Rich Hill

After rumblings of an uncertain future, Denali announced last Tuesday that its closing all seven locations. A "going out of business" sale at the Old Saybrook location signals the store's end. More than 25 years ago, the first store opened as Trailblazer in New Haven and grew to ...read more

The Grassroots Outdoor Alliance worked hard and played hard at this year’s 25th anniversary show in Knoxville, Tennessee. On the first night, during a festive and nostalgic happy hour, dinner, and awards ceremony, members, staff, and special invited guests of the Alliance ...read more

President Rich Hill kicked off the evening by explaining the Grassroots History Project, which was started a few years back to trace the arc of the group’s growth as a powerful collaboration of retailers and brands. Through hundreds of hours of interviews with members—both from ...read more

At the end of any given trade show, outdoor retailers are left with stacks and stacks of paper catalogues from various brands. They have to make the choice to either ship them home to their store, pack them in their luggage, or toss them out.  "The carbon footprint gets to be ...read more

If it’s not a big-box store and it’s not an independent specialty retailer, then what exactly is it? REI Co-op defies easy definition. It’s a builder of brands and a risk to them. It competes with smaller shops around the country while throwing its weight around to protect ...read more

Walmart was going to disrupt the outdoors. It was late August, 2018, a year and a half after the retail leviathan purchased the online outdoor retailer Moosejaw for a reported $51 million. Walmart was ready to put its investment to work. Walmart, as everyone knows, is the ...read more

This year, SNEWS is celebrating 35 years of covering the outdoor industry, from in-depth dives into important trends and issues to its daily happenings. We're also launching a brand new, radically different trade journal, and it drops on Jan. 30, 2019. The talented filmmakers at ...read more

Rich Hill, president of Grassroots Outdoor Alliance is fired up. Anonymous 3P sellers on marketplaces – especially Amazon – are the single-biggest threat to the health of the specialty outdoor industry ecosystem in 2019, he told his members at the Grassroots Connect Show in ...read more

Farm to Feet, KAVU, Rab, and Sierra Designs have joined Grassroots Outdoor Alliance's national vendor network, the group announced today. “Within Rab, we talk about surrounding ourselves with kindred spirits – those who relish the experience of a gritty and memorable mountain ...read more

YETI Coolers is taking to Wall Street for the second time. The Texas-based maker of luxury coolers filed an IPO last week, just seven months after it withdrew its first filing with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). Despite facing a number of challenges this ...read more

Keep up by reading Industry Buzz. Here are today's top headlines: Have a news tip? Email us at snewsedit@aimmedia.com In honor of the climber who died last year in an avalanche on Imp Peak, Mystery Ranch established the Inge Perkins Scholarship to celebrate the life and ...read more

As owners of local independent outdoor businesses and members of the national outdoor community, Grassroots Outdoor Alliance is committed to achieving the health and growth of the specialty outdoor industry by pursuing the high road of retail excellence. For more than 30 years, ...read more

It’s safe to say American shoppers don’t go to Walmart looking for top-of-the line backpacks, winter expedition apparel, and mountaineering gear. But the big box discounter challenged that assumption with the launch of a premium outdoor store last week. “When’s the last time you ...read more

The newest store associate at Boulder, Colorado’s Go Far posts up near the wall of shoes on the store’s far end. Her job description at the running and active lifestyle specialty retailer is fairly specific: She’ll measure and analyze your foot, track your stride and gait, and ...read more

Successfully producing outdoor gear used to be such a simple endeavor: Make great product, then sell it through retail partners, or directly through a catalog or your own store. These days, the formula has become a lot more complicated. With the option to distribute through a ...read more

Successfully producing outdoor gear used to be such a simple endeavor: Make great product, then sell it through retail partners, or directly through a catalog or your own store. These days, the formula has become a lot more complicated. With the option to distribute through a ...read more

If you were a regular customer at Rock/Creek Outfitters long enough, the owners, managers, and sales floor staff greeted you by name when you walked through the doors and also came to know your outdoor activities. Shopping there was not merely a transaction; it was a gathering ...read more

Successfully producing outdoor gear used to be such a simple endeavor: Make great product, then sell it through retail partners, or directly through a catalog or your own store. These days, the formula has become a lot more complicated. With the option to distribute through a ...read more

Successfully producing outdoor gear used to be such a simple endeavor: Make great product, then sell it through retail partners, or directly through a catalog or your own store. These days, the formula has become a lot more complicated. With the option to distribute through a ...read more

Successfully producing outdoor gear used to be such a simple endeavor: Make great product, then sell it through retail partners, or directly through a catalog or your own store. These days, the formula has become a lot more complicated. With the option to distribute through a ...read more

After nearly two years of pushing to go public, Yeti Holdings Inc. has decided against it. A legal filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday reveals that CEO Matthew Reintjes made the decision as a result of “market conditions” and asked that materials ...read more

Everyone in this industry knows the problem by now: The rise of online shopping has turned the traditional outdoor marketplace on its head. Consumers now turn to the internet first when they need new gear; brands seize the chance to sell it directly through their own websites or ...read more

Just a decade ago, local retailers were the biggest influencers of a shopper's path to purchase. But, just like most other industries—from airlines and hotels to restaurants and even schools‑changing consumer behavior has dramatically upended everything we all knew about how ...read more

My shop, Chopwood Mercantile, is a B-Corp certified Outdoor Retail shop in Crested Butte, Colorado, that provides unique gear and guidance to foster experiences in wild places. We conceived the idea to re-think outdoor retail in 2010 as a way to answer the challenges facing ...read more