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Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) owner and founder of Wilderness Exchange, Don Bushey, sits down with Colin to give a behind the scenes look at his new partnership with Black Diamond.
Last month news broke that Black Diamond and Wilderness Exchange would be forming a new retail partnership. One that allows Wilderness Exchange to remain independent while Black Diamond effectively takes over the majority of the store.
It's a unique approach to a collaboration that historically has relied on things like shop in shops for a larger brand presence in independent stores; and is a potential new option for brands who may be adverse to opening their own store fronts.
Today on the show Don offers how the deal came together and why it makes sense for Wilderness Exchange at this point in the shops history.
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Episode Transcript
Colin (00:00):
Welcome to the Rock Fight where we speak out truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin Truman. Today we get to deep dive into one of the more unique stories to come out of the outdoor retail and brand scene in the past few weeks. But before we get to that, a few housekeeping items. Please follow and rate the rock fight wherever you're listening to this podcast on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Leave us that five star rating, write a review, follow the show please. That would be wonderful. If you like the rock fight, you'll definitely like gear and beer. And this Friday you'll get a brand new episode of Gear and Beer where we're talking about a super cool camping product. Find that show wherever you're listening to this show. And lastly, we want to hear from you. Send us your feedback by sending an email to my rock flight@gmail.com. And alright, one quick break to pay the bills and then let's start the show. Welcome.
(00:58):
This episode of The Rock Fight is brought to you by the great Malden Outdoors and outdoor enablement campaign in the city of Malden, Massachusetts. For far too long, the outdoor industry has struggled with how to address the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And the great Malden Outdoors is providing concrete action that outdoor brands and retailers can take to make a real difference situated just outside of Boston. Malden, Massachusetts is culturally diverse with an abundance of outdoor recreational opportunities and they're seeking the assistance of outdoor brands and retailers. If you work in an outdoor brand or at a retail shop, they're looking for donations, looking for your product, maybe your time, definitely some of your money. Head to the great Malden outdoors.com and click contact to reach out and start a partnership. Today,
(01:48):
Last month it was announced that Black Diamond and Denver based retailer Wilderness Exchange we're starting a new collaboration, unlike brand and retailer partnerships of the past where a brand would set up a sort of shop and shop to have a larger presence inside of a retailer. This arrangement will allow Wilderness Exchange to remain independent with the store becoming essentially a Black Diamond store. But unlike other brand run retail fronts, wilderness Exchange will continue to carry other brands and adjacent categories. But before you start to think this is just a retailer carrying a lot of Black Diamond products, it goes deeper than that Wilderness Exchange is going to close starting in October for a full renovation before reopening in January. Yeah, there are forfeiting an entire holiday season in order to relaunch as BDS partner. The unique relationship here caught my attention. We covered it here on the rock fight when it was announced, but I definitely had some questions that I needed to have answered.
(02:39):
So I reached out to Don Bushy, the founder and owner of the Wilderness Exchange, and invited him on the show to help answer some of those questions. I also contacted Neil Fisk, the president of Black Diamond, and we're hoping he'll join the show in a couple of weeks, but Don is here today, so let's get into it. Welcome back to the Rock Flight, where today it's the dawn of a new outdoor brand and retail partnership with Don Bushy. Alright, we're here today with Don Bushy, owner of the Wilderness Exchange in Denver. Welcome to the show, Don.
Don (03:08):
Well, thank you Colin. It's great to be on a podcast with yours. I've been following some of your episodes and you explore some pretty interesting topics in the outdoor industry.
Colin (03:18):
Appreciate you being on and checking out the show as well. So a few weeks ago it was reported that your shop would be closing actually for renovations and when you reopen in January, wilderness Exchange will still be independently owned and owned and called the Wilderness Exchange, but you will be a quote, black Mountain, black Diamond Mountain Shop and Factory Outlet. So let's just start with how did the relationship with you and Black Diamond come together? And you've owned the shop since 99, 2000 range. So why did you decide to take the shop in this direction?
