Tayson: Here's the big question, how do we lighten our gear and build our confidence. So we can start living a life full of Outdoor Adventures and memories without having unlimited amounts of time, money and previous experience. That's the big question and we are here to help you find the answers. This is the Live Ultralight podcast power, bi Outdoor Vitals. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Live Ultralight podcast. Today, we are going to be talking about why use gear is important to you.
Tayson: We've recently had a few changes and things going on in the office. So, we, this is just the topic that's on top of mind and we really want to dive into that. Hopefully, by the end of this podcast, you'll get a good idea of why you should really care about this kind of stuff. And if you're new or tobacco packing, I think we'll have some really good takeaways for you to apply into acquiring gear or if you're seasoned and you're just
Tayson: wanting to try out new things. I think there's a lot to be talked about here that can help you dial on your system, not spend more money than you need to, and also just not become wasteful. So I've got Tyler here on the podcast. He's been working a lot with the team on just the warranty and relisting things in our Outlet section of our website. And so we I want him on here to talk about the work that goes into that
Tayson: and You know, even though maybe from a numbers perspective, it might not always be the best thing for us. But also, why from a, what we believe from from the theology side, why we still do it so really quick, I'm just gonna talk about how this does tie into our core purpose here at our vitals which is living ultralight. To us living ultralight also means, you know, having an Ultra Lite impact when you're out on the trail and the more
Tayson: time you spend in nature, the more you appreciate it, the more you want to protect it and you start to realize that the people have an impact wherever they're going. And so if we can essentially talk about and and solidify things like living Ultra, like also really means and Ultra Lite impact. We feel like that's a critical part of what it means to live, ultralight. So, you know, when we are looking at designing, our types of gear, obviously, the gear
Tayson: that we're designing, is really centered around being ultralight, which kind of makes it prone to not always being intensely durable. and, With that, we've seen different companies, do different things. We've seen some of the companies just basically say, no, we don't offer any warranties. We don't offer any repairs because of this Factor, because the weight is the number one factor for us. We definitely look at the durability when we're in the design process. And we want to pay attention to that,
Tayson: but all, so weight is critical and so what that kind of leaves us doing is wanting to make sure that we can still make sure this gear has a long lifetime. Value with that often means is that we can repair it or replace it off of warranties and make sure that, you know, we can just keep that gear on the trail as long as possible. With all that being said, I guess. Let's talk for a second with Tyler, about what that
Tayson: really means for how we have to turn around this gear and how we do aim to help customers and then we'll kind of bridge into. The used gear aspect and why that is really important to understand and how I can really help you acquire gear. So anything you want to say, just about kind of that, I guess to start off Tyler, with the kind of ultralight impact that started with
Brigham: Yeah, definitely like you mentioned before, there are ultralight Brands out there that offer no warranty due to. Them going to the extreme of wanting it to be as light as possible. And then just basically saying, you know, this is as light as possible. It's Pure Performance and it's a consumable, that's not really how we look at our gear and that's not how we want it to be treated for one. We want to take responsibility for our impact on landfills, and on
Brigham: the environment. And so, while we do design Ultra Lite gear, we try to balance it with durability and long life spans in order to make it be. the responsible way to manage it. So
Tayson: there's a lot of content to that we've put out there about taking care of your gear. That's a massive step in making sure that you're gear lasts a long time, even if it is an ultralight or considered an ultralight product is the way that you take care of it. We We? Want to educate and want to help people. Make sure that they get along lifespan. But at the same time sometimes stuff happens that it's just out of your control or
Tayson: just just was a complete accident and that's kind of where we Want to go with this conversation, this time? Yeah. So recently Tyler came out of the team earlier this year. And one of his big projects, really was to go through our warranty system, our exchange system, and that whole process and and streamline it make it faster. Make it more efficient for the customers and for us and overhaul that completely, and We've just started, the process of relisting all of this
Tayson: used gear that we've had, kind of a backlog of up for sale in our Outlet section. So let's talk for just a second about what that really looked like when you came in and started to clean this up and And just a work. I guess that really goes into it because I think originally when I was like, all right Tyler go tackle. This I was looking at it way too vague and way too fast to realize. How many steps there are?
Tayson: How many different scenarios there are. Types of repairs that need to be done and then taking all of that into consideration that relisting products. There's a lot of steps here. It's kind of talk through that and what it really means for us. And what we have to do in order to make sure this gear doesn't just get trashed.
