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Comment by crikli | Hacker News Reader

I’m a climber / skier / runner etc based out of Colorado and between my wife and we’ve spent a small fortune with backcountry.com. I didn’t know about any of this. Suing a maker of backcountry skis? Well, fuck you too, private equity jerkoffs. I’m going to light up my rep on this and let them know my spend and my recommendations are going elsewhere.

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Edit3: GoFundMe for the legal costs of one of their targets: https://www.gofundme.com/f/legal-defense-to-fight-backcountr...

Edit2: A follow-up article with more details on just how predatory and unreasonable BC (by proxy through their attorneys) have become: https://coloradosun.com/2019/11/05/backcountry-com-trademark...

Edit, @skierjerry, et, al, here's what I just sent my rep:

Heya <person>,

I read an article about Backcountry in the Colorado Sun that really disappointed me. Your employer has adopted ugly business tactics and begun using its size to attack smaller businesses who have the ubiquitous term “backcountry” in their name.

Please look at my lifetime spend with Backcountry as well as that of my wife. It is significant. It also stops now, and I’ll be making significant contributions to the legal funds of the boutique makes and businesses that your employer is assaulting.

I wish you nothing but the best on a personal level and hope that your employer chooses to take a better path."

View on HN

Worth a mention...Colorado Sun is a great example of what local journalists can do after local legacy organizations are snapped up by national/global organizations.

After the Denver Post was acquired by Alden Global Capital, the paper's hedge fund owner,they laid of 1/3 of newsroom staff to maintain a profit margin on the property in the 20 percent range.

Several of those laid off (and some volunteered to migrate), they formed the Colorado Sun, which is online-only and does actual deep investigations locally. It's probably still hard and the money isn't easy, but its better than what we had!

I'm new (18 months) to Colorado, and I've really been enjoying the coverage the Sun provides. Very impressed.

Yup, I love Colorado Sun. They are really deserving of your eyeballs and your support.

I was quite surprised to see a Sun article on HN today. Been a member as soon as I moved to Denver last year and have loved seeing it be such a high quality source of journalism.

The Denver Post situation has been a great example of finance eating the world.

The Editor is the Boulder Daily Camera fell on his sword quite spectacularly over it...

https://boulderfreepress.blog/2018/04/14/private-equity-owne...

I chatted with a rep last night and they were very responsive, said "our managers are listening to customer feedback."

Don't forget, Black Diamond laid off much of the Utah engineering staff and their climbing cams will now be made in China... Not sure what other gear is taking that fate. Looks like it's Metolious Master Cams for me now.

Did BD re-offshore things? At one point, they were bringing manufacturing back to the US after QC issues.

Answering my own question: looks like it. They brought it back in 2015 and are going back overseas in 2019.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2400138/black-diamond-layoffs-...

https://companyweek.com/articles/as-black-diamond-bolts-to-c...

That's crazy. China loves to replace parts with "equivalent materials." My employer has been spending the last 3 months resolving Chinese QC issues with metal fabrication such as ignoring critical tolerances or broken welds. Considering how devastating it would be for a carabiner or ice axe to fail in the field it would be hard for me to trust outsourced manufacturing.

It's everything. Literally everything. It's what I believe is going to hold up Chinese manufacturing, regardless of how much better it is now compared to the 90's or early 2000's.

As another example - Jorgenson Pony clamps were made in Chicago until they closed down (like 15 years ago). They're the gold standard for woodworking clamps. Solid as a rock. The company announced they were re-making clamps. In China. At the world's largest clamp making plant.

They're garbage now. Materials are cheaper. The QC is nowhere near as good as they used to be. The price is more, even adjusted for inflation, than what they were when they were Chicago made - because people are buying the trusted brand name and getting burned for it.

It's just sad. I can't imagine that I would ever trust something like climbing gear to outsourcing. No thanks.

This is highly rational behavior for hired CEOs — you’re there for 5-10 years and paid based on stock price, so it’s in your best interest to sell shoddy products under the venerable brand name in the highest quantities possible, and cash out before the market discovers that your brand name is worthless (cf all of the venerable kitchen brands like All-Clad and Wusthof that now have Chinese junk lines).

This is why the father to son family business model may prove more enduring.

All the CEO's care about is next quarter. Five or ten years isn't even on the radar at most companies anymore.

>All the CEO's care about is next quarter. Five or ten years isn't even on the radar at most companies anymore.

If their comp package is weighted towards the five year term, they absolutely care about five years from now.

I doubt any CEO's compensation is tied to anything beyond five years; and, I bet even terms at five years are sparse limited to a few giant names who have to (like Tim Cook) otherwise the stock price would collapse and that's it.

I'd like to add: there is no incentive for it either, shareholders want returns NOW, and so they want CEOs to act in their interest NOW. Most shareholders aren't looking at their "ownership" stake with compassion for employees at the company, or any form of responsibility to other stakeholders, but solely for their own bottom line.

> shareholders want returns NOW

I know this is the received wisdom, but as a shareholder, I emphatically do not want this. I want long-term value, as I am a long-term investor. I hate that I have to watch out for shady things like this and adjust my holdings accordingly.

>there is no incentive for it either, shareholders want returns NOW, and so they want CEOs to act in their interest NOW.

Many of the biggest shareholders are major pension funds with 30 to 50 year time horizons. They absolutely do NOT want "returns NOW" with the implicit assumption that future quarters don't matter.

They absolutely do NOT want "returns NOW" with the implicit assumption that future quarters don't matter.

