The outdoor industry makes way too much stuff. That has ramifications all down the line. There is a lot of product in the marketplace that retailers don’t buy from vendors, and that customers wouldn’t miss if they never saw it. I would like to see lines shrink overall and focus on what a company does best—the true best sellers. Why does everyone have to be all things to all consumers? Suppliers should also make as much of their product as possible from recycled or sustainable materials. Don’t just add an “eco” line and continue to produce all your other stuff. Make more of the core line sustainable. It should all be “eco,” right?

Some might argue this will create supply chain issues. In a way, the solution to the problem is simple. If companies collectively demand a different system from their manufacturers, change can happen. If we develop tight, sustainable lines and muster enough confidence to run with them for more than one season, we can take the pressure off the ridiculously accelerated buying cycle and eliminate the scramble for factory time. Yes, the consumer wants new and different, but in large part because we have trained them to expect it. Just as the industry has leveraged the message of sustainability, we can leverage a new message that promotes fewer choices, where the constant pursuit of “new and different” is unnecessary.

Packaging should also be addressed. There are some positive trends happening with packaging, but what we’ve done isn’t enough. If all vendors demanded better packaging options, manufacturers would be forced to figure it out. I know there are cost concerns; nobody wants to be the first to leave money on the table and pay higher costs. But done collectively, the impact could be spread evenly and have much more effect.

Let’s take this opportunity to rethink the outdoor industry, rework how we do business, and re-train the consumer to have realistic expectations about product lines: to support a new paradigm of sustainable retail. The time is ripe to re-message, reboot, and create an industry we feel is meaningful moving into the future. Consumers will buy a new message if we sell it to them.

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Black Friday was a success for Salida Mountain Sports, but not because they lured customers in with steep discounts. Prices stayed steady, and if the Colorado store missed some sales because they weren’t discounting, store owner Nate Porter said so be it.

Small specialty outdoor shops around the country felt even more pinched during the holidays—a time when business should be booming—because the very brands they sell in their stores were offering unbeatable prices online and in their own namesake stores.

“There is no way we can compete with the deep discounts and direct-to-consumer sales promoted by our vendors and other online sellers,” Porter said. “So, we stay the course and continue to provide community support, great customer service, and great products that separate good brick-and-mortar shops from the rest of the marketplace.”

As advocates for specialty retailers, Grassroots Outdoor Alliance has been monitoring promotional emails from nearly 200 brands since 2017 to better understand the ebbs and flows of the industry. And as the data set grows, Grassroots says it has become a way to identify and illuminate the companies that are doing healthy things for the marketplace and industry.

Data from 2019 shows that some brands have drastically ramped up emails with words like “sale” and “Cyber Monday” in the subject lines, while others have decreased frequency and volume. But overall, Grassroots saw a 31 percent increase in 2019 over 2018 of promotional emails.

“Vendors aren’t sharing their promotional calendar when they sell specialty retailers the line, but retailers now have a growing amount of data about when to expect a spike in promotional activity,” Grassroots President Rich Hill said.

“We’ve learned that MAP (minimum advertised price) policies are so fluid that they are essentially worthless,” Hill added. “They are designed to establish a sense of trust during the sell-in process, and then re-interpreted all season. The best indicator that retailers have to predict pricing volatility is to study what a vendor did last season, not what their policy says they’ll do next season.”

It’s not that brands shouldn’t run holiday sales. It’s that Grassroots is advocating for a leveler playing field.

Diving into the Data

From November 1 to December 31, Grassroots monitored 195 outdoor brands—members and non-members—and their email behaviors. Of that, only 50 vendors did not send any promotional emails in 2019. The other 145 collectively sent 1,355 promotional emails—a 31 percent increase over 2018 numbers.

