Down types GDD vs GGD

I have asked the same. It's Grey Goose Down and Grey Duck Down.

Thanks Katherine. I guess they've grown so fast their website hasn't caught up with the product line changes. I guess I'll be changing my order.

I spoke with Peter this afternoon. He said the Tech & Design page has been updated to reflect the change in products. I checked, and here's what it says now:

"The base model of our down quilts (Revelation, Enigma, Revolt, Accomplice) include 800fp GDD which offers great loft and super low weight for the warmth. Optionally upgrade to DownTek water repellant down for better all-weather performance. The Pro level of the down quilts moves up to 850fp GGD for lower weights, and also offer DownTek as an option. Our Elite quilts offer the pinnacle of warmth-to-weight ratio with the extremely lofty 900fp GGD, making for an ultralight, ultra-compactable quilt, with an optional HyperDry water-repellant treatment."

That's an improvement. I think EE make great products at a solid value, and I appreciate the range offered. However I do think there could be more disclosure. I'm not sure how many consumers are savvy enough to (1) notice the one letter difference, or (2) know what the acronyms mean. As far as I can see, they're not spelled out anywhere on the site.

Those are just more TLAs.

Three Letter Acronyms.

–B.G.–

Exactly, Bob. I get enough of that and buzzword bingo in corporate America. If it's worth saying, spell it out. And if it's not, then don't clutter the webpage as long as the products are the same with the exception of fill power.

" If it's worth saying, spell it out. And if it's not, then don't clutter the webpage as long as the products are the same with the exception of fill power."

Except that for some customers, they're not the same even though the performance is the same. We've been super happy with the duck down, and don't see any performance difference from goose down, but yet if we don't say they're different, it sounds deceptive because some customers will only use goose down. If we spell out the differences, studies show that more than 80% of customers don't read product descriptions and basically any written out detail, so the (largely undeserved) poorer reputation of duck down makes the product look worse, and then customers spend more money on products that perform similarly (and even if they're ours, that seems like we're trying to drive people to spend more for same performance, which looks deceptive to those who know the performance is the same) and if we use the industry standard acronyms, they look similar, and thus look deceptive.

At some point in the last year we've gone through every iteration of distinguishing duck vs. goose down, and this one has been the least controversial so far. It's not perfect, but so far it's been the best balance of being honest for the customers who care to know the difference, without being confusing for those who don't care.

Is it just too easy to say

800 fp duck down
800fp goose down

? GDD and GGD really? Does the color matter?

When we worded it that way, then we were dealing with customers who felt like we tricked them into buying goose down so we could get more money out of them. Never mind the fact that for anyone who asked, we tended to suggest the duck down, and said as much in the descriptions. We've seriously tried every combination of wording that we could think of, and the GDD vs GGD has actually provided the least confusion, since people are more likely to actually ask about it, at which point we can explain it at length and know they're actually getting all the information. (We're also putting together an FAQ document for the site, in the hopes that more people will actually read the information about differences in down, but there's a lot of information that's going into that so we're not sure how it'll go).

Color matters only in certain colors of translucent exterior fabric where the color shows through.

"Color matters only in certain colors of translucent exterior fabric where the color shows through."

Such as with cuben! which we have offered in the past and may offer again in the future.

EDIT:

It can also affect the price, if white is specifically requested, which we don't, so we can't guarantee that it'll be white. While our 900 usually is all white, we won't price that assumption in, and our lower fp down normally is more grey, but sometimes comes all or mostly white anyway as well.

Peter – thanks for the clarification. It's interesting to hear that different approaches have been controversial.

Adding an FAQ section will help prospective customers before they place an order.

Knowing you're a small shop, I didn't want you to incur additional costs because I realised after the fact that there were two different specifications. It was the fourth of fifth reading of the product pages before I noticed that one product said GDD, and the other two read GGD. Only then did I start searching in vain for definitions. Perhaps they are common in the trade, but I don't think they are well known by consumers.

heres a question for those EE folks

is there any real practical difference between your 800 fill GGD and 800 fill GDD?

