Inside Outdoor Summer 2017

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Ruffwear Smooths its Future
Editor’s Letter
Martin Vilaboy
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The outdoor specialty space is getting a glimpse of the future of retail, and it
comes courtesy one of its legacy brands. Earlier this year, and after years of ham-
mering out logistics, Ruffwear Performance Dog Gear has achieved a manufactur-
ing lead time for its Front Range Harness that is a fraction of what retailers typi-
cally encounter with their vendor partners. Whereas it traditionally takes several
months for manufacturers of similar type products to go from order placement to
production to shipment, Ruffwear is turning things around in just 30 days.
And this isn’t just a trial or one-off product. The Front Range is one of the
company’s flagship products. The announcement follows Ruffwear’s launch of its
Latitude Program for retailers. Similar to Amazon Prime, for $99 a year, retail
partners with Latitude get free, unlimited, same-day shipping to the lower 48 on
minimum orders of $100.
Ruffwear believes such moves are necessary to keeping specialty retailers com-
petitive in a rapidly changing marketplace, and the company makes a pretty good
argument. Relieving retailers from the gamble of pre-season ordering, a 30-day
production timeline and overnight shipping effectively frees up cash flow, stream-
lines inventory management and minimizes the risk of product investment.
“With the shorter lead time, we don’t need to forecast as far out as in the
past. We can keep less stock on hand because production is closer to actual
demand,” says Young Joen, Ruffwear’s director of production commercialization.
“This means a reduced space requirement in our warehouse. Smaller inventory
equals smaller space needs equals cost savings.”
There are also the environmental benefits of shrinking warehouse and storage
space and reducing waste from overproduction of products, says Joen.
Much the same can be said for Ruffwear retailers, who, among other things,
can place smaller orders more frequently.
“In the past, we’ve waited until a significant order could be placed before
getting to those customers who had placed a special order. It was frustrating
for us and the customer,” says Ruffwear retailer Bob Poore of Nooga Paws in
Chattanooga, Tenn. “So with the Latitude Program, if we don’t have it in stock or
carry that particular SKU, we can order it without incurring additional shipping
charges. It allows a brick-and-mortar to extend a great customer service experi-
ence without incurring significant overhead.”
Granted, inventory efficiency on one dog harness is not going to change any
retailer’s business model. Even so, Ruffwear’s manufacturing flexibilities also
point to an important reality of today’s trend-driven shopper.
Already, it’s important to be “close to the consumer.” Nowadays, product
trends can come fast and fade even faster. Mass levels of purchasing literally
can be catapulted by one viral video or the tweet of one social media rock star
(or at least lots of folks are betting on this). Those who have the goods on hand
when the likes and shares start flying get the brunt of the sales. And these
mechanisms are only going to grow and expand in influence.
Deeper in the crystal ball, even the manufacturing moves “closer to the con-
sumer.” In the meantime, it’s highly possible that 30-day turnaround on all sorts
of items is widely available, if not standard, in the near future. A one-month lead
time could even be too long. But for now, Ruffwear deserves credit for its insight-
fulness, and since the dog gear supplier largely works with webbing, buckles,
threads, technical fabrics, coatings and specialty retail distribution, it begs the
question, why aren’t we seeing this more?
– MV
Inside Outdoor | SUMMER 2017 6