That is true but it is also true that they can’t risk waiting 30 years only to find their investment is worthless. Hence the insistence on quarterly reporting.

Yeah, they trash the brand for a few quarters of returns and ride off into the sunset.

I always thought this was a weird definition of "rational". If you're already rich, which I assume most hired CEOs are, why is prioritizing money over people a more rational decision? Is that money going to change their life in any meaningful way? Is it any less correct to say it's in their best interest to stop working as soon as they have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their life, to minimize stress and maximize lifetime?

I understand that it's rational behavior for someone driven exclusively by money, but that's an important qualification. Most people are not money robots, so they aren't given these jobs.

> If you're already rich, which I assume most hired CEOs are, why is prioritizing money over people a more rational decision?

Generally, a non-founder CEO is a ferociously competitive person--probably to the point of being pathological. They often "play poker" in situations where there is very little upside to doing so.

Great salespeople are often the same way, they simply can't turn it off.

You are asking a leopard to change his spots after he has started eating the antelope.

> pathological

That was precisely the parent comment's point.

I understand, I just don't think we should describe that behavior as "rational". In casual conversation, the word means "sensible, logic-driven decisions that any person with good judgement would take". Here we're describing behavior driven by a particular niche, unnatural rationale, and pretty much any behavior can be explained that way.

It's the corporate structure. The CEO either grows the year over year profits or he gets punished/fired by the board. Boards pick CEOs based on a history of delivering growth at any cost (this is one of the irrational decisions, they should prioritize long term growth over short term, but they rarely do). This in turn provides a strong incentive to CEOs to make bad long term decisions if it means short term gains, because they either won't be around to see the eventual collapse (having moved on to another CEO position) or else they take the long term plan and get fired by the board for not providing enough growth (or worse, reduction).

> strong incentive

But it shouldn't be a strong incentive, right? Getting fired from a CEO position is fine, you're almost certainly set for life. I understand this is sort of a circular argument, because anyone who doesn't buy into this incentive structure won't be hired as CEO, but my point is that somebody who is willing to go along with this system isn't really behaving rationally in the normal sense of the word.

I really dislike this kind of reasoning. Saying this is "highly rational" is saying the only value is money. Everything else can be set aside if it leads to more money. Even if people get hurt or worse using shoddy equipment. There is no place for empathy, at a sociopathic level. I'd think that a few millennia of civilization would give more value to notions of altruism, honesty, not constantly trying to scam your fellow man.

Yes, but we already know these positions tend to select for mildly sociopathic behavior in the first place...

It is "highly rational" in the sense that success at their chosen career means hitting financial targets defined over short time periods.

The behavior won't change until the incentives do.

This is a sort of "Ayn Rand'ian" rationality in which the only thing that matters is what you're getting out of the deal independently of how devoid of empathy your worldview is.

>It's what I believe is going to hold up Chinese manufacturing

What sense of "hold up" are you using here, "support" or "delay?"

"Impede" is the way the word is being used; see definition 2 of the verb here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holdup

Correct

It’s also crazy given China trade talks right now. Seems like at least something to postpone a year or so. Or maybe they already feel they have the shutoff options covered.

You couldn't pay me enough to climb on a Chinese-made belay device.

Coming next to backcountry: commingling.

Yes I have purchased climbing equipment on Amazon but I always felt bad about it.

Given how common Black Diamond equipment is, almost all climbers have been belayed with a Chinese made ATC, carabiner or quickdraw...

https://blog.weighmyrack.com/black-diamond-manufacturing-pro...

The way it's been explained to me is that it's proportional to how much money you're spending. If you think you're getting a great deal from the Chinese, then the Chinese think it's reasonable to rip you off.

Whereas a manufacture in another country might say: "For that little money, I won't do the job.", in China the answer is more like "For that little money, I'll do the job [but I'm going to rip you off, and for how little you're paying, you should already know you're going to get ripped off.]"

Any details about veracity? It’s the first I hear of it, and it’s rather interesting.

Unfortunately I don't have more details; it's something I heard a few years ago from a Chinese coworker. He was explaining that quality products can be produced in China, but you have to pay for that quality just like anywhere else. And it happens that when American companies outsource to China, they're often looking for the cheapest bidder.

This is super interesting. The idea, "someone is always willing to make the money" is playing out in this unexpected way!

Got any links for a person to learn more about this cultural difference?

“QC issues” are not a variable I want to consider In climbing gear.

It seems like the liability issues here with life-critical equipment should make any lawyer put a hold on this idea, but apparently not?

I recently bought a set of collapsable climbing poles from Black Diamond.

They broke on my first really long hike. 1/3 of the way into a 72 mile route..

> Don't forget, Black Diamond laid off much of the Utah engineering staff and their climbing cams will now be made in China...

That might be why

How much engineering staff do you need to make some walking sticks?

How much engineering staff do you need to make a search engine?

Black Diamond makes a lot more than just walking sticks. But even if that's all they made ..

You're seriously underestimating how hard it might to to engineer and test even something as seemingly simple as a walking stick. These are lightweight, high-tech materials we're talking about (carbon fiber), which even SpaceX gave up on for their latest spacecraft. They're also collapsible/foldable. Simply put, this is harder than you think it is.

I have no idea, I've never made an artificial walking stick. Good strong wood is quite sturdy however, but not nearly as light as a synthetic walking stick. Trying to replicate the strength of a hard wood in a very lightweight synthetic material is probably a challenging engineering task.

Anyway I'd think production/manufacturing and quality assurance would be more to blame, particularly if the same products used to perform better than now.

