John Broomall said:
All companies need to find new customers if they plan to stick around. It seems Filson has learned that keeping production close to the vest, at home, is more important than trying to increase profits by off-shoring. It also appears they learned this before they lost the legacy knowledge and labor forces necessary to bring things back. That's a good thing. Some manufacturing companies went off-shore for too long and have had a really hard time bringing things back because they lost their core knowledge.
It appears to me the line will sort itself out over the next few years. There is nothing wrong with trying different things, especially in a market so dependent on fashion, but the quality needs to be there if you want to endure. I remember when Eddie Bauer opened its first retail store in Southeast Michigan. I loved that place. They had outdoor gear you just could not find anywhere else. Abercrombie and Fitch had a store here too, with fly-rods, .270 Winchesters, hgh end trout-fishing accessories; the works. Both of those chains are a joke these days, at least for me. They just used a different approach to finding new customers. Case in point: My wife buys casual wear (read cheap) clothes at EB. [sad] They are probably making money but I suspect they will not endure long before they get swallowed up by some other retail giant, which may have already happened for all I know.
