On April 16, 2019, David Lama, Hansjörg Auer, and Jess Roskelley died in an avalanche on Howse Peak in the Canadian Rockies. All three were on The North Face climbing team.

At the time, the trio was seeking the second ascent of a route called M-16, which had been climbed once, back in 1999. The first ascensionists described pitches of overhanging ice, blinding spindrift, and collapsing cornices that nearly killed one of their party.

But in alpine climbing, unrepeated routes are rare trophies, and Lama, Auer, and Roskelley were some of the best in the world. Why wouldn’t The North Face give them its blessing? And perhaps the brand was right to do so; according to photos recovered from Roskelley’s phone, the three made it to the summit. That was before the avalanche.

When I heard the news, I grieved with the rest of the climbing community. In the past few years, I’ve lost two friends to the mountains. This tragedy felt too familiar.

I wondered if Lama, Auer, and Roskelley would have chosen to team up if it weren’t for the convenience of sharing a sponsor. If they would have picked a less hazardous route if they hadn’t been vying with other athletes for The North Face’s limited pool of funding. If they would have turned back earlier had Roskelley and Lama not been so new to The North Face’s team—only about a year each—and perhaps still trying to prove themselves. If they would have called it sooner if not for the expenses already incurred.

Hadley Hammer, Lama’s girlfriend and an eight-year member of The North Face ski team, believes Lama’s motivations on Howse Peak were purely intrinsic. The North Face global sports marketing director Jamie Starr added that, for many years, the brand has had a rigorous team peer review process for expeditions and is careful to never put any external pressure on athletes to take undue risk—including on Howse Peak. Still, these are familiar worries for many athletes. And there are other concerns with the current sponsorship system, particularly for winter ambassadors who have only a short season with uncertain conditions to accomplish many contractual obligations, Hammer said.

“Two of my three injuries occurred while filming,” she explained, noting that it’s impossible to say whether they would have happened without a camera present. Both injuries left her with medical debt, which she was left to pay on her own. “While there isn’t direct pressure to perform crazy stunts, there remains an inevitable pressure,” she said. “And I don’t think it has to be that way.”

When these three men died, The North Face, by all accounts, rose to the occasion, footing the bill for loved ones’ flights and travel expenses. Providing therapy and support. Paying for the funerals.

None of this was required—athlete contracts rarely mention, let alone cover, such expenses. And all of it is certainly costly to a brand. The North Face stepped up, said Hammer. It did the right thing, handling it all in just the right way.

But while members of The North Face team certainly grieved, the brand, through no fault of its own, ultimately emerged looking like a hero, its reputation untarnished.

Stories like this highlight the imbalances that exist in the sponsorship equation. Today, controversy accompanies everything from how athletes are selected, to their role in hitting a brand’s DEI targets, to the contracts they sign. As that equation becomes more critical to the success of outdoor brands, it may be time to rethink it.

A Broken Model

When news broke of the tragedy on Howse Peak, Horst EidenmĂŒller, a law professor at the University of Oxford, was in the midst of examining some of the same questions about the hidden pressures athletes face. In August and September of 2018, he conducted interviews with 40 sponsored athletes across a range of adventure sports, from alpine climbing to big-mountain skiing to freestyle motocross, and later published his findings in the Marquette Sports Law Review.

EidenmĂŒller’s conclusion: “These contracts are unbalanced,” he said. “Sponsors—let me be blunt—they are ripping off the athletes.” The trouble is that athletes are easy prey; most interviewees told EidenmĂŒller that they’re more passionate about their sports than they are about money. That lets brands get away with paying them, on average, $5,000 to $20,000 a year for what often amounts to a quarter- to half-time job. That’s barely enough to cover their training, health care, avalanche education, and other expenses. Even top-tier athletes like Alex Honnold, who make salaries somewhere in the six-figure range, are a steal, EidenmĂŒller said.

That’s because marketing today relies heavily on personality, dynamic storytelling, and dialogue, explained Jonathan Retseck. Retseck is a founder and managing partner of talent management firm RXR Sports and represents an impressive roster of outdoor industry bigwigs, like Jimmy Chin, Alex Honnold, Scott Jurek, and Kate Courtney. “We’re also seeing more and more consulting work integrated into [athlete] contracts,” Retseck added, explaining that brands increasingly rely on athletes to help develop new products, provide design input, and shape marketing campaigns. “All of that is extremely valuable to a brand.”

Just how valuable? From his analysis of annual revenues and marketing budgets of some top sponsors, EidenmĂŒller estimated that big international brands are making as much as millions of dollars in additional revenue from their household-name athletes. Compared to that, he said, even a six-figure salary is a paltry sum.

“The picture that emerges is that of a market tilted heavily towards satisfying the interests of the sponsors,” EidenmĂŒller said.

Thanks to the COVID-19 boost, the outdoor sector is booming. That influx of revenue has allowed more brands to create athlete teams or expand existing ones. And thanks to the recent push for brands to improve representation of diverse adventurers, athlete teams have been hauled even further into the spotlight.

After all, athletes are the faces of a brand. They’re also usually inexpensive, on short contracts (typically just one to three years), and easy to turn over to meet the needs of the day.

According to two former La Sportiva athletes who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being passed over for future sponsorships, La Sportiva dropped about half its North American athlete team—close to 45 people—earlier this year via a mass email. A number of the new 2021 La Sportiva athletes are people of color and best known for being outspoken on social media on issues of race and social justice.