Don (03:49):
When I started Wilderness Exchange, initially the concept was we would do some closeouts and used in consignment and be the shop where it's sort of more of an every man shop breaking down the gatekeepers or the elitism that was often associated with especially outdoor retail shops in the nineties had to basically there was no internet. I mean there was internet, but there was no such thing as really e-commerce at that point. And specialty shops were the place you went to get information, the service you needed, local knowledge and the expertise and the shops of that era. Most of them started in the 1970s and they were often founded by people like Gary Neptune, rich Gottlieb at Rock and Stone, real experts in their field of knowledge. And they became the place really where the community and the tribe gathered for just sort of not just celebrating outdoor sports, but telling stories, gearing up and all of that.
(04:57):
And that was my experience. I bought my first ISACs, my mom and dad took me up to the black, A benchmark no longer exists, but in the Detroit area, benchmark was one of those specialty shops of that era. And walking into there and buying my first ice ax, it is like a pilgrimage. It was like the living, breathing heart of the sports that we do. And it's always been kind of a special place to me, outdoor specialty stores. I think we still do that on maybe a different level than we did in the nineties, but as things have progressed, we've changed and evolved. I started my shop in 2000. It was right at the time when boy, most people didn't have an email until the late nineties and e-commerce was still not a thing. I mean, we started to buy airplane tickets, we'd reserve cars. But you didn't really buy consumer goods online. There
Producer Dave (05:58):
Was a little company that sold books.
Don (06:00):
Oh yeah, the Baseman Bezos. Yeah,
Producer Dave (06:06):
Right, right. Baseman.
Don (06:10):
We searched on, I remember Yahoo was our search engine. Google wasn't really widely used. Sure. So we opened a shop really in the analog era and really a lot of the shops that came about during my era of opening the business or maybe call 'em Gen X shops, we all had,
Colin (06:30):
I like that. I
Don (06:31):
Identify and I can think of many out outdoor Gear exchange, second Ascent in Seattle,
Colin (06:39):
Midwest, mountaineering
Don (06:40):
Midwest. They were there for a while. Rod was at it for a long time. But this sort of X generation of shop really were kind of breaking down the barriers of access, I think to the outdoors. That was a lot of our mission when we started. And part of that was the affordability part of getting outdoors. That was the mission to start. And I think it's still our mission today. The Black Diamond Shop came into a discussion with the new leadership at Black Diamond. Neil Fisk, new CEO of Black Diamond took over the company in October and he earnestly, he went on this listening tour all through the west. I mean, I think the first couple of weeks he took the hel bd, he visited with all the key retailers and he asked us two questions, what are the challenges right now of doing business with Black Diamond and what can we do to deepen our partnership and to create better business? And this whole thing's really started from that discussion. So
Colin (07:41):
Was it a collaborative point you guys got to or did it something that they conceived of? Did they approach you with
Don (07:46):
Kind of both? At that time, I was starting to realize that we needed to continue to evolve our business model. I was thinking of other opportunities in other marketplaces. The idea of a partnership with Black Diamond started to kind of percolate at that point. And it was really more or less just talking creatively with the leadership team there that started to bubble up.
Colin (08:14):
So what will the main differences be, right? Like on paper, all I know is what I've read in the Daily or SGB or whatever. So it's kind of like the idea. And I'm very familiar from my retail background and brand background of you'll see shopping shops at different places. The best one I ever saw probably in my tenure was at Timberland. You'd go to Paragon Sports in New York City and there's huge Timberland display built into the wall with branding and everything on near the footwear floor, near the footwear floor at Paragon. And then you see variations of that depending on how much real estate you have to play with or whatever, and various forms across shops all over the place. But what was some of the different, this sounds like this is going to be a different thing. This is almost like Black Diamond coming in and taking over the shop in a way. Is that accurate? Is that exactly how this is going to go?