Enough to keep your manufacturer from doing something stupid.

Designing the walking stick is simply the start. The problem is that you specified some really expensive materials with exotic manufacturing requirements that your supplier probably doesn't understand unless they are in aerospace.

Of course, aerospace manufacturers are ferociously expensive, and your customer can't really tell the difference if you are 1 or 2% less effective, but they can tell if you are 10% cheaper, so you start downgrading your manufacturing.

And then the problems start. The new manufacturer probably doesn't understand exotic materials as well, or they would be an aerospace supplier charging you more money. So, maybe they don't apply a cross layer, maybe they change the binding agent, maybe they use a cheaper material.

How do you, as the manufacturer, know?

You would have to put people on quality assurance analysis, but those are valuable engineers.

For a product that is $200. Max. For a company that has a revenue of roughly $100 million a year and basically no profit.

So, go find a company that charges $500-$1000 for your sticks and creates an actually good product, or suck it up and buy the Chinese crap.

They are about 150g per pole, so a fair bit I suspect.

Meanwhile my Trail Pros have been a delight, by far the best aluminium poles I've ever bought. So yeah, I don't see what your anecdote proves.

Aluminum or carbon fiber? I'm betting carbon fiber, they are very lightweight but don't really hold up to use.

> their climbing cams will now be made in China

I'm not sure if I see what's wrong with that. Like it or not, electronics manufacturing is centered around China and the APAC region. Trying to set up manufacturing outside that region, especially for a company that doesn't specialize in electronic goods, simply doesn't make sense.

Slight correction, I believe they're referring to the rock climbing hardware, not cameras: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-loaded_camming_device

Oh! Okay, that makes more sense.

Sorry I should have made that more clear haha

I'm doing they same. I've spent a stupid amount on bikes and climbing gear from them so hopefully they listen.

Brother I'm livid. I understand that a company has to protect a trademark, and I've been in the protecting position. But there are actions you have to take and actions you do not, and BC seems to be taking it to the extreme.

The thing that really pisses me off is that they are attacking people in business because they love the sport. These boutique makers are often just scraping by and don't have the margins to sustain much resistance at all.

I understand the desire to protect your trademark, but if you want to make a trademarked brand part of your business, maybe don't build your business around a generic term?

Maybe building your identity on something generic but relevant is a good way to crush the competition.

Or even companies that are not at all in competition. See the story on Lemonade and T-Mobil currently on the front page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21453626

Yup, I'm switching exclusively to Moosejaw until Backcountry is a little more reasonable here. Obviously they have to enforce their trademark to avoid losing it, but some of these lawsuits are egregious imo.

FYI - Moosejaw is now owned by Walmart, so if you're trying to ethically "vote with your dollars" it might not be the best choice.

I buy essentially all my gear from the REI co-op, who seem to have both customer-friendly return policies as well as genuine commitments to environmental standards for the gear they stock.

REI is my favorite place for outdoor gear. Return policies aren’t as good as they used to be. You can get around the return policies by buying high end gear. I had a goretex jacket where the membrane taping failed after 8 years and the manufacture replaced the jacket for free.

REI is one of my favorite stores in the world. It's hard for me to come up with a reason not to like them.

> REI is one of my favorite stores in the world. It's hard for me to come up with a reason not to like them.

That's easy. Pretty much every single non-REI branded item that they sell in the store is insanely marked up compared to what it can be bought in the brand's store.

>> Pretty much every single non-REI branded item that they sell in the store is insanely marked up

Nah. I'm a regular REI shopper and this has not been my experience at all (I always check competing retailers before buying something at REI).

It is definitely the case for ski gear ( skis/boots ), bike gear, cold weather gear, helmets, backpacks, etc. Northface store? 25% off. REI? List price. Columbia store? 25% off. REI? List price. Patagonia store? 15% off. REI? List price. Atomic REI? List price in Feb. Atomic at EVO? 25% off in Jan. Yeti at REI? List price. Yeti pretty much anywhere else? 10% off.

People justify it because of the dividends gimmick. Hell, I fell the first year for it myself.

I don't think REI moves as much ski/snowboard gear as a more local shop would, but they have seasonal sales on the same items you just mentioned every year, and their anniversary sale is usually pretty good. Not to mention their outlet store often has additional sales on items that haven't sold, plus the garage sale.

For instance: https://www.wired.com/story/rei-anniversary-sale-outdoor-dea...

The best 'deal' I found at REI was a ENO DoubleNest hammock for $12 at the garage sale, perfect condition. A near second would be a Black Diamond Access (I think) insulated hoodie for about $100, lasting me more than 6 years as my insulated layer for climbing, snowboarding, all around and casual use.

Last Season: REI great "snow sale" ~ 20% on Columbia gear. At the same time Columbia has the same stuff at ~75% off. Dick's has the same Columbia gear at 50% off.

REI is a cult. 10 years ago it was a cult that brought lots of things to the members because the brands sucked at selling on the internet or marketing on Instagram. Now the brands adjusted, and REI still behaves as if this is 2009.

Now you're being rude and inflammatory. You're not worth the effort to respond to.

Reasonable and accurate comment.

"I've been a member for a while now"... guy paid 20 bucks, one time, thinks he's part of an elite outdoors club.

Not reasonable or accurate, neither is yours.

https://www.columbia.com/womens-powder-pass-hooded-jacket-17...

$59

Rei outlet:

https://www.rei.com/rei-garage/product/162426/columbia-powde...

$77

It is the case for virtually all the products REI carries.

