Leaders from outdoor brands, specialty retailers, and service providers shared how they’re surviving the ongoing uncertainty presented by tariffs, pressures on consumer spending, and more at Outdoor Retailer’s first Industry Day on Tuesday afternoon.
The panel discussions, held one day before Outdoor Retailer kicks off today at Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, focused on experiential retail, new technological opportunities, marketing and the creator economy, sustainability, threats to public lands, and the supply chain.
“Today’s open dialog is meant to give our industry what it needs so desperately right now,” said OR Show Director Sean Smith at the outset of the afternoon. “No matter the size of your company and your role in the industry, we’re all facing big challenges right now. It’s times like this when our industry really does need to band together. This is when we need to be unified, when we need to come together to talk and share what’s happening and where we see ourselves going.”
Stay tuned – we’ll publish videos of each panel discussion in full in the near future.
Next-Level Retail Experiences and Maximizing Margins
Moderator Greg Thomsen, Pete LaBore of Christy Sports, Mike Massey of Locally, and Holly Fussell of Water Stone Outdoors. Photo courtesy of OR.
The first session, Beyond the Sale: Crafting Unforgettable Retail Experiences That Stand Out in Today’s Chaos, featured Pete LaBore, the CEO of Christy Sports, Mike Massey, the founder and CEO of Locally, and Holly Fussell, the owner of Water Stone Outdoors, a retailer in Fayetteville, Virginia.
In addition to making rentals ultra-efficient and convenient at Christy Sports locations and Water Stone’s welcoming beer garden and community events, both retailers said they’re laser-focused on protecting their already slim margins and ensuring customer service is top-notch.
“We need probably three to five points of margin to come back (to the business),” LaBore said, citing increased rents and employee wages, ancillary costs on e-commerce, and higher customer acquisition and shipping costs. “We just can’t really operate on 40% to 45% product margins. We need to get three to five points back.”
The best way he sees that happening is for retailers to return to a full-price environment – something that is easier said than done post-pandemic, when so many retailers have been trying to offload inventory, and something he said he’s communicated to fellow retailers such as REI.
“I’ve told my team we’re just not going to go on sale as frequently,” LaBore said. “If we can’t be in business because we can’t be full price, well, then the business doesn’t work.”
Fussell said she’s working hard to protect margins at Water Stone, and she’s learned since buying the store in 2022 that she can ask more of brands to help support that. At the recent GOA show, Fussell said she asked every brand partner she met with if they could confirm that preseason order prices would be honored in light of tariffs, and what prices would be like for fall. Responses were mixed, with some brand reps feeling uncertain about making promises they couldn’t keep – which is understandable, she said, considering the constantly changing trade policy.
“I do appreciate it when brands can extend more margin on a special SKU or a certain category, or be able to offer a limited opportunity,” she said. “Maybe it’s not blanket, but to give us some margin builder, that’s much appreciated.”
Massey said it’s in brands’ interest to work with their wholesale partners to preserve margins, because their acquisition costs are lower with the help of retailers. DTC-focused brands’ acquisition costs for new consumers can be as high as 80%, he said.
“Shoppers are spending in general about 85% of their dollars in local stores,” Massey said.
If brands aren’t also focusing on wholesale, “You’re plainly and obviously missing a lot of opportunities, and that’s going to curtail your ability to grow your direct business,” he said.
Harnessing Data, Empowering Employees, and Putting A.I. to Work
Moderator Greg Thomsen, Joe Bush of Google, Steve Gendron of ENDVR, Stephen Baird of Trackfly. Photo by SESO.
Three technology leaders – Joe Bush, global head of vendor operations, marketing, and business development at Google, Steve Gendron, ENDVR.io co-founder and CEO, and Stephen Baird, Trackfly founder and CEO – emphasized the need to collect as much data as possible, employ tools to develop insights and act on them nimbly, and balance technology with a human touch.
The three spoke at a session called The Future of Exploration: Tech Transformations in the Outdoors.
One of the first steps in harnessing the power of technology is data readiness, Baird said, which means collecting it, making sure it’s accurate, accessible, and ready to be employed strategically. That’s where Trackfly comes in, and can pull insights into areas such as inventory, industry and consumer buying trends, and more.
When it comes to supply chain challenges, Trackfly aims to close the information gap between consumer demand and the supply chain to ensure that retailers are prepared.
“There’s consumer demand that is fluctuating because of the change in tariffs, and the supply chain is just trying to react to that,” Baird said. “And it’s very hard for the supply chain to react when the information reaches their doorstep a month after it happened.”
Recently, reports have shown that consumer confidence has increased since March. There may be some hesitation on big ticket items, he said, but consumers are still spending money.
“Your suppliers are listening to that, and they’re going to start to make products according to that,” Baird advised. “You need to be ready as a retailer to have those products on your shelves when those consumers come to your door.”
ENDVR.io is focused on digitizing traditional retail practices such as employee incentives and education.
“We are helping the ecosystem,” Gendron said. “We’re becoming this retail sales enablement platform that will enable brands and retailers to work together to help raise the tide for everyone by making sure that the individuals who are out there talking to customers every day are equipped with the information they need to give that great experience and to give (retail employees) that extra motivation to really roll up their sleeves and work hard.”