Brigham: Yeah, so just back to like when I first started getting acquainted with the warehouse and and the operations here, I remember just going through and looking at different areas and and seeing like in a corner, there would be like a gay Lord, which is like a four foot by four foot by four foot pallet of product that needed to be sorted and repaired or donated or or something like it. was just kind of like, Gear that had come back to us
Brigham: one way or another. And no one had like done anything with it yet. And so I see one there. And then I go to a different part of the warehouse and I see another big Bend there and then I go to a different place and see it and I just thought like wow there's a lot of gearing here. That's still like, can be really well used and and serve a lot of people and so I was. I realized it was gonna
Brigham: be a pretty big job to sort through it and figure out how to make make it work for people as well as like not be a massive expense for us to be able to manage it all. And and up until that point you guys had been been kind of going through the easiest stuff, but not like on the level that we wanted to when I came in and so yeah, it the first couple months there was just me kind of gathering
Brigham: Intel and making plans and looking through different circumstances and then slowly, we started to form a plan for how we can repair a lot of this gear and get it back into people's hands. so that it's still in circulation, it's still being used. It's not like a burden on us for storage or for cost but also not a burden on the environment. And so, yeah, as we got into it, like the used gear that was here was one thing but then
Brigham: we also had um just the warranty in general to to look at and work on, and then we had just our processes in the business and and Then just recently, through the middle part of this Summer that it's all kind of come together in one one system that all works in unison. So so let's maybe talk really quickly about the warranty side
Tayson: because it's a little bit smaller of a topic before you get into the use side, we've always offered a warranty and But let's talk kind of about the side of like things that might be covered under warranty and how that looks and stuff that might not be covered under warranty. How we still want to take care of those people as well. So if you go onto the website, it's it's been written much more clear. It's much more easy to understand the
Tayson: items that are covered under warranty and how that's going to look. And then we're all going to determine really quickly. the email if it's going to be covered or not, but there's still times when say something was just, I was out in the field, this freak accident happened and, you know, was it was my fault, but it, but it The damage is done, what can I do, right? Maybe you've got a 300 dollar sleeping bag and suddenly you've got a hole
Tayson: in it. Like what can you do? Even though it might have been your fall. So it's not quite under warranty. What can we what can be done? What happens to those customers?
Brigham: Yeah. Well, it comes down to what we call, the Outdoor Vitals performance promise. And and that is us just making a commitment that the art gear will perform as good or better than the advertised performance levels for each product line and if there is an issue we want to help you to find a solution one way or another. So we're we're promising that we're going to hang in there with you and work through it. And so, like you said, if if
Brigham: you have an accident out on the trail and something gets torn, say it's like your your backpack, which I actually watched Tayson the other day. When we're hiking just like Ram his backpack straight into this like spear that was, it was like the tip of a tree sticking out into the trail and I thought for sure it was just gonna rip the bottom of the bag open and the shadow light fare really well, but we'll say that that circumstance happens
Brigham: to you out on the trail. And you've got some big damage. Like that isn't covered under the warranty because it's it's an accident and it's not a manufacturer defect, but if you contact support, we want to help you to get solutions to keep using the gear. And so, our support team would be happy to walk. You through either options for a do-it-yourself repair and help you to know how to do that and what materials to use or options for us to
Brigham: take it in-house and and repair it for you basically, at our cost, we're not trying to make money off of their repairs that we're offering, but we are offering that To help you to get your gear prepared in that instance and as far as like the Judgment calls call goes. If it's if it's an item that or like an issue with A peer that's kind of like borderline. You think like, well this could be a manufacturing defect or it could have
Brigham: been a wear and tear kind of thing. We just want you to send the gear to us. We'll check it out. Look through it and then we'll provide you options and let you know if we can cover under the warranty or if we can get you a cheaper so that we can get you back out on the trail as quickly as possible.
Tayson: Yeah. Big thing when you did the analysis and kind of presented it to me of what a lot of other people in the industry were doing and whatnot for this. There's a lot of people that don't touch any repairs. A lot of their warranties are super vague so really have no idea what's going on with it which we didn't like either. And then and then we all have a lot of companies that were just like, if you need to repair something,
Tayson: just go to this other company like just Like a good one. That I think I've heard of is like rainy pass repair or something like that. I think. People that point over there but you know, you go look at the prices and stuff and that's a for-profit business, right? So what we've actually luckily been able to do in-house and locally is have someone manage and repair these locally at a very Affordable rates. We feel like that, then we can pass straight
Tayson: onto the consumer and we're just the middleman and trying to take care of you. As far as the, the service goes and like you said, it's it's for us it's not a for profit part of the business at all. Yep. It's just something that blends with what we believe we should be doing as a company and to live our values. So, okay, so that's kind of the warranty side. So how the heck do we get gear that that gets onto the
Tayson: outlet? Where does that gear come from? And what's going on with that?