I just went to your link. At the top there's a sale sign that says "extra 25% off items with price $xx.73".

REI outlet price: 77.73

After additional sale: $58.30

What's your point again?

That "special sale" at REI is gone. At Columbia regular 50% off is still there.

And that's the case across the board.

Agreed. I've been a member for a while now and REI's standard prices are pretty average if not a little high, but they have enough really good sales during the year (plus the member discounts) to make up for anything you'd consider high price. Not to mention the garage sales can be a gold mine.

No. Their prices are consistent with the MSRP of the brand name products they stock.

> No. Their prices are consistent with the MSRP of the brand name products they stock.

And their competitors base line is pretty much always MSRP - 10%. That's why REI pretty much never shows up on Slickdeals apart from their blow out, out of season sale.

I've had bad experiences with their garage sales, buying products that say "too heavy" or "didn't like fit" but are just broken. Like at least give products a look over, especially electronics that can't easily be tested by a customer in store. Spent like 3k one year at REI, then was sold broken products that they didn't take back. Dividends don't accumulate on sale products so their pricing isn't competitive - I think once the bubble popped for me I realized REI isn't special

What items were broken? The dividend is compensation for paying full price where a sale is a discount on the full price.

Well, specifically, one that I remember was a solar charger. I couldn't exactly go outside and let it sit in the sun all day to see if it worked before buying. What set me off was when I asked them about it, they said, "hey its hit or miss. Actually we have another one next month, try your luck again!"

So I mean, its minor, and maybe I'm being petty, but it irritated me enough to stop buying gear there. Esp given how much I'd spent on winter camping gear the months before. Started trying to support local shops more where I can, and buying online elsewhere.

I don't really see the problem there to be honest. When it comes to electronics at the garage sale, I usually don't purchase unless I can tell that it's working or isn't difficult to fix. There could be a number of things wrong with electronics that don't show on the surface. One of the downsides to the garage sale is that sales are final. Basically, you took a chance on a risky second-hand product and the fortune wasn't in your favor.

Do you work for REI or have a business relationship with them?

No lol, I'm just a fanboy. They sell a lot of things I buy, and one of the only physical stores like it around.

yeah, well (and this might be a stretch for you to consider) maybe they reduced the return window because people like you expect every item to last indefinitely.

The jacket had a lifetime warranty on waterproofing which is why the company replaced it.

Almost everyone has cut back on their replacement guarantees. LL Bean is another company that used to basically have a no questions asked policy.

I'm not sure whether it's a case of more people arguably abusing the spirit if not the letter of the policy as part of a modern take everything you can mindset. Or if it's that more and more stuff is made in the same Chinese factories and they literally tend not to "make stuff like they used to."

A bit of both is my guess.

I know of at least one person who would routinely buy stuff and return it after a season of use to get a refund. That guy was a real asshole though. But still, people like him ruined it for the rest of us.

Sounds like a guy I knew who would "buy" a brand new TV just before the Super Bowl, and then return it immediately after.

This was before all consumer electronics were consolidated into a few chains, so he was able to go to a different place each year.

These days there are companies that monitor that sort of thing and will alert the stores when you try to return stuff. But considering the state of online shopping, I wonder if he's still doing it.

According to llbean:

"Increasingly, a small, but growing number of customers has been interpreting our guarantee well beyond its original intent. Some view it as a lifetime product replacement program, expecting refunds for heavily worn products used over many years. Others seek refunds for products that have been purchased through third parties, such as at yard sales."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/09/584493046...

Well, of course, LL Bean isn't going to say "And, besides, our stuff is a lot crappier than it used to be." Some people have been doing this sort of thing forever. Though I find it perfectly believable that it's become more common--admittedly an assumption at least somewhat rooted in generational stereotypes.

I usually translate this as "my product are shit. They will not last much".

Yeah, but we all know jerks who've been pulling that scam with Craftsman for years too, and I believe it's a large part of what made them less profitable too.

Turns out that a "forever" guarantee lasts longer than shifting moral standards.

> I'm not sure whether it's a case of more people arguably abusing the spirit if not the letter of the policy as part of a modern take everything you can mindset.

I think that's the rationale they gave, and I believe them. My brother has pushed what I consider the moral limits of generous return policies a couple of times, and given what I've seen at REI scratch and dent sales, I think other people are as well.

> I'm not sure whether it's a case of more people arguably abusing the spirit if not the letter of the policy as part of a modern take everything you can mindset.

That's probably a part of it, a long running joke in the skier community was that "REI is an acronym for Return Every Item."

That plus blatantly notably lower quality Chinese production probably put an end to it.

One of the only real quality disappointments I've had with REI was fairly recently when about a 3 year old lightly-used camp sleeping pad started slow leaks from all over the pad. Obviously whatever material they used to keep the air on the inside had just broken down. I probably should have at least tried to return it but I couldn't be bothered. Looking online, I was far from the only person with this problem.

Weird. I've noticed a strong increase in the quality of their products over the past few years. I have a REI magma down bag from them and it's awesome. Their performance wear has taken a step up, too. I seriously considered a rain shell from them, but ended up buying a Mammut on sale.

I believe Nordstrom still has basically an unlimited return policy. They sell a surprising amount of outdoor gear too. Arcteryx, North Face, Patagonia, etc.

Most of the stuff in the stores is those brands fashion lines, but their website regularly has more outdoor focused gear. I even once bought a Snow Peak backpacking stove from them.

