How a Toronto Entrepreneur Turned Canada's Buy-Canadian Surge Into a Thriving Marketplace

Valerie Crisp, a 38-year-old Toronto entrepreneur and former fashion founder, launched Common Goods — an online Canadian marketplace — at exactly the right moment. She had been quietly developing a product-search tool when Donald Trump's tariff policy ignited a nationwide Buy Canadian movement in early 2025. Rather than watch from the sidelines, she pivoted her prototype, posted a single TikTok with no meaningful following, and watched an email signup list materialize almost immediately.

The business started lean. Common Goods launched with an affiliate model in February 2025, directing shoppers to Canadian brands' own checkout pages. By November, Crisp introduced curated Canadian gift boxes for the holidays — a direct-purchase offering that gained serious traction and convinced more brands to list on the platform's native checkout. The site now spans apparel, personal care, tea, coffee, and toiletries, with some larger brands maintained as affiliate-only listings because they haven't yet committed to new distribution channels.

The momentum is real and measurable. When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that no trade deal had been reached with the U.S., Crisp posted a couple of items on Threads and watched daily site traffic jump from under 5,000 visitors to nearly 15,000 in a single day. One brand partner emailed to flag what it suspected were fraudulent orders — the volume of purchases was so unusual the company thought something had gone wrong. It hadn't. Returning customer rates currently sit between 5% and 13%, with Crisp targeting 20%, though she notes most customers have only discovered the platform in the past six months.

Crisp is candid about the complexity behind the "Buy Canadian" label. Truly Canada-made products are realistically achievable in food and skincare, she argues, but nearly impossible in electronics. And Canadian-made options often cost significantly more than imports — making an all-Canadian shopping commitment a financial privilege not available to everyone. That tension shapes how Common Goods operates: the site surfaces Canadian businesses and then lets shoppers filter by whatever criteria matter most to them, whether that's origin of manufacturing, price, or brand values. Crisp runs the entire operation solo, without outside funding or venture capital, building it on public interest and organic momentum alone.