sportsinsightmag.com
T
here's a reason Kittery
Trading Post, the iconic
everything-for-the-out-
doors store located conve-
niently right off our Route
95 on the New Hampshire-Maine bor-
der — no one heading up north from
Massachusetts skips stopping in for
gear — has been an industry standard
for 80 years.
Actually, there are 80 reasons for its
success. And we found them, thanks
to an internal contest prompted by
this story and coordinated by Kittery's
senior VP Dave Labbe. The executive,
who is also chairman of the National
Sporting Goods Association, asked
the company's 370 employees to help
explain its success in a crowded, hyper-
competitive retail market.
Labbe has seen the drastic changes
in outdoor retailing in the past three
decades and is particularly proud that
Kittery Trading Post has stuck to its
roots — doing what it does best, which
is providing everything for the outdoors
in a unique, family- and customer-
friendly environment. KTP has survived
and thrived by adapting to the changing
retail environment.
"In my 32 years in the outdoor retail
industry, besides the consolidations of
both retailers and manufacturers, bank-
ruptcies and the disappearance of the
independent retailer, the real change to
the industry is competition from manu-
facturers selling direct to consumers,"
Labbe says. "Online sales by companies
without a brick-and-mortar retail format
Outdoor
retailer
Kittery
Trading
Post has
been
successful
for eight
decades.
By Michael
Jacobsen
30 • Sports Insight ~ December 2018
80 Years
80 Reasons
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