Other key takeaways:

• In 2018, 63 percent of promotional emails were sent in November and 37 percent in December
• In 2019, 43 percent of promotional emails were sent in November and 57 percent in December
• 91 vendors (47 percent) increased their promotional cadence from 2018 to 2019 accounting for 429 additional promotional emails
• 25 of the 91 had not sent a promotional email in 2018 and began doing so in 201
• 40 vendors (20 percent) decreased their promotional cadence from 2018 to 201
• 64 no change (33 percent) year over year

Hill noted, “There’s a misconception about promotional behavior that it’s somehow isolated and happening in a vacuum, with no real impacts other than a few points on margin. The unfortunate reality is that aggressive promotional behavior creates distinct and negative impacts that are felt by both retailers as well as other vendor brands. Labelling it as ‘sales fracking’ might be considered a little dramatic, but it’s accurate.”

Grassroots uses this data to engage in conversations with retailers and vendor partners about how to work together to make both online and brick-and-mortar sales channels healthy. Overly promotional behavior is a red flag.

For Forsake (maker of outdoor/adventure footwear), retail partners are top of mind during the holidays. Marketing Director Jack Knoll said that between 2017 and 2019, the brand maintained a consistent and well-communicated promotional window so retailers could plan for and match promotions. Additionally, he said Forsake doesn’t adjust MAP policies in-season.

“Holiday discounts are important to our growth strategy,” Knoll said. “It remains the most effective way to get ourselves in front of new customers. By allowing our retailers to latch onto our promotions during pre-arranged windows, everyone can benefit from using this tool to attract new business.”

Smartwool has a different strategy. The premium sock brand aims to never be promotional, VP of sales Scott Bower said, even though consumers have come to expect deals all year round.

Instead of fighting prices, Smartwool partners with like-minded brands—YETI and MPOWERD are two examples—to offer gifts with purchases during the busiest shopping days of the year. And when Smartwool does go off-price, those discounts live in a designated spot on the website and are communicated with their retailers.

“If we’re up against other brands that are highly promotional, it does to an extent hurt. But is it worth a short-term effort (discounts) that could have long-term negative impacts to your brand?” said Bower. “Retailers want to partner with brands that have longevity. We’re in this for the long haul.”

Specialty Retailers Take a Hit When Promotions Spike

Mike Massey, owner of Massey’s Outfitters and founder of Locally.com, has said it before: It’s really hard to return to being a full-price seller after using discounts to build goodwill with customers.

“One of the things that has been frustrating for us is that we will get a notification [from a vendor] that we have something on sale that is violating a MAP policy. But then it’s inevitable that within a day, we’re getting emails from the brand violating their own map policy,” Massey said. “It’s a double standard…What are we supposed to make of that? If your MAP policy can be changed at any moment during the season, and enforcement is spotty, you basically don’t have a MAP policy at that point.”

Already facing thin margins, Porter said competing with vendors by playing the volume versus margin game is a slippery slope.

Massey says his stores were clobbered after he chose not to play the discount game and keep products full-price in November for the first time in six years. He says the amount lost in November carried into December.

Alpenglow Sports owner Brendan Madigan said Black Friday was also a total bust for his Tahoe City, California-based store. He agreed that it’s impossible to compete when brands are marketing so aggressively with 20 to 25 percent sales, and sometimes even higher.

“The brands that engage in this behavior have retrained the customer to only shop online these days due to their blatant discounting—it’s like Pavlov’s Dog,” Madigan said.

While some retailers struggled over the holidays, others found success in new places.

Hala GearSpace, a SUP brand and new brick-and-mortar store in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, skipped out on offering a maximum discount online, so they could focus customers’ attention on retailers offering the discount, communications coordinator Victoria Ohegyi said.

The Base Camp, which has two locations in Montana, also had a successful run during Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, after teaming up with Red Ants Pants, a retailer from a small town nearby. Together, Scott Brown and Sarah Calhoun, the two businesses owners, wrote op-ed pieces in several state newspapers about the importance of small business collaboration and support. Brown said the collaboration was a success—sales were up at The Base Camp by 23 percent over the previous season.

But for the entire industry to win during the holidays, it’s the brands that need to scale back from being too opportunistic, Massey said.

