Where's The Major Brands?

Why don't we stock many of the more well known brands?

It's not that we don't like them,

some of their pieces are just fab, I mean real drool inducing. But are they that much better than less well known brands, at perhaps more reasonable prices?

OK let's try something. Name a sports brand, any, just the first you can think of. Got it? Right you've just justified their marketing budget. What I mean is that the fact you can name that brand is worth money to them, because it means when you walk into a sports shop and you're faced with a wall full of different trainers / jackets / whatever, if you recognise one of them you are more likely to buy it. Lets face it, better the devil we know?

A touch of overkill?

Think about it, when was the last time you saw an advert for a brand that actually told you that a specific product was in fact ideal for your particular needs? Mostly they tell you that you could wear it at the South Pole (going there sometime soon?), climb Everest with it (on your itinary?) or survive in extreme conditions (wouldn't you rather be in the pub?).

Now think who paid to sponsor that climber on the North ridge of some obscure peak wearing their gear? Then who paid for the photo shoot, the space in the magazines, in other words the marketing campaign that means you can think of their brand when asked to? But they can afford to add a little on to the price of the trainers / jackets / whatever as you'll still buy them because you've heard of them and besides that nice climber fellow says their great. Ever get the feeling a circle is turning viscious?

"Honesty is the best policy- when there is money in it" (Mark Twain)

But surely the honest journo's in all those magazines must give a well researched, balanced view of the relative merits of the many competing peices of kit? Well yes and no, they give a good indication of what to look for, and they do highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of different individual items, but all this is within limits. First of all they can only review what they can see, and the more pro marketing brands will have more spare peices to hand around than some of the smaller independants. Second they do not have enough time to really test each peice (I have even heard of a single boot being reviewed) so there will be aspects of the longer term wear of the kit that will be missed. Thirdly magazines run on advertising revenue (ask them how much it would cost to place an advert and you'll see how!), so would you like to be the journo who wries the article slagging off the piece of kit that loses the major advertising contract?

In a piece I read recently comparing why there is such a gap in price between brands of base layer, the only evidence presented was interviews with the marketing managers of competing major brands, all of whom said that absolutely their product was worth the money (what did they expect them to say?). Now I trained as a scientist, and that is not good science. So yes, read them, think about what they say, but take it all with a piece of salt.
So we look for brands that provide good value kit, and in some instances great kit, but can think of better things to spend their money on than shiny pictures. This means that you pay slightly less, or get slightly more depending on how you look at it.

We like selling things we believe in,

things we know work, things that provide good value for money, why? because we're just such great philanthropic guys obviously! OK then, you don't buy that one, how about because we want you to be our customers not once, but again and again, and you wont do that if you feel ripped off but you might if you like what we do. That's the same reason we will back up anything we sell completely, utterly, no question.