Don (09:03):
Well, I think the store within a store idea that really became popular during the nineties and early two thousands, Timberland did it. Marmot did it. Essentially a company would come in fixture and merchandise a certain amount of area and they would give you more agreeable terms and points. And the business metrics were changed slightly, but they were still owner operated. There was no contractual agreement. I think a lot of business owners saw it as a kind of using the power of brands to amplify certain parts of the business that they wanted to focus more on. But the way to look at this arrangement with Black Diamond is more like there's really no precedent in our industry that I can think of. Maybe Patagonia, Patagonia store fleet, they have certain owner run sort of franchises including Vail. A lot of the mountain stores in Colorado are Vail owned, but a Patagonia customer walking to that store is going to have a complete Patagonia experience.
(10:15):
They wouldn't even know that Veil owned it. So I think that's a model that is maybe similar to what we're doing. I think the real difference between this concept and what we've seen with other brand stores is the inclusion of other mountaineering and backcountry skiing, climbing brands in our product mix. And also Wilderness Exchange will continue to operate used consignment in their sample business out of the same location. So there'll be two stores kind of joining forests. And so yeah, the real difference between this and I guess the Mono-brand store if you would, is that mono brandand stores, they're great, they're growing, they effectively tell brand stories to the customer, but in some ways they don't contextualize the brand within the sports that they're doing. And what we're trying to do is create this concept of a full service mountain shop where a climber back country skier can walk in. They'll have a selection of a couple of different skis, choice of bindings, choice of other specialty climbing devices like the GRI and several different climbing shoes on the wall. So climbers and back country skews will still be able to be fully outfitted head to toe in the mountain shop.
Colin (11:30):
I bristle at the mono stores. I don't like branded stores. And maybe that's just sort of my experience and other brands I walk in and I'm like, this is just boring. And especially in today's outdoor industry where so much, it's usually apparel, right? And it's going to be, you can swap the logos off of most brands and if you took the logos off in a motto store, be like, whose store is this? You'd have a really tough time trying to figure out who it is. It's probably
Don (11:53):
Made at the same factory as the other mono store brand down.
Producer Dave (11:57):
Let me look at the ephemera on the wall and I can tell you exactly.
Colin (12:00):
Exactly. That's the only way to tell. And so the idea of a deeper collaboration with a brand and a retailer is great. Now, so I look at this and you say, okay, it's you welcome in competing brands. I understand when I not competing brands, you welcome in other brands, will competing brands be a piece of it or is it more like, Hey, there's categories that Black Diamond doesn't play in so we can have other brands there. That's
Don (12:24):
Exactly it. Black Diamond dominates in certain categories like climbing hardware, harness program, anything that,
Colin (12:31):
Could you have other competitors in those categories or is it like, no, no, no, that's going to be owned by Black Diamond.
Don (12:36):
Likely not. Where they have a real position of strength in those categories, but they don't make an auto assisted blade device. They don't make every climbing shoe, every fit, every type of last. There's a real initiative with the distance, the light and fast or the beta light series and there's no sleeping bags in the line. So we are going to bring in brands like Western Mountaineering to elevate those categories that Black Diamonds really committed to and less move forward with.
Producer Dave (13:07):
How did this come about in terms of the concept Colin was kind of getting at, when you start talking about what you could do together, the Mono store seems like the first stop in that. Okay, but how quickly did it become clear that a multi-brand solution was maybe the right way to go? Well,
Don (13:27):
They've had a history of doing that. The Black Diamond store at the corporate headquarters. I mean, if you went to Salt Lake, you stopped at the Black Diamond HQ store and they had at one point 20 different brands in there. But they did move away from that. And that store has now become more of the traditional single branded store. And I think there's a real interest in the leadership at Black Diamond to bring that mountain shop, that full service piece of the business into their fleet of brand stores. A agency is better serving the customer
Colin (14:06):
Well. And back to about the mono store as well. This is something, this is an interesting case study if this goes well, right? Because for Black Diamond it just makes sense. It's the idea of opening your own stores is an incredibly costly and logistically challenging proposition. I think there was something in the news Steel just opened a store in Steamboat, and I know Steel has been pretty committed to opening stores for most of their history, but just to kind of put it next to each other, it's like, well, okay, and could you pick a market and would it be better for you to just partner with somebody who exists in that market already as opposed to go sign a lease, go staff it up, bring all your inventory in, all of these other things that are logistically challenging, which you have expertise in. You've been doing it for 25 years. It makes a lot of sense. It's hard to be great
Don (14:58):
At everything. I mean, if you're a great manufacturer of equipment, it's hard to be a great retailer too. And I think that's why they're really leaning into the idea of really seasoned operators being able to more effectively run operationally a retail store.