“They can’t have a policy that enables you to sell in with a bunch of flowery promises and then void the policies when your sales are suffering,” he said.

Otherwise, brands risk losing key retail partners—and therefore, sales.

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If you glanced at your garbage can or recycling bin right now, what would you find inside? Chances are, it’s a jumble of plastic and cardboard—and you’re not alone. According to the EPA, nearly 30 percent—a whopping 76.7 million tons—of municipal waste is comprised of packaging, things you rip, break, and tear apart, then immediately toss aside. In a recent op-ed, Salida Mountain Sports founder Nate Porter took the outdoor industry to task for its overuse of packaging materials. Based on the chatter when OBJ posted the story on Facebook, he’s not the only one concerned about these issues. And he’s not alone in looking for solutions. You’re likely to see less packaging waste come along with your outdoor goods as creative sustainability initiatives increase across the industry.

“Any company that wants to reduce its carbon footprint, address water consumption, or anything else— you’re not going to be able to get tremendous gains without at least doing something about packaging,” said Adam Gendell, associate director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. “No one’s going to solve all of our environmental issues by just looking at packaging, but at the same time, no one’s going to be able to solve all of our environmental issues without including packaging.”

For some brands, sustainability is central to their core ethic. “We were founded as a triple bottom line business, so we measure our success as it relates to the environment, our social impact, and our financial impact,” explained Kelly Milazzo, VP of operations for Toad&Co. “When we look at our environmental impact, it’s kind of soup to nuts.” In a bid to reduce waste, the company recently launched a partnership with sustainable shipping company LimeLoop, who use reusable mailers made from upcycled billboard material.

Small Steps Lead to Big Changes

No matter the intention, it’s not always easy to enact change. Complex supply chains involving a multitude of vendors and facilities, each with their own capabilities and limitations, can vex larger operations; smaller brands face other roadblocks.

Shawn Parry, VP of marketing and product development for Teton Sports, said that to find more sustainable packaging options, the company was forced to invest in a year’s worth of materials up front. He also said that because his company is small, change is incremental. Last year, the brand began retooling its sleeping bag fill; this year its shell materials. It’s also rebuilding its entire packaging system, step by step. Parry likened it to a kid plunking pennies into a piggy bank. “Every time we want a new bike, we have to save up.”

There’s also the challenge of adequately protecting consumer goods, a job that’s long been entrusted to polybags. Back in 2014, Patagonia conducted a case study to see if it could reduce its plastic use by eliminating the bags. The results were disappointing. “We found that about 30 percent of the products were damaged beyond the point of being sellable,” explained Matt Dwyer, senior director of materials innovation and development. “The best thing we can do is produce clothing that’s going to last a long time, and if 30 percent of our product is getting damaged in the distribution process, we’re failing.”

The brand was able to make a few impactful changes spurred by the study, related to bag size and packing. “If my mom had told me that by folding my clothes better, I could save the world, I wouldn’t have believed her,” Dwyer laughed. “But it turns out that by folding our clothes better at the factories, we use 30 percent less plastic in our polybags.” He anticipates that by this fall, every polybag they use will featured recycled content; this will bump to 100 percent recycled content in the near future.

Taming the Polybag Beast

When it comes to polybags, most would argue that using recycled content is great, but using no bags at all is even better. prAna found a way to achieve this sustainability coup with a multi-year polybag reduction initiative driven by a dedicated group of employees who felt there had to be a better way. “We are a brand that believes in taking positive steps toward change, yet if all of our product comes in a polybag, what is that initial experience telling our customer?” asked director of sustainability Rachel Lincoln. “Small choices equal big change, and that’s kind of where that idea came—how can we make a choice every single day to do something different and find a different standard?”

After extensive testing, the prAna team realized that they could eliminate most polybag use by rolling items, then tying them with compostable raffia. Items could then be packed in one large box lined in plastic to prevent moisture damage. They developed training materials and worked with each component of their supply chain to ensure the process was streamlined. Their efforts paid off. “Just in 2018 alone, I think it was over 26,000 tons of polybag plastic that we saved,” said Lincoln. “That’s equivalent to two adult-size elephants.”