“We reviewed our current situation and future plans and ultimately made some tough calls,” said Quinn Carrasco, marketing manager for La Sportiva North America. “It’s been a huge learning process.” The brand primarily offers athletes one-year contracts, requires regular social media posts in exchange for gear, and offers no monetary compensation to most ambassadors. La Sportiva dropped a similar percentage of athletes in 2020. Carrasco said it’s hard to let ambassadors go but that turnover is an inevitable part of any athlete program and will naturally fluctuate from year to year.

Steve House, a legendary alpinist who now consults for brands building athlete teams, explained that this high-quantity, high-turnover system does make sense for some brands.

“The thing is that you have no idea who’s going to pan out,” he said. “You have 100 athletes and one of them is going to be Alex Honnold, and you have no idea which one.”

Mentorship Over Sponsorship

Scarpa CEO Kim Miller, who is Asian American, also noticed a hole in the demographics of Scarpa’s athlete team in 2020. But for Miller, the answer wasn’t to bring on a host of green, unvetted athletes.

“The first thing I realized was that there just aren’t many people of color in our outdoor sports, industry, and community,” Miller said. “And the second thing is that you can’t just walk into a field and say, ‘Grow, plants, grow!’ These things really have to be developed.”

For Miller, the answer was to start a mentorship program for up-and-coming athletes. The program would allow the brand to both maintain existing relationships with its athletes and give new athletes the resources they need to navigate the industry, advance in their respective sports, and market themselves effectively.

Called the Scarpa Athlete Mentorship Initiative, or SAMI, the six-month program matches each mentee with an existing Scarpa athlete. It also provides mentees with gear and networking opportunities. However, mentees aren’t required to use or post about Scarpa gear; there are no strings attached, Miller explained. “This was never about creating more athletes on our team.”

Aidan Goldie, a science teacher, ski mountaineer, and diversity advocate based in Carbondale, Colorado, was selected as part of the inaugural SAMI class. He and his mentor, Chris Davenport, ski together and text on a regular basis.

“It’s a really intentional program that makes sure these athletes from diverse backgrounds are set up for success,” Goldie said. “It’s given me a lot of connections in the industry. And Chris has been a great resource.”

The mentorship program, he said, is doing exactly what it set out to: bridge historic inequities by lifting new voices up.

The Third Model

Over the past year, a third model of sponsorship has emerged: eschewing the somewhat elitist idea of the athlete altogether and instead sponsoring changemakers from diverse backgrounds who can speak to new audiences and untapped markets.

Backcountry pioneered that model when it launched its Breaking Trail program this April. Instead of scrambling to start new relationships with people of color, which could come off as tokenizing, the brand moved to sponsor seven prominent advocates and community leaders with whom it had already built close relationships.

While plenty of outdoor brands had partnered with culturally diverse advocates for occasional campaigns, this reimagined take on sponsorship broke new ground. Ambassadors were selected not based on past ascents or expeditions, but on their nonprofit involvement. And the brand intends to add new ambassadors and build upon the program in the future.

Diversity Without Exploitation

Widening the definition of who can be a sponsored athlete is certainly a big step when it comes to inclusivity, but it doesn’t solve the power imbalances that EidenmĂŒller uncovered in his research. And some athletes believe the shift could exacerbate those imbalances.

After all, the current structure tends to provide less compensation to athletes who “achieve” less. But today, the role of an athlete isn’t just to tag summits, and some, like Andrew Alexander King, worry that the other, equally important work will go undercompensated.

King, who is African American, is a sponsored mountaineer pursuing the Seven Summits.

“I think athletes of color are often taken advantage of,” he said. Part of that is because, due to historic inequities, athletes of color are less likely to have had the resources to understand how the sponsorship system works and negotiate effectively. “Think of it like a race,” he said. “Athletes of color have been standing outside the stadium, and the world has just let them in. But the race has already started, and by now, an athlete of privilege is already two laps ahead.”

In that sense, if the athlete is climbing or skiing at a lower level than an athlete from a privileged background, it’s perfectly reasonable, and shouldn’t result in fewer opportunities.

Plus, there’s the matter of supply and demand, King said. Athletes of color are few and far between, and right now an image of a Black man climbing in branded gear is extremely valuable. Many boilerplate contracts, which include lifetime licensing for images, don’t reflect that. So, when King talks to a potential sponsor, he starts by demanding changes.

“You can have my photos for one year,” he said. “Any time after that you have to re-sign or go through contracts. If you put my face up in 2023 without my consent, you’re profiting off that, which is exploiting my story and my culture to benefit your profits.”

Brands, he said, would do well to listen. Or, better yet, offer athletes of color what they’re worth in the first place.

Calling for Change

King’s negotiations often catch sponsors by surprise. That’s because, EidenmĂŒller said, brands hold all the power in those conversations; they’re not used to negotiation.

Mentorship, à la Scarpa’s SAMI program, could help bridge that power gap and give young athletes the tools they need to negotiate with confidence. More transparency around contract terms and salaries, which are currently guarded as “proprietary,” would also give athletes and brands the information they need to reach fair terms.

While EidenmĂŒller believes athlete contracting would most benefit from regulatory oversight, he said the faster, more practical solution is for brands to take responsibility for the outsized power they hold over athletes. The onus should be on them to carefully spell out all the implications for new athletes or ambassadors, and to offer the stability of longer contracts, increased and stable financial compensation, and/or health insurance whenever possible.