(15:18):
But you look at places like Boulder, right? And there's 10, 12, at least 12 brand stores now on Pearl Street. And that creates a kind of symbiosis too. And I think that when you have a concentration of brand stores, it's not as boring as like you said. I mean you really can go, can go from Arctix to Black Diamond to Las Tiva, and these are real core outdoor brands. These aren't just like, I'm wearing athleisure clothes on Sunday and it looks great, and I walked to the mall. These are core brands doing this, but it seems to work best where there's a concentration of them. And that's what I learned when I brought to Denver from my origins of working outdoor retail in Berkeley, California. We were talking before we started the conversation here, Colin, it was the golden era. You had REI and Gilman in San Pablo. There was a Wheels Exchange, there was a windsurfing shop. Windsurfing was really big at that time. I don't know. Sure.
Colin (16:16):
Yeah, extreme baby.
Don (16:19):
So extreme. No fear. No fear, wait, actually scare.
Colin (16:24):
You know what, we also played a lot of co-ed Naked Sports back then too, guys. That's
Don (16:30):
Right. Caning. That was one of our popular activity. It was, yeah, you had a World Robbins factory outlet, a North Face factory outlet. So many companies. Platypus started right next door to REI, walrus tents, the founders of Sierra Design, who also founded Sierra Designs in that area, mountain Hardware. So it was just this, we called it the Gear Ghetto. It is kind of what it was. It was like manufacturing.
Colin (16:58):
That's a great name for a shop. I want to write that down. Sorry. We might be moving in next to you with the Gear Ghetto.
Don (17:06):
And we were undesirable, right? We were dirt bags, we slept in our cars. It was not actually admirable at that point to sleep in your van. It was kind of something your parents were ashamed of
Producer Dave (17:16):
Right now they make money on it.
Don (17:19):
It's like my son's an influencer, he lives in his van.
Colin (17:23):
So there are some obvious upsides. I think for bd to my point, it's costly to open your own stores. You sort of mitigate some of that risk by partnering with somebody. What are sort of the biggest upsides for you as the independent business owner here? Because there's a world where you could just go really deep on BD products and just treat them like another vendor. But in terms of this is you're going to be shutting your store down, you're going to be making renovations, all of those things. So what was really enticing about doing a deal like this for you guys?
Don (17:51):
I think the power of that brand Black Diamond is they are enmeshed in the history of climbing and back country skiing. I mean, I think about Yvan Chenard starting ARD equipment and eventually he broke off the equipment part of it and he kept the most lucrative part, the clothing because there was, Patagonia clothing was a part of Chenard equipment back in the day. And just that legacy of that brand. I mean it is really, if you're a climber or a skier or a really core mountain athlete, you've had a piece of black diamond equipment in your kit. I mean just have, it's been somewhat, that legacy of that brand is just very different than any other brand that we carry, especially in North America.