Strength in Numbers

While prAna’s success may not be replicable for every brand, the push for packaging sustainability has never been stronger. The Outdoor Industry Association’s Sustainability Working Group and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition are working on best practices.

One of the most prominent tools in this regard is the Higg Index, a sustainability scorecard. This summer, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition will relaunch its Brand & Retail Module, which will offer adopters ways to measure and seek improvement in packaging.

Even without a codified set of best practices, individual strategies are emerging. Lincoln suggested that more brands tap into the Teton Sports micro model. “Take one topic, go after it, be tenacious, don’t take no for an answer, ask a lot of whys, and then move on to the next thing once you’ve tackled it.”

On a broader scale, Gendell advised brands to adopt a “three pillar” system that addresses materials sourcing (using recycled, biodegradable, and compostable materials), optimization (reducing materials and volume), and recovery (ensuring materials are easily recyclable). This involves interrogating the supply chain.

“Most folks probably don’t even know where their polybags come from, let alone what they’re made out of,” said Dwyer. “The easy button for any big brand is to just let the factory do it—let them pick the materials, let them even help with the design, certainly let them pick the boxes and polybags.” Instead, the Patagonia team suggests putting in time to build personal relationships with suppliers.

Lincoln takes this a step further by advocating for the concept of “non-competitive collaboration,” allowing brands to share ideas, resources, and even purchasing power for the greater good. She pointed out that prAna’s recent move to 100 percent organic cotton was sparked when a competitor introduced them to a new vendor. “We have to be able to talk about those things in a non-competitive way or we can’t move the industry forward,” she said. “Together we’re stronger—and we have to believe that, enforce it, and encourage it.”

Cooperation is also key to magnifying the impact of initiatives like LimeLoop’s reusable mailers. Milazzo said that initial testing shows a shelf life of 2,000 shipments for each bag. She suggested that if more brands adopt the service, the impacts could be huge. “I think it’s essential that we as a business community find a solution to packaging,” she said. “I think we’re in a powerful position to make change.”

Perhaps the brightest glimmer of hope, then, is collaboration. “The power of one is strong, but the power of many speaks volumes,” said Lincoln. “If we can come together and find a way to leverage that louder voice, then the sky’s the limit.”

The post Beyond the Polybag: New Ideas in Packaging Sustainability appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Dear outdoor gear and apparel companies,

Each change in season brings a new round of product arriving at stores across the country. My staff and I get excited when the UPS and Fedex trucks roll up
we know the store will soon be filled with cool new gear, and we get to share the stoke with our customers.

But we also get really, really frustrated because of the mountain of waste that accompanies all that new gear. Sometimes the pile of recycling and trash is bigger than the products that came in it.

As an industry, we pride ourselves on being “green” and eco-conscious.

• We have working groups aimed at developing sophisticated tools to minimize our impact on the planet.

• We proudly tout our bluesign-certified products and the recycled nature of our fabrics and materials.

• We preach minimal impact lifestyles and Leave No Trace ethics to our customers.

• We raise money and awareness in the fight against climate change.

But behind the scenes? In the distribution centers and back rooms of retail shops all over the country? Well, collectively, we’re not doing so hot on that front.

Too Much Packaging

Almost across the board, there’s just too much packaging used. We know your overseas manufacturers have to protect the goods before loading them into containers to traverse oceans to get to our stores, but does every item have to be individually poly-bagged?

Plastic waste is getting a lot of attention these days. We’ve all seen pictures of plastic “islands” in the ocean, or dead whales that have scooped up too much debris while feeding.

Let’s find better solutions! Asian factories will keep doing what they’re doing if we don’t push them for different solutions. Can’t we use bigger polybags and put multiple items in each one? Or can we find a better option—something biodegradable—than plastic? Are we at least trying to change the paradigm?