Where the Responsibility Lies

As for limiting risk?

“I think athletes bear some responsibility to know their own limits, and to know them before they’re in a place where those limits are being tested,” Hammer said. “Plus, it’s the athletes [who are] coming up with these ideas. We’re asking the brand to support us. Even if The North Face or other brands scaled back [on their interest in dangerous expeditions], I don’t know if we would.”

Difficult realities are easier to absorb if we have someone to blame. Preferably, a faceless entity with deep pockets. But deep down, I know Hammer is right.

At least one of the friends I lost in the mountains was chasing a personal speed record at the time of his death. Eventually, he hoped to be sponsored. But both friends had gone out, first and foremost, in search of the sublime. In a world without funding, social media, or external gratification, they would have done it anyway.

As La Sportiva’s Carrasco said, “Ultimately, our goal with sponsorship is just to align projects—we want to work with people who are highly motivated. When our goals align with theirs, that’s when we can help each other out.”

But even if brands don’t push their athletes or demand certain objectives, they are still in the business of selecting and paying people with enough passion and grit to push those limits. For that reason, contracts need to clearly stipulate who is responsible when the worst happens, EidenmĂŒller said. If someone gets injured or sick, how long until they have to be performing again? If someone dies in the mountains, who foots the bill?

The Future of Sponsorship

As brands get bigger and add to their athlete rosters, more people than ever before will be sponsored in some way, EidenmĂŒller said. The market will grow more competitive as it crowds with voices talking up their own achievements—and more jaded as audiences wisen to influencer marketing, which right now, House said, is likely coming off the peak of its popularity.

“I think the reality is that social media influencers don’t have much influence,” he said. “Audiences today can see right through those sponsored posts. The reality is that they just don’t work.” In the future, he expects the age of the social media influencer to fizzle, and for authenticity to once again dominate the playing field.

This presents a golden opportunity for brands to get ahead of the shift and select athletes who are both champions of their sport and genuine pillars of their community—not just salespeople. To do that right, they’re going to need to allocate more marketing budget to find the right ambassadors, build quality relationships, and compensate them like they would any other employee, said King.

Quality over quantity—in how athletes engage with their communities and how brands treat their ambassadors—is about to become the rule of the day. And the brands that figure that out fastest will come out on top.

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In 2017, Matt Sterbenz was heading up a company he’d founded, 4FRNT, a successful ski brand known for launching the freeskiing movement. 4FRNT’s skis are crisp, light, and torsionally stiff—and, like pretty much all skis, they’re also made of materials that are horrendous for the environment. The vast majority of the brands constructing the tools that move us across snow use some of the most polluting materials on the planet, such as petroleum-based resins, plastics, and carbon fiber. Sterbenz had to use these, too, because no alternative had yet been created. But a businessman named Charles Dimmler was about to hand him a solution.

Dimmler is the founder of Checkerspot, a company that uses algae to bio-manufacture oils that can be used in polyurethanes and textile coatings. Polyurethane makes up the plastic components in a typical ski, and it’s traditionally made of petroleum-based chemicals, so it has a large environmental footprint: According to one German lifecycle assessment, the production of a single ski emits about 60 pounds of carbon (in comparison, burning one gallon of gasoline emits 20 pounds). Ski manufacturing also typically has a very large water footprint, a long supply chain, and generates huge amounts of waste. The irony is striking: Building skis and other winter hardgoods contributes significantly to the climate change wreaking havoc on our ski seasons.

But Dimmler and Sterbenz were about to make a breakthrough. The company that emerged from their collaboration, WNDR Alpine, uses renewable energy to fashion boards with sustainably harvested aspen wood from Utah and polyurethane made from algae, not petroleum. The brand is also reducing waste in its manufacturing process (in 2020, WNDR diverted 1,200 pounds of trash from the landfill). Its efforts seem to be resonating with consumers: Last year, WNDR sold out of the most popular sizes of its Intention 110 backcountry ski. And in 2021, with backcountry skiing predicted to explode (see p. 33), the company expects the same.

WNDR isn’t the first snowsports brand to innovate with the environment in mind. In Europe, Capita Snowboards’ factory runs on 100 percent green energy, and Grown Skis uses eco-friendlier basalt instead of carbon fiber, sustainably harvested wood, and glues made from pine tree resin. Among U.S. brands, Mervin and Niche lead the way. Niche, founded in 2010, builds its snowboards from sustainably harvested wood cut near its factory in Utah, uses basalt as well, and digitally prints its top sheets using water-based inks. It also partnered with a company called Entropy Resins to create its patented Snappy Sap Bioresin, made of renewable materials from the industrial waste streams of the paper pulp and biofuels industries.

Mervin (parent company of Lib Tech, Gnu, and Roxy) uses the eco-friendliest materials available, produces zero hazardous waste, and runs its operation primarily on wind and hydroelectric power. It also formed an extensive recycling program, as well as a sawdust-to-soil compost program. Together, such innovations have taken these brands to the next level in eco-friendly manufacturing. What will it take for everyone else to catch up?

Too Big—and Small—to Change

Some big ski brands are taking steps to make the hardgoods industry greener. Atomic’s North American Brand Manager Sean Kennedy said, “Atomic uses tons, literally tons, of recycled plastics in our ski boot assortment. We also power all of our ski presses with reclaimed wood [from factory scraps], and the excess heat from this process is then recaptured to heat our entire factory and adjacent facilities.”

