailside, like, what are you doing,
(12:07):
both from anevergreenperspective as well as
from kind of a product launchside?
Simon Cadotte (12:11):
Right! So that's going to take probably, you
know, three big prongs, and onething that's great, maybe for
the show and for a lot oflisteners, we made a big, big
decision last year, after acertain amount of growth, to
bring all of our marketing backin house. So we had been working
with agencies, and I thinkagencies are a great way to work
for you know, smaller brandsthat don't have the expertise
(12:32):
until you get to a certain size.
But we found that there was amoment where marketing is so
much about storytelling and somuch needs to resonate with that
that you know that crowd that'slistening to you, that's
interested in you, that youcan't really outsource it
effectively. I mean, there'sprobably exceptions to that
rule, but we found that bringingour marketing back in, firstly,
(12:53):
through a great chief marketingofficer who built out a team
that that does a much betterjob. We definitely have the
thrust of marketing that's stillrelated to social media
marketing. It's a great placefor, you know, that sort of
impulse, I didn't know I neededit, but I just saw it, and it's
awesome, I want one type ofmarket. But we've built a very,
very strong follow up machinethrough email marketing and SMS
(13:16):
marketing. So we do, we dodefinitely nurture and maintain
that community through, youknow, offers, first time, first
crack, different discounts thatyou can get sort of through
that. So those are the twobiggest ones, and influencers is
a growing one actually, it's onethat we're, we're definitely
working on this year, and it'sbeen interesting because we've
(13:37):
had a lot of influencers reach
out to us and sort of go (13:39):
"Hey, you guys need a more formal
program." And so, yeah, we do.
So it's where we're at now. Youknow the absolutely there's been
a lot of change in marketing,and I think influencers take up
a much bigger space today thanthey did even five years ago. So
it's hard to ignore that,especially when people who love
our products are saying (14:00):
"Well, I have a podcast, or, you know,
I have a YouTube channel I'dlove to feature some of the
stuff." It's like, yeah, we needa good formal program. So that's
that's really been 2024 and 2025for us.
Andrew Maff (14:12):
Yeah. Yeah I mean, to your point, I mean, I own an
agency, and I can tell you rightnow, if you can bring it
in-house, bring it in-house.
Like, especially for a brandlike yours, where that that
creativity, that storytelling,that connection with the
community, it's a it's very,very difficult. You could supply
an agency with the world's bestwritten and in depth brand
guides, and it's still won'tresonate as well as you need it
(14:36):
to.
Simon Cadotte (14:38):
And we've had the joy of working with some great
industry, some great some greatagencies at different sizes and
at different levels. And Ireally think that there are
certain products where I wouldnever think about bringing it in
house, and I think an agency hasexpertise and specialty that
maybe you can't develop inhouse. When we got bigger and
the brand went forward and thestorytelling and the sort of the
(15:01):
you just, you can't expect thatsort of bespoke relationship
with an agency who's, you know,who is in the numbers business
in a lot of different ways. So Ithink there's a, there's a place
for both. And I, you know, I dothink that there's some amazing
agencies out there. I still havea few friends who own terrific
agencies and who do spectacularfor certain types of clients. In
(15:22):
our case, it was a, it was agood move to bring that back in
house. It just, I think it gaveus a truer sense of messaging
when it really came down to it.
Unknown (15:32):
Yeah. On the, on the influencer side, what's the
approach there? Are you thinkingthat you'll lean in on, like,
the micro side, so you'rebasically just gifting a
product? Or are you actuallyleaning in on, you know, let's
put a budget together and workwith some of the bigger ones?
Simon Cadotte (15:46):
Yeah, the strategy we're using right now
is going to be that blend of thetwo. We are doing the gifting,
we are looking at microinfluencers that sort of have a
demographic that already makessense for us, whether that's,
you know, poutine lovers, again,I go back to some of the common
(16:06):
themes, or, you know, mooselovers, or Canada lovers, or
some of those different things.
