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Stoic brand being discontinued?
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Home › Forums › Gear Forums › Gear (General) › Stoic brand being discontinued?
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Oct 16, 2012 at 5:30 pm #1921905
Myself and my other friends who are all getting into backpacking in ernest of late, are all bummed to see Stoic go. We're a group of guys and girls between 24 and 33 (myself being the lone "old dude") and certainly preferred the look of the Stoic clothing to the majority of other brands and REALLY appreciated the value to performance ratio. A brand's failure can't just be traced to a single event, or even a simple explanation like "ghastly colors" because everything is relative to positioning. I work for a marketing analytics company specializing in retail, and see the complexity of moving products on the daily.
Ultimately I would attribute a portion of their demise to a number of things that I personally took note of: lack of a strong review presence amongst respected internet sites/forums, and a pricing strategy that was too middle of the road. To speak to the latter (because the former is obvious to understand), in today's retail economy the middle of the road price/performance is being hollowed out and is a barren place to inhabit. Companies that do well in these times of a shrinking middle class are at either end of the spectrum: dirt cheap Chinese clones sold at 5% over a third-world-labor-lowered cost of manufacturing, or the upper echelon where enormous price tags and exclusivity of brand image and inventory mean you're dictating the market. Stoic was neither cheap enough (before the current discounts) nor swanky enough to do well.
Stoic never reached that critical mass and had a lot of uphill battles. Frankly I thought the colors were an opportunity to distinguish themselves and the value meant I have somehow ended up with a fairly good amount of their gear that I'm also quite happy with. Ultralight backpacking is a niche inside of a niche and I doubt any company could reach a critical mass of following to justify the size of a venture that Stoic was (they had HOW MANY products?!).
All that said I have about $300 worth of Stoic stuff currently in route to my grubby little mitts.
Oct 16, 2012 at 6:28 pm #1921937Nice post, I agree with most of it. How I got a new long Stoic Somnus 30 deg 850 fill down bag with a pertex quantum shell for $150 shipped is just beyond me. Its weight is right there with the higher end bags like Western Mountaineering etc. at 25.7 ounces.
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Oct 16, 2012 at 9:05 pm #1922008I have a bunch of Stoic merino on the way (socks, tops, 3/4 tights), the Ti pot, spork, and a second pair of my favorite "adventure slacks" to date, the Stoic Overhang. Although not at all ultralight, the pants will clearly last me years, contain enough lycra to be stupid-comforable, and are cut in a more slim-fitting fashion than any other action trouser I could find short of some obscenely expensive Arcteryx offering. It's hard to find appropriate pants when you're tall and all leg. I'm half tempted to get a third pair just to cover the bases for multi-sport pants for years and years.
There's definitely been several Stoic pieces that have sold out before I got a chance to get in on them, that looked quite nice. It's a real drag that they're going away.
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