Völkl has eliminated hazardous substances from many stages of production. Rossignol uses wood cores from certified sustainable sources in its Black Ops skis, 100 percent recycled steel in its edges, and 30-percent recycled plastic in the bases. And La Sportiva switched from carbon to wood in all of its skis, and is using FSC-certified woods for the 2021 line.

Yet the vast majority of brands use plastics and resins made from toxic petrochemicals. Experts estimate it can take 500 to 1,000 years for these materials to decompose in a landfill. So brands still aren’t addressing one of the industry’s key environmental hazards.

“As an industry with a future dependent on consistent winters, our industry is uniting around climate change and we’re working hard to give every brand opportunities to step up to meaningfully address it,” said Chris Steinkamp, director of advocacy for Snowsports Industries of America’s ClimateUnited initiative.

But “stepping up” isn’t that simple, said WNDR co-founder Xan Marshland: “Economically, our industry is a drop in the bucket compared to larger ones, like aerospace or automotive. There’s not much incentive to innovate beyond what’s already available.” According to NPD, the ski and snowboard industry generates $2.3 billion in annual revenue (compared to, say, the apparel industry’s $368 billion).

And even if suppliers did make changes, “larger brands will require more time to get adequate infrastructure set up to support a new [production] process,” said Marshland. For larger brands, which can produce more than a million pairs of skis every year, obtaining enough green materials also appears to be a challenge. Niche, for example, uses a resin-hardener called Recyclamine that allows skis and snowboards to be fully recycled. “I’m not sure the supply chain is large enough yet for everyone to be able to switch,” said founder Ana Van Pelte.

The Upside of Small

In some ways, greening a company is easier for new brands that are starting from the ground up. Mervin founder Pete Saari said, “Working towards sustainability and nontoxic, recyclable boards has been part of Mervin’s DNA since we began in the early ’80s. We knew we were going to be building every day, so we didn’t want to work with toxic resins or materials for personal safety and health reasons.”

The brand was broke when it started, Saari says. “[But while] scarcity and ‘no money’ sounds bad, when it comes to creating motivation to maximize material usage, it’s a strength.” From the beginning, Mervin was able to “scour the world of materials,” looking for ones that met both the company’s performance and sustainability standards. Today, it’s a profitable business.

And now WNDR has created a line of skis with its AlgalTech technology, using plastics derived from oils secreted by microalgae. These plastics replace conventional materials derived from fossil fuels (carbon fiber, plastic, polyurethane), and create a ski that has a short supply line, high performance, and a lower impact on the environment than traditional skis.

But all of these companies still impact the environment simply by manufacturing something. That’s why Cyrus Schenck, founder of Renoun Skis, believes there is no such thing as a truly green ski (or snowboard). In his view, the best thing skiers can do is ride the skis they already own longer. “The average lifespan of a pair of skis is 100 days, yet the average American skis 2.7 days a year,” he said. Most buy skis far more often than once every 37 years.

Schenck scoffs at the idea of stopping ski production entirely, “but a company can offset skis and shipping by buying carbon credits,” he said. Renoun does what it can to green up its manufacturing, but ultimately, Schenck believes the best way brands can minimize impact is by encouraging skiers to ride their boards longer and participate in takeback programs (which WNDR offers) when they’re done.

Getting It Done

Of course, creating products with dramatically lower environmental impacts and encouraging customers to use them longer aren’t mutually exclusive. And Mervin, Niche, and WNDR believe that it’s possible for other companies—including long-established ones—to make changes to shrink their environmental footprints.

The main excuses from bigger brands? Cost, accessibility, and scalability. Four decades after starting Mervin, Saari said, “Even today we find there is some resistance from the business community on sustainable efforts, with [some] studies by business experts saying that consumer purchasing decisions aren’t significantly impacted by environmental efforts or practices.”

Niche’s Van Pelte added, “I don’t want to name any names, but bigger companies than ours have the money and resources to do more and better than we do, and their failure to act on pushing the technology further is really unfortunate. They should be putting their money where their mouths are and stepping up to the plate, if they truly care about the environment as much as they claim to.”

WNDR, for one, is willing to share its technologies for the greater good. “Six or seven brands throughout the snowboard and ski space” have reached out about partnerships to incorporate AlgalTech into their product lines, said marketing director Pep Fujas. This bodes well for giving greener skis a bigger share of the market.

And though it may take time, Van Pelte believes the environmental methods Niche and others use “are absolutely stuff that anyone could adopt and put into practice. It might be more expensive, but the more people who adopt it, the easier and more affordable it will become.”

The post The Push to Make the Ski Industry More Sustainable appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

“If there’s any pattern to all this, it’s to expect delays. Which categories, brands, or products—that’s anybody’s guess. It’s best to just assume everything will be delayed and end up pleasantly surprised if it’s not.”

That’s Eastside Sports owner Todd Vogel’s take on the state of inventory challenges at this point in the pandemic, nearly eight months in.

“If there’s a delay, you pivot. Delay, pivot,” said Vogel, whose shop is based in Bishop, California. “That strategy has kept us going. It’s all about flexibility.”

It’s no secret that sellers of outdoor goods have been scrambling this year, trying to keep pace with a retail landscape strained by supply chain disruptions, rapid shutdowns, unpredictable demand, and other hardships. Still, one way or another, many retailers are finding ways to keep their shelves stocked—to some degree—and customers happy.

