Leta Kalfas on The Outdoor Industry Retail Space

Featuring:

Leta Kalfas is the CEO and Founder of MTNSTUFF. Growing up in Ohio, Leta dreamt of a life surrounded by mountains, trees, and trails of Colorado. She loved the terrain, the hiking, the skiing, the beauty. As a history major from the University of Michigan with a passion for entrepreneurship, Leta found herself in Southern California, in a brief life detour, working in the electrical distribution industry. With a little luck, a few glasses of wine, and an invitation to join the rep agency of her brother-in-law, Tom Gordon, she packed her bags and moved to Boulder, CO, in 1994. At that time, Tom and she were pioneering a few small, unknown brands: Osprey Packs, Chaco Footwear, and Atlas Snowshoes, which dominate the outdoor industry today. Over the years, Mtn Stuff has grown quite a bit, and with Tom’s retirement, Leta found herself at the helm of an agency with a dynamic and experienced sales team.

The life she found as a rep in the outdoor industry is beyond any profession she could have imagined. What struck her immediately when she started were the people. The people with whom she works with, her team, retailers, and vendors have all been nothing short of wonderful. It seems as though she picked this industry because it’s what she loves and loves to do: play in the outdoors.

Leta loves to find the activities that can be done with her team, retailers, and vendors because it brings them all together to experience nature and the outdoors in its proper place and away from computers, registers, boxes, and polybags.

Show Highlights: 

Leta Kalfas, the CEO and Founder of MTNSTUFF joins the show to chat about the growth of the outdoor industry, retail stakeholders, vendor relationships, differentiation in a crowded market, and the evolution of relevancy between retailers and a vendor. Kristin and Leta also dive into trade shows, buying patterns, developing relationships in the industry, pandemic pivots, lengthening the buy-sell cycles, and more! 

The largest takeaway from the show relates to where retailers are currently at. Returning to the early pandemic days, outdoor recreators multiplied as the outdoors became a safe haven. Retailers, larger brands, and .coms saw large surges in the space. While 2020 and 2021 saw immense growth, then came supply chain issues that have resulted in canceled orders, extensions in cancel dates, and more. Leta is hearing that supply chain issues will last into at least 2024, and orders are 

RELATED LINKS

Leta on LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/leta-kalfas-7947a14

MTNSTUFF Website - ​​mtnstuff.com

Outdoor Market Alliance - outdoormarketalliance.org