troutdreamer
Lil-Rokslider
I love Kuiu gear.
I had my first real backcountry back back elk hunt last year (1 week) and I thought the gear was great and my friends were impressed with the performance compared to their gear. When I look at Kuiu, I see a great niche company that is growing at such an incredible rate. I am in manufacturing and I see how hard it would be to manage inventory with such a growth rate in this type of business. I would assume most companies that sell retail would use advance purchase orders (give me 1000 of this and this and this and 2000 of this, etc) and previous sales history of similar items for new products from their customers to accurately finance and forecast production of their products. With Kuiu growing so quickly and I am sure with the capital restrictions that any business has, they can only produce so many items until demand strips production or capacity. Their target customer is the Mountain Hunter and a lot of their products are going to people that might never be a “Mountain Hunter” in real need of this type of technical gear. However the gear is so good compared to other products and price is good compared to traditional retailers that people want it. Great for Kuiu’s employee’s and owners!
Annual discount sales (Black Friday and Christmas) are great for shedding excess inventory but they seemed to cause lingering Customer Service delivery problems. As long as they remain popular and sell direct to consumers, have long production and shipping lead times they will continue to be up against inventory shortages.
I say buy early knowing you will have to wait for a great product and will only get charged when the item ships. I purchased a custom knife before and waited a year for the guy to produce the knife. I could have purchased a nice one at Cabelas or some other retailer and walked away with it on day one but in the end I was happy I waited.
I had my first real backcountry back back elk hunt last year (1 week) and I thought the gear was great and my friends were impressed with the performance compared to their gear. When I look at Kuiu, I see a great niche company that is growing at such an incredible rate. I am in manufacturing and I see how hard it would be to manage inventory with such a growth rate in this type of business. I would assume most companies that sell retail would use advance purchase orders (give me 1000 of this and this and this and 2000 of this, etc) and previous sales history of similar items for new products from their customers to accurately finance and forecast production of their products. With Kuiu growing so quickly and I am sure with the capital restrictions that any business has, they can only produce so many items until demand strips production or capacity. Their target customer is the Mountain Hunter and a lot of their products are going to people that might never be a “Mountain Hunter” in real need of this type of technical gear. However the gear is so good compared to other products and price is good compared to traditional retailers that people want it. Great for Kuiu’s employee’s and owners!
Annual discount sales (Black Friday and Christmas) are great for shedding excess inventory but they seemed to cause lingering Customer Service delivery problems. As long as they remain popular and sell direct to consumers, have long production and shipping lead times they will continue to be up against inventory shortages.
I say buy early knowing you will have to wait for a great product and will only get charged when the item ships. I purchased a custom knife before and waited a year for the guy to produce the knife. I could have purchased a nice one at Cabelas or some other retailer and walked away with it on day one but in the end I was happy I waited.