Too Many Hangtags

Lots of you use too much material in your tags. We know hangtags are important because they provide information about the product, company, and they’re a place to put a barcode label or price tag.

But there’s no reason to overdo them. Something just big enough for the key information and a price tag is all that we—and the customer—need. Please use recyclable, renewable, or sustainable materials. And please: Can you keep it to just one or two hangtags? Any more than that and it’s just overkill. The tags end up getting in the way and junking up the look/appeal of your product.

Too Many and Irrelevant POP Display

First things first: you should not just build and send racks without checking with us first. We often get POP materials at our store that don’t even relate to our product mix! Straight into the recycle bin or dumpster they go.

Lots of you overdo it with racks, signage, and POP materials, period. But to make matters worse, many of your displays are not designed to withstand the wear and tear of the sales floor. They end up looking tattered and shabby after a few weeks, and that doesn’t help sell product.

Please: design your POP materials to be durable and modular, and stick with a marketing theme that has a several-season life-cycle so they aren’t obsolete in one season.

Brands That Get a Thumbs Up

prAna, you do a good job. You don’t individually bag each garment in plastic. Each piece comes rolled up, tied with a piece of raffia. (I suspect your clothing comes from Asia in polybags like everyone else’s, but you save us the hassle of de-bagging, and we appreciate it. Hopefully you’re recycling all those polybags.) You also get props for packing a lot of items into each box. Your hang tags are small and made of recycled cardboard; just enough room for product info, like SKU, size, color, and a price/barcode label. You attached them to the garment with string rather than plastic. There’s no tissue paper folded up in each shirt, no plastic clips keeping the garment folded. Clean, simple, and smart.

Keen, you use 100 percent recycled shoeboxes. And more importantly, you fill each shipping box efficiently, whereas many other companies send us multiple half-empty boxes with just one style per box. It’s just silly.

Latitude 40, you use old or misprinted maps to fill empty box space, no bubble wrap crumpled packing paper.

Sanuk, you get brownie points for your great display rack that’s durable and modular, with signage that’s easy to swap out as your branding message changes.

Hydro Flask, you get props for shipping your bottles in reusable bags.

Brands That Get a Thumbs Down

Red Ledge, you go way, way overboard. You pack each garment in a separate, poly bag that goes straight into the trash. (We recycle the ones that we can.) You put six (!) hang tags on each garment, two of which have multiple folds. This is really overkill and actually hurts the sales process by making it fiddly to find the one hang tag with the size and price.

Almost all of you flip flop vendors—including Teva, Sanuk, Reef, you individually bag each pair of sandals. Many of you use some kind of foot form—often plastic or foam—to give the sandal a shape. Is this really necessary? I don’t think so.

Even you big guys like The North Face, Patagonia, and Columbia use way too many plastic bags. This is especially painful coming from companies like you with lots of resources to be creative and resourceful and make a difference by throwing your weight around.

Nebo, you really miss the mark. The only way to buy your tools is in a pre-packaged display case made of plastic. Every re-order comes with a new display, so the old ones get tossed. I know you mean well, but it’s so wasteful.

What Can Brands Do?

Be creative! Come up with display, marketing, and packaging programs that are as minimal, eco-friendly, and functional as your products. Then lean on suppliers and manufacturers to find new packaging solutions that use fewer, more earth-friendly materials.

As retailers, it’s up to us to speak up, and voice our discontent with the same old packaging protocols. When you see excessive packaging from a company, tell them. Ask them to do better.

Our entire industry depends on a healthy planet, and we do so much good in terms of advocating for climate change solutions, creating sustainable products, and supporting environmental initiatives.

Why are we still so bad with packaging?

Nate Porter opened Salida Mountain Sports with his wife, Diana, in 2007. He has been in the outdoor industry since 1990, and enjoys the great people he’s met along the way, as well as the opportunity to work in an industry that promotes healthy lifestyles and caring for wild lands. When not in the shop, he can be found skiing, hiking or biking around the Sawatch Mountains. 

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