There is a second phase to that,which is to figure out which of
those micro influencers have abetter a better sound, a better
voice, and then lookingatconverting that into into
something that's a little bitdeeper, and probably using the
data that comes out ofthat formore paid partnerships. We,
(16:28):
through our licensing, we dohave access to some pretty neat
people around the hockey marketand around the broadcast market
in Canada. And so we've beentrying to figureout exactly what
those types of influencerpartnerships would look like
without them seeming tooadvertisy or too forced, so that
(16:49):
they remain natural. Right,there's the, we're trying to
maintain that family run growingbusiness, as opposed to the big
polished business. You know,there's grassroots as part of
our sort of DNA, I guess and soit's, how do you, how do you
keep that feeling as you grow asbeing really a big part of what
we're doing too.
Andrew Maff (17:09):
Yeah, tell me about it. So do you for from like,
your social posts or yourorganic stuff, or you or your
paid ad stuff, I should say, areyou leaning more on, like, the
user generated content, kind ofcreative, like making itlook
like someone filmed it on theirphone, or you actually like, no,
let's go do a photo shoot andget that done professionally?
Simon Cadotte (17:25):
We have definitely done both, and I my
take on it, and again, themarketing team might be
different is, I think there's aplace for both. I still, I still
really like professionally shot,stylized sort of pieces. And I
thinkwhen, you know, when youwork with some great
photographers or some some greatvideographers, you can, you can
(17:46):
get a really quality lookingproduct. And that sort of, you
know, goes for that, that sortof shiny once in a blue moon. We
also figured out thatultimately, we just, we launch
too much product to be able todo that for every product. And
so, we figure that, you know,there's these sort of, like
headline pieces, or, again,evergreen pieces, where we'll
(18:06):
collaborate with a greatphotographer, videographer and
try to bring out something morepolished. But we love the
user-generated, I'm normal andpretty in your clothing kind of
story and I think that it'strue. You know what, we're not,
we're not like an Oscar de laRenta, or we're not trying to be
high fashion with cutting edge.
We're into, you know, comfort,quality, affordability and sort
(18:28):
of like wearing your roots. Andso, it's we find definitely
great results off of, off ofuser-generated type of content
with others who go (18:36):
"Hey, that looks like me. That Looks comfy.
I want that." You know?
Andrew Maff (18:41):
Yeah, exactly. On the, so obviously that's, that's
from an off marketplaceperspective, that's all the D2C
side of things, it makes a lotof sense, folks in the UGC, the
influencer stuff. So you'reeducating that market to
eventually, or basicallybuilding that community to get
into the site. Common sense,gotcha! Amazon, though, how are
you doing that? Because youmentioned that, you know, you do
(19:03):
launch some stuff on themarketplace side, and it's more
keyword-driven. And forsomething where it's more
community-driven, and you kindof have to present it to them,
there's not a lot of like, in myopinion, there's not really a
lot of window shoppers onAmazon. They're actively looking
for things. So how are you doingon the keyworkd perspective?
Simon Cadotte (19:19):
Correct. Amazon remains a tricky, tricky, in my
opinion, a tricky tricky marketfor brands. Particularly brands
that aren't an Amazon brand. AndI say this because I've done
some projects where we were anAmazon brand, and you don't have
to worry about off Amazoncompetition, because it doesn't
exist. We are working very hardat trying to figure out how to
(19:41):
cohabitate on a premium sort ofour own website, our own markets
and some of our touchpointsellers. And at the same time,
also access the far deeper sortof pools that you do get on
marketplaces. Whether that's,you know, whether that's Etsy at
a smaller level, whether that'sAmazon at a bigger level,
whether that's Walmartmarketplaces and some of those.
(20:03):
And so we're generally trying tofigure out how to create either
unique product for thatmarketplace where you can't it's
not part of our regular line,it's still a Black Maple Trading
product, but it won't be foundon the website so that we don't
create comparatives, because theAmazon is a, it's a different
competition than your socialmedia or than, you know, than
(20:25):
your search engine type ofshopee market. It is a very, you
know, it's a price sensitivemarket. It's people looking for
good deals, it's people lookingfor speed. And so we're trying
to figure out how to do whatsome of the bigger retail brands
have managed to do too whilestaying you know, I won't
mention it, but I think, youknow, from Carhartt to Dickies,
(20:47):
some of these companies havedone great jobs of being this
primary primo product in somemarkets. And affordable with a
slightly different product in asecondary kind of market stream.