Colin (18:42):
So this is one of one, there's not probably another brand you work with, you consider doing something like this with
Don (18:47):
No, I wouldn't consider it. I mean because our specialty has been the core mountain sports, the hard goods and Black Diamond has been our number one vendor for over 20 years. And I think most operators who operate Mountain Specialty outdoor stores, if Black Diamond is not your number one vendor, they're probably a close second or third. And it was a big deal. I remember writing a letter to Peter Medcalf back when I opened my shop in 2000. I was like, Hey, you really need to open this. We're going to be the greatest mountaineering in climbing shop in Denver. And we took all these photos of our wall and we had one climbing brand at the time. So we're like, alright, spread the carabiners out real, make it look flush, put each carabiner on its own hook. It's like, see, you need to be a part of this. And he wrote me this really thoughtful, almost like a three or four page letter. I still have it back. And he's like, when you do get open with Black Diamond, you'll appreciate the vetting process that we go through in selecting our dealers and just be patient. And I just knew we had to have that brand in our store to be a legitimate climbing mountaineering store. And we were open six months later and that was probably oh 1, 0 2. So we've had a relationship with the company for 23, 24 years now.
Colin (20:01):
Alright, so logistically though, right? You're about to close, you're a month away from closing and you're not going to open again until January. So you're giving away a holiday season.
Don (20:10):
I know that's hard.
Colin (20:12):
Yeah. Timing.
Producer Dave (20:13):
Okay, hold on, hold on. What in the world were you thinking, I don't
Don (20:17):
Know
Colin (20:20):
The best time of year for retail? Fuck that. We're not even going to do
Producer Dave (20:23):
This. You couldn't wait until January.
Don (20:25):
Everything different.
(20:28):
We have a website. I mean since 2005, 2006, we adopted e-Commerce. T omnichannel on marketplaces. So we sell on our website, we sell as a third party seller on Amazon so that business will continue. So I think that we're not just totally cutting off our heads, we're maybe just cutting off an arm, being close to the holiday. I'll tell you, early season has become increasingly volatile in terms of snowfall. It's been unpredictable. Last year it didn't snow until January. We really didn't have November, December holiday season. Of course when it started snowing, all the gates opened up. But I think our winters are getting less predictable. So these traditional sales seasons are changing and shifting a lot.
Colin (21:20):
And then the second hand part of the business has been crucial almost from the get-go, right? I mean that's been something that you guys, you've been ahead of the curve on that.
Don (21:26):
Yeah, and that's been, even though we're seeing a slight downturn in demand on a lot of our categories from apparel to hard goods, the used business and consignment business continues to just grow. I mean, it's one of the strongest parts of the business.
Colin (21:43):
That's a big thing. That's the future. I mean, I have a daughter in college now and so does David and a lot of times this is what they're thinking first. I mean some of that is probably good parenting, but I think it's also generational on your part.
(21:57):
Yeah, we taught them that. No, but I think a lot of my, then I have kids in middle school too, and they all love to go thrifty. They go to the secondhand shop. It's amazing. It's great. It's what we need. I guess on the industry side though, I kind look at this as it feels a little box checky with a lot of brands. They all have, Hey, we have our secondhand marketplace on our website now. It like, yeah, but now I got to think like, oh, I want a Patagonia thing, so I'll go to warn wear or I want steel or namely whoever I got to go to their specific marketplace. It's a
Don (22:30):
Poor experience shopping for it.
Colin (22:32):
It is. And I feel like this is another opportunity for brands to partner with existing secondhand retailers. How do you, between either a brick and mortar place like yourself or a gear trade or something like that, make it easier for the shopper to find your secondhand stuff so that area of our industry can grow.
Don (22:52):
The problem is that it's one, if you're trying to just use a general marketplace like eBay or Facebook marketplace, there's a lot of unreliable sellers out there. You really don't know what you're getting. And even the online experience with places like your trade, you really don't know what you're getting. They try to be as descriptive as possible in terms of what the condition of the pieces. But man, you can't tell until you have that in your hand. I think the future of the used marketplace will be somehow there needs to be an aggregator of outdoor gear that, or have used gear that allows you to categorically shop that allows you to, I want to build my kit. I can't just go to this website, to that website and piece this together in a really meaningful way. Like a true shopping experience, a departmental shopping experience, and not one standalone used gear shop can do that. And I don't think brands can do it. And I don't think that a lot of the used marketplace online places can really do that effectively or to its potential. So I think there's a huge, that's a whole other discussion, but
(24:07):
There's a huge opportunity there in the, it's for
Colin (24:09):
The industry.
