Can Outdoor Brands Open Up A New Prospect?

With the emergence of new generation of consumers and technology, more and more new outdoor brands choose to jump over Intermediaries - retailers themselves 100% directly to consumers.

Some traditional outdoors brand For example, Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean have been directly contacting consumers through catalogues, online stores and physical stores. Recently, more and more emerging brands are starting to adopt this strategy to develop their own retail market.

Like any sales method, this strategy of facing consumers directly has its own advantages and disadvantages. Bypassing the third party retailers to save costs, this is important for the new company, but the challenges are also great: how to get customers and how to promote the brand. The responsibilities and risks of retailers before they are transferred to the brand itself.

For the brand facing consumers directly, how can they operate in a constantly developing market environment? What are the opportunities and challenges they face and how to deal with them?

"New brands and launching brands may be easier to start, but certainly not without challenges," said Noah Waterhouse, vice president of marketing and sales Stio, directly oriented to consumer outdoor clothing brands of Jackson Holzer, Wyoming.

"For some new brands and start-ups, the way to face the consumer may be easier to start, but that doesn't mean there is no challenge," said Noah Waterhouse, Stio's vice president of marketing and sales.

Stio is a direct selling brand from Jackson Hall, founded in 2012 and founded by Stephen Sullivan, former chief executive officer of Cloudveil.

"Although I have many friends in the wholesale channel, this is still a very complex business, maintaining the brand name is very difficult," Sullivan said at the beginning of the brand building. "One of the advantages of facing the consumer is to invest less, not worry about the seasonality, and greatly shorten the product circulation cycle."

In Waterhouse's view, this sales strategy has many advantages, in other words, marginal benefits. A new brand can bypass a middleman, and it can have higher profit margins or provide consumers with more competitive prices. Facing consumers directly, consumers will also avoid the risk of longer sampling costs and longer delivery times, especially those who are rooted in the US brand.

In addition, small companies do not have to face barriers to entry set by retailers. Instead of spending time in getting involved in retail sales, it's better to use energy and money to establish direct relationships with consumers. They can get in touch with consumers through PC terminals, mobile terminals, social media, crowd raising websites, e-mail and even printed catalogues. There are many ways to do this, and they don't cost much.

　　 Consumer feedback and product transformation are also more direct.

"One of the biggest benefits of facing consumers is that product design no longer has to be influenced by past best-selling products or retailers' specific products," Waterhouse said. "On the contrary, we can design and build products that consumers want according to their own ideas."