And so, but I do think that it'ssuper challenging to try to sell
the same product in two marketsand not cannibalize yourself.
Andrew Maff (21:07):
Yeah, I know a pretty good amount of like
apparel brands that kind of do asimilar approach to what you do
on the D2C side. So, you know,they'll, they'll do a launch of,
you know, 20-30, plus differentstyles, and then figure out
which of these is the clearwinner, that's just a top seller
forever. And then they'll justput that on Amazon and have that
be like the product that'sbasically building customer
(21:28):
acquisition, and then they focuson, okay, how do I get them back
to the site? Is that a similarapproach that you're thinking or
are you thinking like, no, we'rejust gonna create completely
exclusive stuff for Amazon?
Simon Cadotte (21:37):
For the time being, we have created exclusive
stuff for Amazon. We've playedaround with it, with a few of
our licensed brands that thatthat have unlicensed items on
Amazon. So we did want to, wedid want to basically say:
"Well, you know, we're thelicensor, when you're buying a
Heartland product from us,you're actually supporting
(21:58):
Heartland, the TV show,Heartland the production
company." And it, you know,there's we're, I can tell you
that we're still in theexploration phase. There is the
aspect of doing what you justsaid, which is taking your
winners and putting them out onAmazon. There's also the other
side, which is, you take yournot as winners, perhaps, and run
a mo (22:19):
"Hey, we over produce this portion, and it didn't sell
quite enough, so here it is as adiscount." And we have some
retailers that have thatinterest with us as well. It is
probably the biggest challengeis, how do you how do you manage
an inventory which was designedto have a certain quality and a
certain price point and maintainthat value without eroding some
(22:41):
of that value by having tosometimes maybe move some, you
know, whether that's a big orderthat's gotten canceled by a
retail. I mean, you know, everyclothing brand ends up with
sometimes a little too much ofsomething, and then it's the how
do you sort of get rid of it,but still maintain the value? So
we, we are looking at Amazon asa possible liquidation. We do
(23:04):
have an outlet store on ourwebsite, which, which is the
idea that you're getting thisgreat product that we we have
too much of right now, and we'rewilling to, you know, part with
it at a different price. We arelooking at similar licensed
products on a different piece,and so that the comparitons
aren't really there. I'd sayit's a work in progress,and the
(23:26):
days of, you know, the days ofAmazon being easy, are over.
Amazon is very competitive, verycompetitive, both both
domestically and overseas. Youknow, I mean, you've got, not so
long ago, Amazon had a slightlymore rigorous vetoing of who
could sell, how you could sell,and what you had to correct. And
so along with that came a mixedbag of, you know, good and bad,
(23:49):
I guess, for it.
Andrew Maff (23:53):
Yeah, that's we could do that on a whole other
Simon Cadotte (23:56):
We could! Not going to stop there.
Andrew Maff (24:01):
But yeah, this was Simon. I really appreciate your
time. This was amazing. Weobviously learned a lot today.
I'd love to give the opportunityplease let everyone know where
they can find out more aboutyou, and, of course, more about
Black Maple Trading.
Simon Cadotte (24:11):
Sure you've got most of it at
blackmapletrading.com and youhave our sister company, which
is shoprocketfactory.com whereyou can get more of the nerdy
side of what we do and the hobbyside of what we do.
Andrew Maff (24:27):
Beautiful! Simon, thank you so much for joining
us. Everyone who tuned in, ofcourse, thank you as well.
Please make sure you do theusual rate, review, subscribe
all that fun stuff on whicheverpodcast platform you prefer, or
head over to the ecommshow.comto check out all of our previous
episodes. But as usual, thankyou all for joining us. See you
all next time!
Narrator (24:46):
Thank you for tuning in to the E-Comm show. Head over
to theecommshow.com to subscribeon your favorite podcast
platform or on the Blue TuskerYouTube channel. The E-Comm show
is brought to you by BlueTusker, a full service digital
marketing company specificallyfor e-commerce sellers looking
to accelerate their growth. Goto bluetuskr.com now for more
(25:09):
information. Make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E-Comm show.
(26:11):
podcast, talking about that allday.
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