Don (24:11):
And think about it too. If you're selling online and you're paying for AdWords, you're paying for Google marketing, you have one item that you're, that's going to compete with a whole line like the Arc Turx Gamma. If I have an Arc Turx Gamma, I can't bid on that one item for one word, for one product. You need to bid in terms of a large assortment and selection and deep inventory or it just doesn't make sense. So it's not really, you can't really show up online for searches for key products if you just have one used gear thing for sale. So there's really a gap. There's a void in it that somebody's going to figure it out how to fill that void. They always do.
Colin (24:50):
I guess last question, man, back to the BD of it all. How are you guys going to gauge success? What is success for you? If we're checking in with you in 6, 12, 18, 30, 6 months, how are you looking at, is this a successful venture for wilderness gear exchange?
Don (25:06):
We're already seeing some success just by the response of our customers. I mean, we expected that. I mean, change rattles people and changing a legacy store like Wilderness Exchange into a different model or different concept. We expected that there would be a lot of concerns from our loyal customers and it's been really supportive. I've been kind of surprised that we've seen a lot of excitement about the idea. And I think that if we can deliver an experience to our customers that is beyond what we're capable of doing in the context of this brand at this place in Denver and see success with it and see customers coming in and customers celebrating the brand and celebrating the outdoor places that they go to and continue to tell the stories that we tell in our stores, I think that we will have succeeded. And I really hope that this is kind of a model that can help other businesses, especially shops like mine in urban areas that are seeing, I think the biggest impact on decrease in right now. There's a decrease in consumer demand. We know the story. Everybody bought all this stuff during the pandemic and there's a lot of gear out there and people have done other things with their discretionary income like Taylor Swift, Italy, all those things that people are spending their money on. Taylor Swift single-handedly derailed the outdoor industry. I'm convinced.
Colin (26:44):
I love that. I'll back you on that. We'll do a few episodes just specifically on that alone. How dare you. Taylor Swift, how dare you destroy our beautiful industry?
Don (26:54):
How dare you be so successful and court all of the money away from the outdoor industry.
Colin (26:57):
They should have been buying jackets with Don instead.
Producer Dave (27:00):
But if we can get those swifties into hiking, we've got something here, right? Let's call it Swift hiking. No more ultra life.
Don (27:07):
Swift hiking.
Producer Dave (27:09):
Swift hiking, you guys. This will work. Yeah, I'm fast.
Don (27:11):
We can do
Colin (27:12):
This. Someone get Coop on the phone, we're going to bring go light back as a Swift hiking.
Producer Dave (27:16):
That's right. It's going to great. That's right. Go Swift.
Don (27:17):
What the heck happened? She had had a drink and a shrub. It was like a Stanley bottle and then suddenly Stanley is like a billion dollars in sale. So
Colin (27:26):
We're going to give the Stanley Revolution credit that goes to Taylor. Is that what we're doing now?
Don (27:30):
Let's do her Tam. Taylor Swift needs to rack up, man. She needs to get on the rock. Right?
Colin (27:38):
Right.
Producer Dave (27:38):
Oh, I like this. That's what we need. I like this.
Colin (27:40):
That's how we get to what's the next multiple after a trillion
Don (27:45):
Gazillion.
Producer Dave (27:46):
I think they call that a tailor. A tailor
Colin (27:49):
To go from a trillion dollar industry to a tailor.
Producer Dave (27:51):
Billion trillion. Taylor. Yeah, Taylor,
Don (27:55):
Really.