To figure out what retailers are seeing on the ground level, and how they’re coping, we got in touch with several shop owners and buyers to ask about what’s going right, what’s going wrong, and how everyone is bracing for the upcoming season.

What’s Causing Problems

To start things off, we wanted to know about specific pain points. In some sense, we were looking for a pattern, but that exercise quickly proved futile. After speaking with shop owners in several different states, the moral of the story seems to be that there’s no rhyme or reason to what goods or which brands are causing inventory problems on a consistent basis. All the retailers we spoke with say they’re trying their best to prepare for anything.

“Our biggest vendor overall is Patagonia,” said Sam Barg, a buyer at Ute Mountaineer in Aspen, Colorado. “Those orders have come in anywhere from 20 to 50 percent complete. They can’t promise anything. But then other stuff trickles in that we didn’t expect. Our reps have no idea what’s happening either. Week to week, we have to reassess and chase what we can.”

Barg says Ute Mountaineer has seen cancellations from at least half a dozen vendors that are critical to the shop’s core inventory: Patagonia, Kuhl, Columbia, prAna, Hoka One One, Black Diamond, and Sorrell.

“Those are the big brands a lot of people have had trouble with,” he said.

Marinna Merkel, co-owner of Round House Ski and Sports Center in Bozeman, Montana, says she’s also had a lot of trouble with Patagonia and The North Face.

“Patagonia’s Powder Bowl Pant always does great for our store, and I can’t get them, none. That’s a staple piece for Patagonia, so it says something about where they’re at,” Merkel said. She also says the company expects not to see the bulk of its winter order from The North Face come through until late November—a huge problem for getting product out the door before ski season starts.

Across the state in Missoula, Todd Frank, owner of The Trail Head, says he’s experienced similar cuts from Patagonia.

“Patagonia is our biggest vendor. They cut about 40 percent of our pre-season order, but customer demand also dropped, so it evened out,” Frank said. “This year, we’re making a lot of concessions with product—accepting different colors than we wanted, things like that—but we’ve found that people are less picky about color and other small details these days. They’re willing to support us, even if they can’t get the exact product they want.”

Down in Flagstaff, Arizona, Steve Chatinsky says he’s had a lot of trouble with survival items his shop, Peace Surplus.

“I ran out of Reliance water containers for two weeks. We’ve had three or four shipments of those since the summer, and we usually do one per year,” Chatinsky said. “We’ve been a little slow on freeze dried food, too. We went seven or eight days without any at one time. But we’ve been chasing it between multiple vendors.”

Perhaps Vogel, at Eastside Sports, summed it up best. “It’s hard to find a pattern,” he said. “Lots of things are in short supply, but it’s hard to predict. Tents have been hard to get your hands on; backpacking stoves and Black Diamond cams have been problematic. Bikes and car racks have been tough. Even bear canisters have been strangely difficult to get. What do all those things have in common?”

Answer: nothing. Inventory is simply tough right now across the board.

Areas of Success

It’s not all doom and gloom, however, these retailers were quick to point out.

“For us, footwear has done well—though it’s hit or miss by brand,” Vogel said. “Other than Merrell, which basically ran out of shoes, we’ve done pretty well. La Sportiva and Topo Athletic are two that have been outstanding in terms of getting us product.”

Merkel says that while inventory hasn’t been easy in any category this year, there have been areas with fewer challenges. Round House has most of the downhill skis it ordered for the season, as well as a healthy selection of Nordic hardgoods. Some of that, she noted, is carryover product from last year, but that hasn’t posed a problem; there’s more of an appetite for older gear this season.

“There’s something to be says for reminding consumers that we do have carryover product from last year,” Merkel said. “Brands are cutting back expansion of their lines, so there’s probably going to be a lot more carryover for the next few years as well. It’s good to get customers used to that now.”

At The Trail Head in Missoula, Franks says he was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the vendors he uses for his watersports categories.

“All of our boat vendors did a really excellent job,” he said. “We struggled with kayaks and paddles and accessories a little, but not as much as you might have imagined.”

Softgoods vs. Hardgoods

Slicing things a different way, there’s no clear trend in supply differences between softgoods and hardgoods, according to the retailers we spoke with. Here, though, there’s at least some pattern in demand difference.

“Apparel is down by double digits this year,” Frank said of overall sales at The Trail Head. “The more casual it is, the more people don’t want it.”

Franks says that technical clothing has done well and hardgoods are flying off the shelves. He attributes the demand change to one simple factor: caution. Customers don’t want to try things on unless it’s something they absolutely need, like a raincoat, or something they feel safe trying on, like a ski boot.

“On the hardgoods side, we’re up 100 percentage points on uphill gear,” said Barg of his sales in Aspen. “Brands like Dynafit, Blizzard, and Technica are flying out the door. And surprisingly the inventory from those guys has been pretty good thus far.”

Again, though, there’s no clear pattern from a supply perspective, taking into account an experience like Merkel’s. She noted that, even though Round House has most of its pre-season ski orders filled by now, special orders are another story entirely.

“Our story with hardgoods is shipping delays,” sayidMerkel. “Companies are short-staffed, they don’t have the manpower to get special orders out, and that causes a trickle-down effect. We’ve been turning people away on the hardgoods side for special requests, just telling customers we’re sorry, but we can’t get them what they need.”

Add to that a massive fire this fall that burned down the main ski factory for Fischer, one of Merkel’s big vendors at Round House. Hardgoods have been wildly unpredictable, even with some modest success at getting orders filled, she says.