;)

Duck down has been know to potentially smell. Kind of a 'gamey' smell of which the goose down does not have. Other factors come into play I suspect as well.

Is your PM working?

"is there any real practical difference between your 800 fill GGD and 800 fill GDD?"

Nope, which is why we switched to 800fp duck exclusively for the standard quilts. Some folks continue to insist on goose, which is still available in the 850 and 900fp options, but there's obviously a price premium because goose down continues to stay more expensive than duck down, but every time someone asks, we still say that unless they're looking for the lower weights, duck is the way to go.

Dave, I think maybe it isn't. I'm not seeing anything new.

I had a quilt from EE of duck down that smelled. It may not bother some people, but it bothered me. I aired it out in my tent outside for a few days, left it unstuffed laid out inside as well.

I ended up returning it, paid the extra 75? dollars and received a non smelly goose down quilt. This was circa early 2014 so I don't know what the upgrade price is now…

That is my experience.

My wife is going to need a quilt this summer and I will pay the extra for the goose down.

ive got a 750 duck down EE quilt … never noticed any smell myself

david … sometimes i get PMs, other times i dont … theres a monster that gobbles my emails sometimes !!!

;)

its probably like cilantro:

Some people taste soap!

To me, I can't stand the smell of dog. We've had labs our whole life and love them, just hate the smell. My sister has a young golden retriever and i can't stand the smell of him.

Its probably just me.

The EE down "smell" issue was discussed here before, it seems fair to say that some batches had a smell and some did not. It also was not specific to duck vs. goose — I got an EE goose-down quilt last year and it had the smell, airing it out got rid of it mostly and a wash took care of the rest.

My point is that the "smell" issue really isn't a factor in the GDD vs GGD discussion.

Gray down is cheaper than white simply because of supply and demand — white is used in the bedding industry (bed quilts and pillows) because much of that is inside white linens where the gray would show through. Purely aesthetics, down color of the same fill power makes no diff in performance.

I think the acronym use is especially confusing in this case because the variable in the middle is one of the same letters at either the start or end.

and to avoid any religious offense, maybe you should go with G-D for both.

"and to avoid any religious offense, maybe you should go with G-D for both."

Ha, agreed. We could also go with DDGD (Duck Duck Grey Duck) or DDG (Duck Duck Goose), so you can choose based on which version of that game you grew up with. :)

So lets assume that there is no difference in smell (although some of my experiences would counter this but the effect has been inconsistent). Lets also assume that the warmth between both duck and goose would be the same given the same down fill rating. Why is duck so much cheaper and why are we all buying goose?

Discuss among yourselves. I will be back after lunch…;)

I was told goose down lasted longer, held its loft better over the long term. By long term, between 25 years for duck and 35 years for goose. With that said, we got the goose down accomplice quilt from EE, just by accident because we purchased the pro. Nice quilt, by the way.

Something we have noticed in the course of the year is that not all batches of down are equal. Different batches from the same supplier and batches from different suppliers can vary widely. We have found some early batches of 750 duck down received odor complaints, while other batches did not, some treated downs felt clumpy while others did not. It has been hard for us to identify the best available products as it seems every batch is different. That is until this fall. We were able to source 800 fill power grey duck down (do i really have to type all that each time) from Downtek's parent company. Every batch has been identical to the last. The quality has been out right impressive and all of the previous issues we've seen with odor, clumping, static, powder on the down (yes some companies put powder on their down and don't tell us) have all becomes problems of the past. The summer being as humid as it was surely contributed to some natural down odor but we are certain the majority of issues related to duck down are related to who the down is bought from. It seems these suppliers have very different methods of cleaning the down, packaging and applying DWR treatments that all greatly impact the quality of the end product. We think we have finally found the right down and will continue with them until a point where quality slips. It is very difficult to find quality suppliers with only a small handful of domestic bulk suppliers. We are constantly striving to make our products the very best they can be and wherever we are missing the mark we want you to point it out to us, make sure we see it so that we can correct it.

-Tim Marshall
Owner: Enlightened Equipment