Yes, there’s the apocryphal tale of a Nordstrom employee refunding a customer for snow tires purchased elsewhere.

http://www.startribune.com/did-someone-really-return-a-set-o...

Fun fact, any (authentic) GoreTex-branded garment is warrantied _for life_ by W.L. Gore & Associates:

https://www.gore-tex.com/support/guarantee-and-returns

I have never personally used this policy but I know others who have.

"For life" is such a misleading statement I'm surprised companies get away with using it without running into legal trouble. It most definitely does not mean that your jacket is guaranteed to last as long as you're alive. They are not talking about your life, they are talking about "useful life of a product", which can mean pretty much anything.

My ski jackets which are goretex easily last 10+ years. Membranes are things that usually fail. I had a raincoat membrane fail while I was in Thailand during the monsoon season. It was a cheap rain coat at a 1/3 the price of a goretex equivalent. REI wouldn’t take back the raincoat even though it was only 4 years old so I replaced it with goretex active coat which is still going strong though I burned a couple holes in it that I had to plug with wax. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a waterproof membrane to last the life of garment. Most of my camping gear is 20 years old and still works fine.

For what it's worth, that Gore-Tex page seems to be pretty up-front about it being for the useful life of the product.

Arteryx honored a busted zipper and torn inseam in my snow pants. I live in these clothes a quarter of the year.

To be honest, their return policy is still awesome. You can return things after a whole year of use. They changed it because people were abusing the return policy and treating it like a rental.

It makes sense that they stopped offering a lifetime policy. 1 year is still generous. They also offer price adjustments up to 2 weeks after purchase (if a sale starts, for example).

That’s the thing. A company like REI wants to do good by its customers, but a large enough fraction of them make it into a game. I knew people who’d buy something outgrow it and return it to buy the new thing they wanted. I mean, c’mon, but there you have it, the same old ugly reason we can’t have nice things for long. People abuse these niceties till they adjust or die.

I buy from REI when the item I want is there and sales make the prices competitive, and I have the time to go out to the store.

Does anyone have any insight on where Patagonia fits into this? I've always liked them based on their founder's "How I Built This" interview.

Check out Let My People Go Surfing as well, he talks more about how they've discontinued certain colors because of the environmental/social effects of mining certain pigments/dyes. It's very inspirational. I fear for what might happen after he's gone. Yvon Chouinard is the ruthless visionary we need for adventure sports equipment, something like Steve Jobs was for tech.

As for returns, I'm not sure they're any "better" than REI, but I fully buy into their philosophy of "if it's broken, fix it" and "don't buy this jacket." They try to be the antithesis of fast fashion and consumerism. If your jacket's zipper or stitching fails after 10 years of taking you to incredible heights, and you feel entitled to a replacement, you are delusional. Either fix it, or pony up the dough for a new one. You're not just investing in a new piece of clothing when you exchange money for it, you are investing in the company and its continued craftsmanship, R&D and training of newcomers to keep making and improving things. And in Patagonia's case, lobbying for better standards environmentally and sociopolitically. Asking for a refund or replacement is basically a vote for offshoring, reduced quality, carelessness towards the environment, etc as far as I'm concerned.

Patagonia is basically the vanguard on ethical production, environmental impact, etc and they stand by (& repair, for free) their products.

They'll even repair gear made by others. Which is putting your money where your mouth is, if you ask me. They'd rather keep your gear, made by someone else, going than sell you new stuff.

These days I put a real premium on how a product is supported after I purchase it.

I paid almost $200 for an Outdoor Research rain jacket back in 2017. Last month the zipper broke off, and they immediately sent me a replacement. Now I won't think twice about what brand I buy the next time anyone in my family needs a lightweight rain jacket.

I used to be a long-distance road cyclist, and I paid a premium for the Dura Ace brand for chains, cassettes, chainrings, shifters, etc. On two different occasions something failed in the 3rd year of use, and both times Shimano replaced the broken part under warranty. Had I gone with cheaper kit, I would have had a slightly less quality ride experience and would have been out the cash to buy replacements out of warranty.

I bought a pair of L.L.Bean boots 2 months before they suddenly dropped their lifetime replacement policy. Guess what brand of boots I'm not going to touch with a ten-foot pole now?

Finally, I owned a Tesla for almost 3 years. For the first year Tesla honored its warranty for about a dozen issues that came up. I was willing to work with them through the issues because of how responsive to the problems they were at first. By the time I was at year 3, they were refusing to fix anything -- most notably, a shudder in the half-shaft that happened under moderate acceleration. I immediately got rid of it and won't ever purchase another car from that company.

It's all about how you treat your customers after the sale. Shimano and Outdoor Research have a fan for life. L.L. Bean and Tesla have earned someone who now discourages others from purchasing their products.

L.L. Bean's return policy was no questions asked. It was almost certainly heavily abused. Personally, I can't blame them.

FWIW, MSR and Osprey are tiptop as well, both have replaced products for me even though I was just looking for parts to fix it myself (MSR), or giving feedback on how a pack wore after 6 years of heavy use (osprey).

Maybe they just like to see their gear after some proper usage to see how it's holding up.

Re: L.L. Bean, they still honor the lifetime warranty if you purchased before they changed their policy: https://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/513705?page=null

The only caveat seems to be that they now require you to have the original receipt, otherwise people would still be buying 30 year old clothing at garage sales and exchanging it (which is the reason they had to drop the lifetime guarantee to begin with).

Why not look for a local option for your gear? I understand that some equipment may not be available locally but surely you can find most of what you need. If their prices aren't competitive with online retailers, look at what else you get beyond the equipment such as customer service, repairs, etc.