Solution: Sourcing from Multiple Vendors and Leaning on Relationships

One workaround many retailers have pursued is quick pivots to different vendors.

“We’ve been able to keep things going because we have three or four vendors for each of the items in camping, which is a big category for us,” Chatinsky said of Ute Mountaineer. “For instance, in the past we’ve ordered solar showers from Tech Sport, Coghlan’s, and Reliance. Those channels are all open, so if one of them closes, we lean more heavily on the other two.”

Chatinsky says that, in his view, that communication and multiple channels to source product are key to managing inventory chaos as the pandemic progresses.

“Of course, that’s just another way of saying it’s all about relationships,” he said. “When it comes down to crunch time, relationships will sink you or keep you afloat. When you call a vendor and get a friend on the other end of the line, that’s when things get done for you. Pay attention to who you do business with and why. It’s not all about price.”

Vogel echoed the sentiment, and says that another important factor is nimbleness.

“You have to be quick on your feet,” he said. “You have to anticipate shortages and either stock up ahead of time—like we did with fuel canisters this summer—or pivot quickly and look for smaller quantities of similar items from different vendors.”

Of course, pivoting to new vendors and maintaining relationships are two strategies that don’t always play well together. Frank, at The Trail Head, says he chose not to introduce uncertainty for his vendors out of respect for their business. They rely on him just as much as he relies on them, after all.

“We talked about pivoting to new suppliers, but we wanted to stick with the people we’ve always been working with,” Frank said. “We’ve had some new vendors reaching out. I got an email yesterday from a big brand—I won’t say who—that started as a direct-to-consumer operation and now wants to get into wholesale. We’ll probably take a hard pass on that. We want to support people who have supported us in the past. That’s just how it works.”

For Merkel, the courtesy of sticking with your old partners has another benefit—it gives you room to ask for flexibility when needed. That give-and-take might include discounts, shipping assistance, or changes to invoice dating.

“The willingness to flex is different for each company,” Merkel said. “When we go and ask our vendors to ship additional product or cover freight, we know they’re in a hard spot too. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t done it. One area we’ve succeeded in is asking our vendors to pay for expedited freight. We tell them we need such-and-such product, we can’t wait weeks, so we need you to ship it overnight and cover that cost. And most of the time they’re willing. Yes it’s a big ask, but ultimately it’s to support sell-through, which benefits them too.”

Frank says that his big ask always comes down to invoice dating. He doesn’t push his vendors too hard to ship product faster, but he does insist on keeping the timeline for payment at its agreed-upon length if an order arrives late.

“My standard approach is, if you ship something 30 days late, I’m adding 30 days to the dating for payment. I’m going to call up and ask for more time, because we had less time to sell it,” he said. “To me, that just makes sense.”

How Are Customers Handling It?

In the end, all these retailers seemed to agree that customer flexibility is a big factor—perhaps the biggest—in dealing with inventory challenges during the pandemic. If customers are willing to wait a little longer for their gear, reserve pickiness about color and other details, and occasionally shop around for carryover product from last season, much of the inventory chaos can be buffered enough to keep retailers and brands going until things even out again.

“Thankfully, there’s a push this year to shop local,” Merkel said. “People know that shipping is backed up, and they’re sympathetic. Many consumers still want to buy things locally. Even if we can’t guarantee special orders or promise to have every single new product in stock, the forgiveness of our customers can get us through. And we won’t forget that when things get back to normal.”

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The outdoor industry, more than most, is keenly aware of the effects of climate change and, in particular, the need to create greener supply chains. It’s the reason more than 377 outdoor brands have joined the Plastic Impact Alliance, committing to making our industry more sustainable by eradicating single-use plastic from their businesses.

Although everything from materials to manufacturing contributes to a company’s carbon footprint, it’s end-of-the-line packaging that really adds up and is often unable to be recycled curbside. Still, it’s arguably one of the easiest things to change and make more sustainable (not to mention, it serves as a significant touchpoint with customers, especially as ecommerce continues to trend upwards).

Only about 9 percent of all plastic waste is currently recycled and as such, single-use plastic packaging accounts for nearly half the plastic waste found in nature. In August, prAna, an early member of the Plastic Impact Alliance and a leader in sustainable, outdoor fashion, announced the Responsible Packaging Movement, a program designed to create industry-wide change. Since 2010, prAna has successfully eliminated more than 17 million polybags from the supply chain and its new initiative takes it a step further by collaborating with other industry brands.

In line with the Plastic Impact Alliance and prAna’s mission of sharing knowledge and transforming the industry together, we’ve compiled this list as a resource for outdoor brands. From mailers to labels, protective wrapping to polybags, here are five companies out to revolutionize how we package and ship products. The first three innovations on this list were recent winners of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition 2020 Protective Packaging Design Challenge.

Returnity

The Product

Chrysalis is a reusable shipping bag designed to replace poly-mailers and reusable shipping boxes.

How It Works

Brands work with Returnity to design mailbags that, once used for shipping, can be flipped inside out by the customer and transformed into a tote, duffle, or makeup bag. The boxes are made for companies engaged in a circular shipping model.

“Our view is that companies will not scale the use of reusables if it doesn’t make sense financially, so we enable them to make the switch by making it cost-effective,” said Returnity CEO Michael Newman.

Returnity believes its packaging creates perfect social media moments once in the customer’s hands.