Bush recommended retailers begin experimenting with A.I., and to start small with initiatives such as using it to improve SEO on blog posts, or to improve writing in newsletters or social media captions.
“AI is about empowering you,” Bush said. “It’s about empowering your team members. It’s about empowering your business. It’s not about replacing – and that’s not a catch phrase.”
The Creator Economy and Changing Marketing Metrics
Craig Rowley of Cotopaxi, Evin Catlett of Skullcandy, Roger Hurni of Off Madison Ave., and moderator Sunny Stroeer of Dreamland Safari Tours. Photo by SESO.
Panelists Craig Rowley, chief marketing officer at Cotopaxi, Evin Catlett, global VP at Skullcandy, and Roger Hurni, co-founder and chief brand strategist at Off Madison Ave., discussed the growing importance of brand ambassadors, influencers, and the creator economy on social media and beyond in marketing, and how they’re using those efforts to introduce their brands to new communities.
Rowley estimated that between 25% to 30% of Cotopaxi’s marketing is in social influencers, and Catlett estimated that between 15% and 20% of Skullcandy’s total marketing budget is going toward creators on social media. Both brands work with influencers of various sizes, but micro-influencers are particularly useful to tap into new communities and grow brand awareness. The process can be demanding on internal resources because there are multiple platforms to tap into and so much of it is about relationship building, they said.
“It’s hard,” Rowley said. “It’s not like pushing a button. Human capital is the right word – it creates a lot of coordination and a lot of care and feeding. You’re getting product to them. You’re making sure they have the right product and making sure they talk about the product in the right way. So it’s difficult to manage, but it’s definitely the path forward for brands that want to stand out.”
Hurni emphasized the importance of understanding human behavior and how brands can meet the needs and appetites of consumers, as well as understanding how each social media platform is a different medium – Facebook is for community building, X and Bluesky are more oriented toward breaking news and journalists, whereas Instagram is geared toward aesthetics and lifestyle, and TikTok is all about individual expression.
“I’d maybe use a micro influencer [on TikTok] to express themselves in their unique way, and what that product really brings to their life,” Hurni said. “I think the worst mistake you can make is to think that it’s going to look exactly the same across every social media channel. That’s honestly, I think, the biggest mistake, because you might hit it on one, but you’re going to alienate everybody else [on another].”
Catlett said she’s focused on changing the way her team measures the success of their campaigns, looking beyond conversions and instead looking at metrics such as sentiment toward the brand.
“It’s going to be very important, especially with the creator economy, to shift away from solely basing things off conversions, reach – the tactical metrics – and looking more at community sentiment. How many more people are talking about your brand? Is your brand building a shared voice across these creators, and across these different communities?”
Supply Chains and Sustainability
Jenni Staudacher of Salomon, Laura Schaffer of Orvis, Joleen Ong of Cascale and Sunny Stroeer, moderator. Photo by SESO.
Salomon VP of Supply Chain Jenni Staudacher, Orvis VP of Integrated Marketing, Brand Amplification, and Impact Laura Schaffer, and Cascale Senior Director of Brand and Retailer Membership Joleen Ong, tackled some of the most pressing challenges facing the outdoor industry, such as tariffs, their impact on supply chains, and how sustainability initiatives and advocacy can align with business goals.
The three spoke at a session called Under Pressure: Understanding the Continuing Forces Redefining Outdoor Business.
With so much uncertainty, particularly when it comes to tariffs and how consumers will respond, Ong and Staudacher recommended that business leaders look at the past – how they responded during COVID, another period of uncertainty, or how they responded to common issues such as recalls, to create a playbook with insights into what levers they can pull if needed in the short-term.
“First and foremost, really understanding where that change may come from is what you have to get into,” Ong said. “And it can be as simple as setting aside a half day or even two hours and really mapping through your business and understanding where that volatility may come from.”
“You guys have all gone through some sort of business disruption,” Staudacher said to the audience. “Take a moment. Write down a playbook from that experience you had in the past. Some of us have worked at brands where there has been a battery recall. How did you control the flow of goods on that battery? That very well may be very applicable to what you could do tomorrow.”
Tariffs turmoil isn’t necessarily a threat to sustainability efforts, Staudacher said, citing a recent example where she and her team at Salomon worked to use more space in packages when shipping goods to reduce waste and shipping costs.
It’s equally important for brands to stay true to their conservation mission, particularly as threats to public lands have re-emerged, Schaffer of Orvis said.
“If you don’t keep up this sustainability work, if we don’t keep up this conservation work, then our industry will not exist,” Schaffer said. “And so being able to hold that as a beacon as we navigate the day to day has been really helpful for us at Orvis, because we know that we all play a role in the future health of our wild places, our natural spaces that we love. We need to contribute to that too on the day to day. If we move away from that in the short term, then that’s harming our long-term health.”
Members of the audience during Industry Day at OR. Photo courtesy of Outdoor Retailer.
Kate Robertson can be reached at kate@shop-eat-surf-outdoor.com.