Brigham: Yeah, so come in a couple different ways. It often times is geared that we've used around. the shop like for for ourselves and our team, the team does does quite a bit of trips and things as a team every month and so that would be something that makes it in. We have an employee buyback program that would be something that brings used gear back into our outlet. And then we have our warranty. Program that brings used gear in and that comes
Brigham: down to. If we do find a defect or something, then then what we will do is we'll take the gear, will inspect it top to bottom will make any repairs that are needed and clean it and then put it in the outlet and so Like, as far as the amount of gear that's in there, there's not a ton. I think we're still, like, we'll have a big influx at the start, and then after
Tayson: kind of, I'd say the next, we'll see how long it lasts. Yeah,
Tayson: the next little while it'll get down to just an a normal Pace because we definitely have that backlog of just, we didn't throw any gear away, we just kept storing it and it was kind of costing us and storage space, one not. But We're working through a bit of a backlog that's going to be listed over the next. Well, starting now we've had, you know, today we pushed out an email about it but and then going forward I don't know how
Tayson: long it's Gonna Last. It might be a month might be a week but and then I Get more to that maintenance. So just I don't know how many items a week are going to get listed but
Brigham: exactly and and Yeah. The gear is pretty limited because our return rate is super low. It's only a couple percent and so Like it's not like we're having a lot of manufacturing defects or anything like that. It's just lots of little things that that come in, and the good news is that It's all like still really good usable gear.
Tayson: Yeah. So, let's just quickly cover, I don't know. We don't want to get too deep into this but quickly cover the tiered system and the associated discounts that we're now offering. Yeah.
Brigham: So we we started looking at this backlog of gear that we had, and we thought, okay, some of this is like almost knew like it. It could almost be sold as new, but it's like missing some packaging or something like that. And and there's like nothing wrong with the gear and then some of it was like you could tell it had somewhere but it was still totally functional and then others like needed really like quite a bit more repair work or
Brigham: had stains or things like that and and none of that affected the functionality of the of the gear at all. But it was kind of a noticeable difference. So, what we decided to do was start grading each piece on a Three level system. And so this grade a level was like the level where it's like almost new gear or if there was an issue with it and it was like this tiny thing that was fixed. It's like a really discreet issue.
Brigham: We called that grade, A Youth and and so that's like our excellent condition used gear and we named That Rock Solid. So if you see gear that's listed as Rock, Solid used gear on the site that's what that is. It's like our our really, really good quality used stuff. And so then the next level down is what we named. Broken in and that gear is, is what it sounds like. Like it's been used. Um, but it's just broken in. It still
Brigham: has pretty much all of its usable life left in it. And if there was a repair made to it or a small issue visible, it wouldn't be anything that would keep you from using it, just like like if you go to your gear closet or wherever you keep your stuff and you're actually using it, you're not gonna have hardly any pristine gear there because you're getting outdoors and its rugged out there and it takes a toll on things. So that that's
Brigham: kind of like what you would look in your gear closet and see like all this stuff is still really good to go. That's Level of gear, then our great sea used, gear is items where there was like, probably a bigger accident or a bigger repair or maybe a stain. And we call those Trail Warren, they're still totally functional pieces. The the goal with the Outdoor Vitals performance, promise is always just to keep you on the trail and keep things performing the
Brigham: way that it was intended. But with the trail worn items, there's gonna be some noticeable repairs or noticeable things that you'll have to overlook, but it will still, you'll still be really happy with how it works. So,
Tayson: And, and just a quick call out. So Tyler's put a lot of work into this, and we've also got an awesome employee nerissa. Who's just works super hard to go through tons of products. Great, all these products, and get these products up on the outlet. And so, just a lot of great work has been done to get to this point but building off of that trail Warren concept or just kind of diving into used and borrowed gear and and why does
Tayson: all of this stuff matter to you guys? Right? I mean, obviously matters to you if you've been buying from us before and have some questions around that but let's just say you're not buying anything from us or you're getting new into this or you're wanting to try out something like Hammock Camping and you've never done it. Why does used gear matter as you look into stuff? So I we've we've touched on this maybe you know a while back on the podcast,
Tayson: a little bit about borrowing gear. But use gears is just another angle, essentially on that. So by borrowing gear or buying this used gear Trail, Warren gear. That's it. What did you say that discount was on that, like, up to
Brigham: 50% off. I didn't give the discount. So so, yeah, Trail Warren is 50% off. That was our our Used product. And then the broken in is 30% off. Typically, and then the Rock solid gear is right at 15% off so