“In addition to cardboard boxes and poly-mailer bags being wasteful, they’re just boring,” said Newman. “For so many retailers, this is the one physical touch point they have with the consumer. When you ship something in a reusable package, consumers take notice and love it.”

Environmental Credentials

All bags and boxes are made from recycled plastic bottles. Returnity is also working with a household name in outdoor fabric to turn used or deadstock fabrics—things that may have failed color matching or quality control and might otherwise be landfilled—into reusable shipping bags. Additionally, all of Returnity’s boxes have a layer of rigid plastic in between them, meaning they outperform cardboard in terms of strength, durability, and product protection. Returnity guarantees its packaging for 40 shipments and will even take products back from clients at the end of their life span in order to handle the recycling of the material.

Applications for the Outdoor Industry

Returnity’s willingness to work with brands on a case-by-case basis means its industry applications are endless. Although the company’s model is similar to LimeLoop, which is used by Toad & Co, it differs in the respect that its reusable packaging isn’t leased.

“I’m super proud of our ability to adapt our reusables in a way that makes sense for almost any product,” said Newman. “The thing that we’re working on now is really enabling systems, so that if your company isn’t inherently circular we’re able to help you get there.”

Returnity counts O’Pros Fly Fishing and Camp Rents among its current clients. In the coming weeks they will add a yet-to-be-name gear rental company plus another big name in outdoor apparel.

Mushroom Packaging

The Product

High-performing packaging made from hemp and mycelium that resembles pulp packaging or an egg carton, and easily could replace similar plastic versions as well. Additionally, it’s cost competitive, thermally insulating, and water resistant.

How It Works

Every piece of Mushroom Packaging (powered by Evocative Design) is custom designed, using CAD software, and grown in just seven days. The product is a living material and spends four days in its tray before being removed to grow for two more days, and finally, dried for one to disable future growth.

Environmental Credentials

Mushroom Packaging takes just 30 days to break down in a home compost, no industrial composting required. (It takes 180 days in a marine compost.) Consumers simply have to break the packaging into small pieces and place it outside in the soil, allowing nutrients to return to the earth. Additionally, the trays used to grow the packaging are reused hundreds of times.

Applications for the Outdoor Industry

Mushroom Packaging has distribution centers in the U.S., Europe, Oceania, and the U.K. Paradise Packaging, located in California, is the main hub for growth and distribution across the U.S. and does have some standard shapes available. Incredibly versatile and with custom options available, this packaging could be used on everything from ski goggles to fly rods, from solar lights to camping stoves, or anything that benefits from a more rigid form of packaging.

Flexi-Hex

The Product

A range of plastic-free packaging solutions made from recycled cardboard that use a honeycomb design and are ideal for replacing bubble wrap.

How It Works

The hexagonal cellular structure of Flexi-Hex means it can wrap a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and materials, including glass. Flexi-Hex Air is a lighter, tissue paper-based packaging ideal for smaller, fragile objects.

Environmental Credentials

Flexi-Hex’s mission is simple: remove plastic from the packaging industry and raise awareness of the threats currently facing the world’s oceans. Flexi-Hex is nontoxic, reusable, biodegrades readily, and is made of 100 percent recycled cardboard. The company is also currently investigating bio-adhesives in order to remove its reliance on petroleum-based glue.

Although much more low-volume than its plastic counterparts, Flexi-Hex is still manufactured in China and shipped around the world (distribution accounts for the majority of its carbon footprint, although the company does purchase carbon offsets to compensate). Internally, every Flexi-Hex employee also gets a personalized carbon footprint report complete with recommendations on how they can improve things like their travel habits, diet, and home energy use. As of 2020, the company is carbon-negative according to conservation organization Mossy Earth.

Applications for the Outdoor Industry

Flexi-Hex can be used to protect surf boards, skis, snowboards, bikes, small electronics, water bottles, tent poles, sunglasses, helmets, oats, lanterns, coolers—you get the idea.

Vela

The Product

A durable, paper polybag alternative, Vela bags are weather resistant and protect their contents from humidity, moisture, and dust.

How It Works

A product of family-owned Seaman Paper, a company that now focuses on lightweight paper solutions used in packaging, the Vela bag officially launched at the beginning of this month. Although the bag was designed with apparel companies in mind, it has potential beyond that.

“We’re in testing with lots of global apparel brands whose names you would know,” said Seaman Paper’s VP of business development, Julie Skibniewski. “What’s been surprising to us is the non-apparel inquiries we’ve had from consumer products companies.”

Environmental Credentials

Vela bags are made from paper, one of the most highly recyclable products in the world. What’s more, the Vela bag is made from Forest Stewardship Council-certified, sustainably harvested paper fibers; globally, FSC is considered the strongest system of forest management. Since Vela bags can be recycled four to six times, they also promote a circular economy where maximum value is extracted from raw material. Finally, Seaman has partnered with sustainable solutions firm South Pole to calculate the carbon footprint of producing Vela bags and to purchase corresponding carbon offsets.

Applications for the Outdoor Industry

In addition to prAna, the women’s fashion brand Mara Hoffman and sustainable clothing brand Outerknown are already using Vela bags. “There’s really a limitless opportunity for Vela bags,” said Skibniewski. “Anywhere you’re currently using plastic, you can use a Vela bag.”

EcoEnclose

The Product

EcoEnclose, based in Louisville, Colorado, isn’t a new company but its product line is extensive—from mailers to boxes, packing tape to hemp twine—and constantly evolving. We particularly like their focus on shipping supplies, specifically zero-waste shipping labels, which the company claims are the world’s most eco-friendly.