Over the last few years I've been trying to shift my spending from online to local businesses. It's been a miserable failure. Hours and hours wasted trying to avoid the Amazons of the world, only to end up having to order online because local selection is basically non-existant. The town I'm in only has a population of 120k so I don't expect to be able to find niche items, but I've honestly been surprised at just how difficult it is to buy relatively high quality items at all in the local market.

Yup, the local markets often only cater to the entry-level, casual users. That's where their profit margins are. If you need something niche/higher-end your only options are to go online. Otherwise you get the usual response: "We don't have that in stock but can order it online for you. It should be here in 2 - 4 weeks."

That excessive delay probably isn't fundamental and probably represents an opportunity to improve logistics and get that down to 1-5 days depending on how niche and how centrally the customer is located.

Amazon is brilliant for charging the customer 120 bucks a year for shipping and not making them feel the pinch on each transaction.

You don't necessarily need to avoid ordering online to avoid giving money to the giant retail companies. A lot of the best small gear manufacturers sell their gear directly on their websites.

And with those new credit cards that allow you to spin up one time use numbers you don’t even really have to worry so much about a small businesses card handling operation getting hacked which is nice.

Not having a central point of failure for your checking account is a boon these days I think.

>The town I'm in only has a population of 120k so I don't expect to be able to find niche items

This caught my eye: is 120,000 people considered a small market?

I grew up in a town of 5,000, work in a small city of 50,000 (which has plenty of amenities, including multiple independent outdoor sports stores) and now live in a village of 200 people.

There isn't a single ramen restaurant in this town. Nor is there any donut or ice cream shop that isn't a chain like Dunkin' Donuts or Cold Stone. The only outdoor store is a hunting store Gander Mountain or a sports oriented store like Dick's Sporting Goods. The only decent kitchen store is a Bed Bath and Beyond. The only "boutique" store I've found that I've found reason to go back to is a grill store, but even they didn't have something pretty basic like a flat burger press. Maybe Cedar Rapids, IA isn't a small market, but it doesn't feel like there are very many local options at all.

Sounds like it might be a demographic problem. Slightly larger town in Colorado here; we probably have 10-15 outdoor sports stores, and half are local.

Actually, I just checked again to make sure I wasn't a liar, and we did get a dedicated outdoor goods store but it wasn't until toward the end of last year. I did also finally get a leather repair shop for my boots who also moved in last year. Hopefully smaller retailers are recognizing a gap in the market and starting to move in. If someone wants to start a hipster ice cream or donut shop, the Cedar Rapids, IA market is all but uncontested.

In the US, having a local REI is pretty close to the only good option. Or Cabela's for some types of gear; they're geared towards hunting/fishing. There are a few other local alternatives with various degrees and types of specialization. But not a lot--and they all tend to pivot more and more towards general clothing over time.

As for repairs, good luck. I took something into an REI recently to get repaired as I had done in the past and it was: "Nope. Don't do repairs any longer. Send it to a place in (somewhat ironically) Seattle."

My time, honestly. It takes a lot more time to stop by at a store and find what I'm looking for or pick up a package from customer service than to simply have it delivered to me with 2-day shipping.

My only "local options" are national chains (Dick's, Gander Mtn, Bass Pro, etc).

Most of Dick's outdoor equipment is hot garbage.

I honestly tried to shop at Dick's, about a decade ago. (I have spent lots of money at e.g. REI [although I haven't lived near one recently] and Bass Pro in the past .) At Dick's, if I ever had a particular item in mind or a question about an item they did sell, whether that was for hunting, cycling, kayaking/canoeing, snowboarding, skating, whatever: I was always disappointed. So far as I can tell it exists mostly to sell high-marketing-spend branded athleisure apparel. Their recent public stand against 2A and the resulting drop in sales would fit with that...

You often can't even find the best gear at the big box retail stores. Small companies like Gossamer Gear, Tarptent, etc. make some seriously fantastic outdoor gear. You can't find them without some looking, but it's totally worth it.

Yeah. And in the mountainous areas there's usually a good retailer nearby the local REI flagship. Seattle has like 3 or 4 that I can think of off the top of my head.

I will say that when I went to the local REI here the lady I worked with actually spent about an hour with me fitting a pair of backpacking boots and explaining how and why some of the boots would fail when I wore them. I learned more about my feet from her than from any of the other places I went.

You can get that kind of experience at a lot of the boutique alpine or backpacking stores though.

Outdoor gear is an especially good way to shift your purchasing from online to supporting local retailers, specifically because their pricing is very competitive. Backcountry.com pricing isn't saving me any money vs my local gear stores.

The only problem is actually finding a good outdoor gear store - i'm lucky enough to live in a mountain resort town, so my options are pretty good, but many places simply don't have a local shop.

I can relate to that, I did live in a mountain town with some great local stores. However, I just moved to a larger city but further from the mountains and they have worse local options, at least that I have found.

Yes, because Walmart is the shining example of a benevolent company.

I'm not sure why Walmart gets so much hate. They're not the most altruistic company in the world, but I don't remember ever hearing about them suing small companies for trademark BS like this. In fact, I can't recall ever hearing anything really awful about them, other than maybe staff being underpaid.

