Amazon Prime Day, and a Longread About the Outdoor Gear Industry

Photo credit: Andy Nguyen, CC BY 2.0.

We’re just over halfway through Amazon Prime Day (which, of course, lasts a little longer than a day), and if you want to discuss both Prime Day deals and Prime Day boycotts, the comment section is open.

I also got a Billfolder request to share “Amazon’s War on Gear,” a well-timed article from Outside Magazine that focuses on the various ways Amazon has affected the outdoor gear industry, both for better and for worse:

Across the country, enterprising shop owners like [Mike] Massey were opening Amazon stores and emptying their warehouses. Within a remarkably short period, consumers could find many of their favorite gear brands on the site. The brands themselves, however, were blindsided. “They didn’t see it coming,” says Christian Gennerman, who spent most of the 2000s with online retailer Backcountry.com and is now the VP of merchandising and strategy for 180 Commerce, one of a number of firms that have popped up to help companies navigate their Amazon partnerships. “The brands didn’t plan to be on Amazon, and they were suddenly there because of the retailers. They were like, ‘What do we do?’ ”

This is a longread, and it covers everything from knock-off and counterfeit products to retailers who discover that Amazon owns their customer data. (If you can’t get information about your customers, you’re locked off from several marketing paths.) You’ll also follow the story of Klymit, an outdoor gear brand that sells directly to Amazon, as well as Dick’s Sporting Goods, Best Buy, and more. “We couldn’t have done it without Amazon,” Klymit CEO Cory Tholl says, before the article details all of the ways that Amazon is cutting into Klymit’s profits.

Read and discuss — and happy Prime Day, I guess.

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