Have You Looked At Duluth Trading Company & Their 10-K Statement?

There are two things I'm tired of.

1. Grumbling about Amazon. My goodness. It is YOUR JOB to figure out how to beat them. You are smart. You draw a salary to create winning tactics. Why not focus on creating winning tactics? It's YOUR JOB, right? I mean, if I grumbled about the fact that I couldn't compete against the co-ops or boutique agencies or Google Analytics every day, you'd stop reading.
2. Catalog brands who grumble about non-catalog tactics. I gave a Customer Acquisition Presentation a few years ago and you've never heard so much complaining. "That won't work for us ... we're unique ... we're special." If our industry is so darn special, how come we aren't growing? And don't say "Amazon", because that brings us back to point #1 above, right?

Have you looked at Duluth Trading Company?

Go read their 10-K statement for the past fiscal year (click here).

They have 28 consecutive quarters of growth.

They are a catalog brand (gasp).

They grew by more than 20% last year.

They are opening stores when the industry is closing stores.

Their gross margins are in the mid-50% range. What are yours?

They are between 9% and 10% pre-tax profit.

So explain to me how they are growing like a weed and most traditional businesses are not growing?

I know, I know. You HATE their Unique Point of View. You hate their dumb humor. You don't like their TV ads. You think it is demeaning to Men, and you don't understand why a Woman would ever buy from them. And they are from Wisconsin, and that doesn't count ... they need to be from somewhere in New England.

But they're showing you a path to the future.

Instead of telling us all of the reasons you don't want to follow a cataloger from Wisconsin, why not tell us the elements of their strategy you are willing to emulate?