Outdoor Retailer: To Shwag or not to shwag.

The ultra lightweight WS Project 54


After a slow recovery, my trusty sidekick Carl and I are back where we belong surrounded by lush greenery. Having just spent three days inundated with examples of the greenery in the outdoor industry I am having a tough time getting back to roots. For those unfamiliar with the show, it’s a trade show in Salt lake City where all the companies in paddling, camping, climbing and active wear showcase their new upcoming product to a whole mess of retailers from across the continent. A usual day is spent attending product seminars with existing or potential suppliers. At around 3 o clock the unlimited supply of red bull is replaced by local brew Utah beer with a whopping 3% alcohol. Get about 10 000 retailers nicely buzzed, sell them on your new flashy gear and then let them loose at a participating bar where you can test your active wear in the heart pounding sweaty dance hall. Just when you think you can get away from the constant barrage of logos you look in any direction to find retailers sporting their newly acquired under armor or north face shwag. The next day you peel yourself off the hard hotel bed and grab a $4 coffee in a new Polartec mug and head to your 9 o’ clock appointment for a repeat day of meetings, red bull, watery beer and active wear clubbin’.

This year the show had a weird feel to it; with the US dollar in the toilet and soaring gas prices OR was as watered down as the Utah beer, I like to call it “OR lite”. Parties that were normally free charged $5 for a drink, Shwag giveaways was at an all time low, I had to do some serious begging to get the token t-shirt where in previous years I walked up to the Eureka booth and was handed a free tent. Some of the fringe whitewater companies like Bliss Stick and Eskimo were either absent or in the econo booth beside the janitor closet out of sight. The big guns were still there like Johnson’s Outdoors and Confluence taking up over ten booths so their athletes could sit on leather couches and wonder why they were there instead of paddling. In case you don’t know Johnson’s Outdoors is a conglomerate that bought up Old town canoes and kayaks, Extra Sport, Carlise paddles, and once Canadian owned Necky kayaks. Confluence, a merging of WaveSport, Dagger, Perception, Mad River, Voyager, Harmony, AT paddles, and Yakima took on a %75-market share with their merger back in 2004. Once Johnson Outdoors bought Necky they slashed the whitewater line the company was built on because the recreational and touring kayaking market was on the upswing. Confluence streamlined their lines to reflect the market and merged all of their gear to the Harmony line. I do not carry either of these companies in an attempt to support family run and Canadian companies. I dropped confluence after a year of trying to explain why my customers Wavesports were detaching at the cockpit. “uh, sorry about that I think it must have been a bad batch, you know from 2005-2007.


Level 6 Hood by the way, plaid is the new thing for 2009 raid grampas closet.


This year was a year of mixed messages in the outdoor industry. On one end you have companies sourcing out new more eco friendly materials like Astral Buoyancy, probably the most forward thinking company at the show who not only uses organic Kapok as a flotation material but recycles ALL scrap foam into plush dog beds, lets just say Whisper will be slumbering like a queen next season. Canadian company Level 6 has switched entirely to organics in their stylish clothing line. Clothing companies are outsourcing bamboo, micro modal (from beechnut fibers) and organic cottons. On the other side of things traditional companies like Riot who has always vowed to stay Canadian is shipping production to China. Almost all of the major kayak companies are moving some if not all of their production to China where fiberglass and thermoformed kayaks are made at half the price. Companies are claiming that in house production is too expensive making it hard to compete with the industry giants that have moved production overseas.

The Thule side rack.

New products will be hitting the stores in 09. Wavesport is coming out with a carbon version of the Project. Liquid Logic has yet another playboat out called the Biscuit. Numerous new rack systems are available that allow you to rack you kayak from the side and slide the whole system on the roof. Women specific gear is dominating the new kayak gear lines. Waterproof mp3’s, cameras and GPS from an array of companies will be entering the market. Paddles made of lexan, don’t use to spread your peanut butter, still good ol’ BPS’s are used. Folding kayaks, breakdown paddles, inflatables, the show had it all. We’ll have to wait and see which companies will hold strong and which ones will fall by the wayside after retailers return from OR, shake off the hangover and place their orders.