E172: Opening Retail Stores vs. Going Wholesale: What the Numbers Say

Should you open your own stores, or let the big retailers do the heavy lifting?

Curtis Matsko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) go head to head on one of the biggest channel decisions a consumer brand will face.

Curtis went from a spite-signed lease to 16 owned stores, while Mike turned a $9 million Sam’s Club bet into 10,000 wholesale doors. This episode breaks down these two different paths and what each model actually costs you in competency, capital, and control, why the wrong channel for your product category is almost impossible to recover from, and what private equity is really looking for when they come knocking on an omnichannel brand.

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Chapters
00:00:00 Mike’s Case Against Stores
00:07:49 Lease Signed Out of Spite
00:10:06 The $3.5M Outlet Store
00:16:00 Store 3 & First Mistake
00:22:46 Letting Go to Level Up
00:27:01 The $9M Sam’s Club Deal
00:36:36 Sell In vs Sell Through
00:47:48 Reading the Data Fast
00:54:59 Buyer Loyalty Is Not Real
01:00:29 Product Channel Fit
01:07:02 Skipping Wholesale