How It Works

Companies can request free, individual samples of specific products or full sample kits. EcoEnclose has the capacity to serve companies of all sizes, whether you need 1,000 units or 5 million. Additionally, the majority of its products can be custom branded.

Environmental Credentials

EcoEnclose offers two types of zero-waste shipping labels, the first being 100 percent recycled white labels, compatible with laser and inkjet printers, which come on EcoEnclose’s 100 percent recycled and curbside recyclable liners. The second option is direct thermal labels that are compatible with standard thermal printers, also on the Zero Waste Release Liner. There are also several tape options that are better than the typical plastic stuff, including Cello Carton Sealing Tape, which combines cellulose backing with a natural rubber adhesive, making it plant-based, renewable, and biodegradable.

By 2030, EcoEnclose hopes to be an “ecologically net positive” company, meaning that its products, operations, and supply chain are a positive, regenerative force for the planet. The company has a comprehensive sustainable packaging framework and is committed to innovation.

Applications for the Outdoor Industry

EcoEnclose’s outdoor industry clients already include La Sportiva, United By Blue, Adidas, and FjĂ€llrĂ€ven.

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We, the independent specialty retail shops, did all the legwork to create these customers. Without us, these companies wouldn’t be here. I’m not sure there are many vendors that could survive without us, so I’m trying to help vendors balance capitalizing on the opportunities that direct-to-consumer sales have without undermining our ability to build that relationship with the consumer and profit on our inventory.

What outdoor specialty does the best is introduce people to products. You have consumers who don’t know anything about a new category, if they’ve invented a new kind of shoe or a new old fabric in the case of wool from Icebreaker. It took a tremendous amount of work on the part of a big retail network in America to put Icebreaker products into people’s hands and help people see the value in it. Growing a brand from its infancy to the point where it has relatively broad market awareness is something that retail stores are still going to do better than selling direct to consumers online.

We sell consumers on the brand, but we have a very limited assortment of it because it’s hard for small retailers to pioneer a brand and you can’t buy all of the available products and colors. So you introduce people to this new brand and eventually they go, “I wonder what else there is?” And that consumer ends up going to their website to look at the product breadth that we don’t have.

Immediately after consumers engage with their website, vendors hammer that consumer with email blasts and specials like free shipping and throwing in a pair of gloves or a free hat. They really work to steal that customer away from us.

Ibex is another serious offender. We essentially create the brand disciple and they steal them. I don’t think a company like Ibex could survive without direct-to-consumer business, but I also don’t think they ever would have been able to get off the ground by only doing direct-to-consumer business. We’re not going to win every battle, but if Ibex continues to do business that way, it’s going to be harder and harder for retailers to support them.

I recently threatened to drop Scarpa, one of the most important brands in backcountry skiing. By far, Scarpa has been the best telemark and alpine touring boot manufacturer to work with in my career, so why would I sever the relationship? Vendor partners are now our fiercest competitors. This year, it started with a free hoody if you bought boots from them, some free freight promos and then the now-common “friends and family pro sale.” In the days leading to Christmas, a group of vendors opened up the pro sales departments and wholesale pricing to all friends and family of legit pros. Scarpa, along with 33 other vendors, including Osprey, Cascade Designs, Rab, La Sportiva, Petzl, MSR, BCA, Mountain Hardwear, and Sierra Designs participated in this sales extravaganza run by Outdoor Prolink.

Outdoor Prolink’s homepage. (Screenshot: Todd Frank)

When I asked Scarpa to give me a reason why they did it, the simple answer was “money.” They primarily sell a product that needs to be custom fit by a professional with the tools to do it. We have done thousands of boot fittings here over the last 18 years, and we are pretty good at it. Why would I want to do business with a brand that actively sells a product that needs my expertise to fit properly when that business aggressively under cuts what I can sell it for? Five years ago, I would have howled and said because they have the best boots. Now, there are seven or eight other vendors that have absolutely amazing product, too. (Editor’s note: To Scarpa’s credit, since receiving similar feedback from several retailers they have committed to no longer doing friends and family promotions.)

If we all have to pay the price of a problem equally, it will stop vendors from pushing direct-to-consumer sales and taking business away from us. They’re always going to have a better assortment than we do, and they can’t really fix that piece of it. But what they can do is work with us to make sure we can sell the product we stock profitably throughout the whole season. So I’m asking the vendors to come to us with creative ideas.

I just had an experience with a major vendor in the apparel industry who went off price on their web direct-to-consumer business in clear violation of their own policy that said “We’ll hold price until this point in time.” For reasons that are all legitimate, they couldn’t wait. I went to the vendor and I said, “I think you owe me some markdown credits. You didn’t go by the policy you’re asking me to go by.” They were pretty happy to do it. That needs to happen on more levels.

Until a vendor is affected by the final transaction with the end consumer buying their product, they’re not going to change the way they do it. So I’m looking for more partnerships with vendors who are willing to do things like manage excess inventory, share costs, take product back, trade product out, use markdown credits, or simply guarantee a sustained margin. The only way we’re going to change vendors’ behavior is with our checkbooks, so I can’t keep saying to people, “You have to change the way you’re doing business,” and continue to buy 10 percent more than I did last year. At some point I just have to get up from the table and say, “We’re done.” They’ve got to feel the pain a little bit, and until they feel the pain, there’s no motivation for any change in behavior.

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