Producer Dave (27:56):
So I will have one last question based on, you mentioned that 13th in Boulder has really got an assortment of outdoor specialties and how that kind of concentration really does help overall just because you've been in the industry a long time. You're an outdoorsy guy. What do you call a concentration of outdoor specialty shops? I mean, we know there's a murder of crows. You've got a pack of of dogs. Yeah, that's right. What is a concentration of outdoor a gaggle,
Don (28:26):
A gear Gagg gaggle
Producer Dave (28:26):
Shop. We
Don (28:27):
Could go with the Gear ghetto
Colin (28:28):
Theme, the gear gaggle. It's true.
Producer Dave (28:30):
True. I've go down a range of outfitters
Colin (28:32):
Might work. These shops are in Boulder, so pretentious should probably be worked into there. Somehow
Producer Dave (28:39):
Of gear. Heads
Don (28:40):
On that.
Producer Dave (28:41):
Think about that. My favorite one right now is a carton of dirt bags.
Colin (28:46):
That's it. That's it. I like that one. A carton of dirt
Producer Dave (28:49):
Bags. Just something to think about you guys as we move on. I love the idea of the strength in numbers aspect, and it does allow customers to, like you say, see the nuance differences between the brands and what they're bringing to the experience. And that is also important. And I really like what you guys are doing. I think you're thinking about the industry health as a whole. I've been such a fan of the multi-brand. You can still have a large leader set up the experience, get the things going, and then invite the rest of the range. I mean, so as an outdoor specialty owner, that's been your world. So it's not new, but it's so vital to the industry to keep that. As long as we make sure that we the we can be competitors and friends and we need to be, I think that's the
Don (29:38):
Case on PLA Street when we located down here, really, REI, opening the flagship store in year 2000 was the main influencer in why we chose PLA Street to open. And I kind of brought that vision of Berkeley with me. It's like, man, this is the place where the gear ghetto of Denver could really happen. And it did. Shortly after we opened a snowboard skateboard shop opened. There's been several bike stores on the street and now there's a Fial Raven, there's a Rab Athleta pedestrian shop. So I think the way that people are shopping today, they're no longer driving to one standalone store on the other side of town. They want to fill their kit, and it's as much about that. It's neighborhood, external environment as well as the internal ecosystem you're creating with your own store, with your brands. And I think that that's just such a fitting. It's going to be really, I think, supercharge Plat Street and create more interest. Hopefully more brands will come down, more retailers. We sure could use a bike shop on our street. I mean, there's just so much opportunity that these centers of outdoor shops can do with the community and add value to it.
Colin (30:54):
Well, Doug, we'll have to check in with you actually. Neil Fisk from BD is going to come on the show in a week or two. We're going to get the BD side of this as well, which we're excited to talk to him about that and a few other things. But best of luck. Definitely excited to see how this plays out. I think that there's going to be, to your point, a lot of learnings for other retailers, other brands about how to approach these relationships going forward. So thanks for making a few minutes to come on with us and good luck, man.
Don (31:16):
Yeah, thanks Colin. Appreciate it. Great talking to you guys.
Colin (31:19):
Enjoy your first calm holiday that you've had in 25 years.
Don (31:23):
Yeah, black Friday's just going to kind of be, we'll sit in our lawn chairs and going to
Colin (31:28):
Watch football and eat Turkey, whatever. This is what everybody
Chris DeMakes (31:32):
Else does.
Don (31:32):
Hey, what the heck? Let's do it.
Colin (31:35):
Yep. It's amazing. Well, right on man. Well thanks so much for making some time and coming on the show. Yeah,
Don (31:39):
Great conversation. Yep. Thanks guys.
Colin (31:43):
Alright, that's the show for today. Big thanks to our guest, Don Bushy. Send your feedback on this new brand and retail relationship to My rock fight@gmail.com. Our producer today was Producer Dave Carst. Art direction provided by Sarah, the commissioner, Genser Colin. True. Thanks for listening. And here to take us out straight from Rockview. It's Krista Makes and he's going to sing the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters. Rock.
Chris DeMakes (32:09):
Rock. We go into the bike where we speak our truth, stay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities and big bites about topics that we find interesting like music. The latest movie reviews. This is where we speak truth. This is where we speak our truth to.