Compared to really despicable actions I've heard of from so many other behemoth companies, Walmart seems to be relatively benign. Some people complain about them putting small businesses out of business when they open up, but what do you expect when a large retailer opens up nearby and has a big economy-of-scale advantage? My main problem with them is that they tend to have a lot of cheap junk, and not a lot of better stuff, but what do you expect from a retailer that caters to the crowd that wants stuff as cheaply as possible? They also have kinda crappy, dirty stores many times, but again, look at their clientele. So I usually go to Target for that kind of shopping instead, and to Wegman's for other groceries that Target doesn't carry.

Well, economies of scale and significant pressure on suppliers ("Do you want your product in the largest retailer in the world?") to reduce prices, even at the cost of quality. I've noticed many of their high-volume products are lower quality than the same brands at other shops.

Look into WalMart's operations in Mexico, where they've bribed officials into deliberately overlooking protective legislation for historical areas, just so they could get visible placement of stores to catch tourists.

Amongst many other not just questionable but reprehensible moves behind the scenes in many, many places. If they can find a way around the system, they will, and go beyond to bribe people into staying quiet about it.

Even after hearing how bad Amazon's fulfillment centers grind people down, I'd still buy from them before giving WalMart anything.

> They also have kinda crappy, dirty stores many times, but again, look at their clientele.

The shopping experience at Walmart is really only unpleasant in areas where the "Walmart is gross" meme has pervaded the local psyche enough to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. It probably doesn't help that local governments in such areas do everything they can to deny Walmart's permits and keep them relegated to "not in my backyard".

In most places, Walmart isn't any worse than any other major department store, and shopping there is near-universal. You're more likely to have an incident with another shopper at a place like Target simply because the shopper base that actively selects against Walmart in non-Walmart-hostile areas is much snootier.

This is just plain wrong. Not to far from where I live, there's a Walmart and a Target in the same shopping center. There's a huge, clear difference in shopping between the two. The clientele at Target is clearly more affluent, the store is cleaner and nicer, the carts are nicer and roll silently unlike the beat-up squeaky Walmart ones, I could go on and on. It has nothing to do with "permits" or NIMBY when the two stores are almost right next to each other. I've seen this in other places as well where Walmart and Target were not very far apart.

As for "incidents" with shoppers, I'm not sure what you're talking about there.

Appreciate the counter-anecdote. There is definitely some individual variance between locations depending on local management, overall demographic factors, etc. It wasn't my intention to suggest that every Walmart and every Target are always equally desirable shopping experiences. The main idea is that except in places where Walmart is specifically artificially constrained, it's just as likely to have a bad store or a good store as the next massive conglomerate. :)

They're well known for abusing their monopsony power to force brands to offshore production and reduce quality of products.

First they take on a product line and become a big % of the company's sales, then they start tightening the screws and demanding price cuts. The manufacturer has to either give up a large fraction of their total sales or use cost-cutting measures like offshoring and materials substitution to reduce their cost so they can sell at the price Wal-Mart demands. Wal-Mart does this incrementally over time so the company has already started down the road by the time they realize what's being done.

This was a big part of the manufacturing offshoring movement of the last few decades. Of course one company isn't solely responsible for that trend, but Wal-Mart with their huge size was a significant part of it. This was before Amazon was a thing. Now the damage is done and everyone seems to be forgetting that Wal-Mart had a hand in it.

This isn't anything new with Walmart, and it's pretty obvious that's going to happen if one retailer becomes your main customer. Walmart isn't forcing anyone to sell through them, or even to have different product lines (one crappy one for Walmart, another for other retailers), or even different brands. Basically, if you want to sell stuff to Walmart buyers, this is what you need to agree to. If you want to be a higher-end company, then don't deal with Walmart.

> Obviously they have to enforce their trademark to avoid losing it

This is a commonly repeated myth. The circumstances in which you could even possibly lose control of a trademark in this way (genericization, abandonment) are very narrow and difficult to apply. For more context, try https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...

That article about commenting on a trademarked entity, not about businesses doing similar business using a trademarked word.

Of course, backcountry is a special case because it was already generic before it was incorrectly trademarked.

Well, sometimes you still have to enforce it. The trick is you don't have to be a jerk about it:

https://mashable.com/2012/07/22/jack-daniels-trademark-lette...

The problem is that "backcountry" is a generic term and trying to enforce otherwise is simple an act of corporate assholery.

As a lawyer I am verifying what another comment said, that this is a commonly-held myth wrt American trademark law.

Evo is pretty good as well.

If a company does not make a consistent best-faith effort to defend its trademark(s), the claim on those trademark(s) get severely weakened. Companies are thus legally incentivized to defend their trademark (at least in the U.S.). This is a rational decision that has nothing to do with being an asshole (or not). If a company does not have a consistent track record of defending its trademark(s), then their claim gets severely weakened from a legal standpoint. Period, end of story.

And yet, every month there is a story like this in the news of "big company with generic name sues small company with same name" because nobody likes a bully. The problem is, if they DO NOT attack, the trademark claim will become severely diluted and then THEY will become vulnerable to a trademark dispute from someone else down the line, and the other party will point to their lack of historical defense and make an argument that the claim on the trademark is weak.

You're only incentivized not to unreasonably postpone a legal claim. Here, the company seems to exaggerate what a reasonable claim is in the first place.

Thanks for sharing this. I just sent a modified version of your letter to my rep as well.

Same boat here but Eastern Idaho. I’ve been fuming since I saw the article on Saturday. Really happy to see it getting exposure here.

> I wish you nothing but the best on a personal level and hope that your employer chooses to take a better path."

Should be:

"I wish you nothing but the best on a personal level and hope that your employer swiftly goes out of business and leads to reform of trademark laws."

thanks for posting the gofundme. Just donated, I hope others do to.

I had actually been following those Marquette Backcountry Skis thinking some day I might get some. This makes me want them more.

Did she/he answer? If yes, what was it?

Contentless lawyered up canned response.

I got this:

Thanks for your feedback!

Think what you may, but if there is ever a time to use the phrase that you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet its now. Its being handled correctly, and not displayed honestly.

We will be releasing a statement today or tomorrow regarding the issue. We haven’t said anything due to confidentiality agreements, that other parties violated but anyways. I respect your opinion and decision.

Let me know what I can help with gear-wise in the meantime,

Looks like your rep was wrong: https://gearjunkie.com/backcountry-statement-lawsuit-boycott...

Be sure to hold that against them as you continue to take your business elsewhere. This wasn't a mistake or tone-deaf - they simply got caught.

Trademark holders are "required" to defend their registration, failure to do so will result in losing it.

They're not required to choose a word already ubiquitous in their industry and trademark it. They're taking "defense" to a ridiculous, douchy extreme.

Also the accuracy of your claim has already been debunked fairly well elsewhere in the thread.

>They're not required to choose a word already ubiquitous in their industry and trademark it.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with the comment you replied to.

>They're taking "defense" to a ridiculous, douchy extreme.

Unless they did not send letters prior to filing their cases (of which I am unaware and the article did not mention), then everything mentioned is neither ridiculous nor douchey except as far as trademark law in business always is. If the term actually does not indicate to consumers what company manufactured it due to its common usage, all that needs to happen is one of the challenged companies put up a defense claiming genericization or lack of validity of the original trademark (that one is probably more suitable in this case) and a court will decide if that's so. With trademark, as a company you do not get a choice.

If they choose not to fight a small business using the name, that is a 100% legitimate defense for Walmart to use when they release Walmart Backcountry Skis that have nothing whatsoever to do with Backcountry.com.

The EFF article provided by another commenter does not 'debunk' anything. We're not talking about a company suing people for talking about the company. We're talking about a company suing other companies for promoting products in the exact same space with the trademarked name. This is what trademark law was kind of created for in the first place. If you can convince a court that if you walked into a Walmart and saw Walmart Backcountry Skis on sale that it would never cross the mind of either you or any other consumers that the Backcountry company might have been involved in their production, that is your defense and the trademark will be nullified and the lawsuit will be won.

Except that Backcountry.com is suing companies far outside their space, like coffee producers.

And Walmart should be able to sell “Walmart Backcountry Skis” because backcountry skis are a subtype of skis like alpine skis or cross country skis. Backcountry.com did not create the friggin product space or popularize the term “backcountry.” It’s a generic blanket term that refers to an entire range of activities.

I'm gonna go ahead and just disagree with every premise in your comment. "Backcountry skis" are a thing, independent of any brand. This is like if I started a knife company and called it Pocket(TM). I wouldn't want WalMart to start selling "pocket knives", or else I might lose my trademark, huh.

I was not aware of this at all. How did Backcountry get the trademark in the first place? It should definitely fail on the first challenge if backcountry is literally a subtype of ski and pre-existed. I know nothing about skis, and all the comments here and in the article made it sound like the furor was all over the generic adjective of 'backcountry' which I took to just be a synonym for 'rustic'.

The reason it doesn't fail on the first challenge is in the article and it's the same as patent trolls: most of the companies they've gone after can't afford the legal fees, so they simply roll over a lot faster than Philips did. By the time they get to Philips they have years of success getting other companies to, on paper at least, agree with them. Don't know if that strengthens their case in reality, but the fact is Philips sounds the first one to have put up a real fight. It's still a bullshit judicial decision, though.

The argument that they have to do this to defend their trademark also falls apart when you remember why they haven't sued Kohlberg & Co: their trademark was already in use. And by a supplier, no less.

Correct. This article reads like someone who has no knowledge of, or familiarity with, trademark law. Trademarks have to be defended or they are lost, and additionally almost all trademarks are applied to a very broad list of things just as standard practice. Even if your company is only making T-shirts, for instance, it would be very common to also have your trademarks cover toys, dishes, tools, and all kinds of other products just in case you might want to plaster your trademark on those in the future.

That being said, the fundamental purpose of trademarks is to eliminate consumer confusion. In order to defend against a challenge, you would need to present to the court strong evidence that there is very little chance a consumer might be confused as to the maker or origin of the goods due to the name. For instance, if you made a line of frozen pizzas and called them 'backcountry style' pizzas, is there a chance that some consumers might think those pizzas were made by Backcountry.com? You've got to be able to show that this is not a likely scenario even if Backcountry.com starts manufacturing frozen foods (assuming the trademark covers frozen foods, I have no idea if it does, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did).

I developed a website for reserving parking near airports and seaports years ago and the site launched under the name BookParkFly.com. Shortly thereafter, the business (I was just a contracted web developer) received a letter from a lawyer representing the people who owned a sorta-similar trademark in the same space for a company called, if I remember correctly, Park 'N Fly. I personally thought we might have been able to win a challenge in court, but the company didn't want to fight it so changed the name and rebranded everything. (It's Book2Park now if you're curious, but I severed ties with them years ago. Before they were featured on Krebs after getting someone else to slap in an insecure Wordpress blog after I told them if Wordpress was going to be used it had to be watched closely for security concerns...)

Trademark challenges aren't "bullying" or "aggressive". They're basic law 101 and really shouldn't surprise anyone in business. That's why you pay an attorney to do a trademark search if you really want to use a certain name.

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