Tayson: okay big discounts. Yeah so if you're looking at something like Trail horn here, 50% off and you're wanting to get into Hammock Camping, let's say there's definitely some massive costs of Getting into Hammock Camping to do it really. Well if you're gonna buy a top quilt and an under quilt and a hammock and so on so forth, it really starts to add up. And so the ability, you know, number one would be to borrow if you can borrow gear, go try
Tayson: it out. See if you like it, see what you like, don't like and then make a purchase that's gonna save you a ton of money. It's also going to keep you from buying something you don't want and then having the problem of what do I do with this piece? And I feel like what most people haven't been with it is the hang on to it for years and years and years. And so they feel like it has no value and then
Tayson: they throw it away and really that, that may as well have gotten used once and thrown in the landfill, which isn't the goal for any of our gear, right? So if you can borrow that stuff, I do. But then if on the flip side, if you don't have the ability to borrow you don't know someone that you can borrow from looking at this Outlet section and looking at say Trail, Warren gear. You might be able to pick up some pieces and
Tayson: I might not be hard to find the full system there at times but picking up pieces that are going to drastically, cut down the price of it, you'll be able to then you know, Test it out. See if you really liked it and then you can use it for the remaining life of the product and then buy something that now you really know you're into you like a lot and go to the next level with it with the brand new product
Tayson: or something. So it really can save you a lot of money. It can also keep you from having a negative impact. By cycling through product and not actually using it and hopefully just overall looking at it from this angle will get you out on the trail. I know when I very first started the company when I first was getting an ultralight, backpacking as well. This would have been something. I would have been super excited about because I didn't care about
Tayson: the look of something. I just wanted to get the best gear I could with the budget that I had. And at that point in time, my budget was very small. And and so I ended up just essentially getting cheaper gear and whereas if you were to buy something at broken in or Trail, warn it 30 to 50% off, you're still getting the premium level of gear but just at a much more affordable price that can get you out on the trail
Tayson: and and essentially just have better overall experiences because it is a better product. Yeah.
Brigham: And I see value kind of in different stages of like where you're at in your backpacking experience like you said, massive value for getting in as a beginner at a less expensive level because then you don't end up spending a ton of money for things that don't work for you but then like as you get more experience I think the natural inclination is for you to invite other people to come out with you and kind of like share the Journey of
Brigham: learning the process with them and use gear. Like to just have on hand to take a friend out with you and like loan them. Some gear is an awesome option because then they can try a couple things at no cost and you're not spending much money to share the experience. And and so, that's really good there. But one of the things that that we do a lot here is We? Buy a lot of gear from a lot of different companies and
Brigham: we traded around because we really like to see what the best thing is. Like we, we really want to know what every one in the industry is doing. And we want to know what works best for us and what works. Best for tasting isn't necessarily what works best for Tyler. And so, On on like a advanced kind of high level. I think it's still important to buy used gear or borrow gear and try new things because one, one, little exploration here
Brigham: and there leads to you being more and more comfortable or being able to do more miles, or being able to Learn like what works better for you, you know?
Tayson: I think that's all really critical and and another take on this too. Would be to sell your used gear like,
Tayson: Actually, that's not in our wheelhouse to make happen, but I have sold use gear more. So, in the past, and I'd use like eBay. I'm sure there are some newer companies that specialize more in this, and I could probably look more into that. Personally, I'm a pretty good situation where I end up just giving away most of the gear that I don't end up using after the fact unfortunate in that way. But but I have sold piece of gear, and that's
Tayson: a great way to just continue to keep products in circulation. Because again, I think one of the worst things that can happen is you go take a product, you use once and didn't like, put it on your shelf, or put it in your closet. And don't look at it for years because you don't like the product. And then five years down the road, you feel like it has no value and you just throw it away. That's a, that's a big waste.
Tayson: And like, I say, if we can, if we can Encourage you to not do something like that, that really aligns with a lot of what we believe in in our core values here at Outdoor Vitals. So, Okay, we wanted to kind of keep this one short. So is there anything Tyler that? They feel like we missed that's important for these guys to know about used here or what we're trying to do with our
Brigham: used gear. I think the main thing to look out for is once we get into the into a Groove, with keeping the outlet updated, we'll we will for sure. Pick a day that we're going to do the update on and we'll we'll do a social media post or throw it in an email or something to let you guys know when the products hit because there's gonna be a lot of a lot of really good finds there and a lot of good
Brigham: opportunity to, to get into like, some of our best, most current pieces even are on there right now and they're gonna go fast. But if I want to try and be as consistent as possible for when we update it. So, you guys know when to check it and are able to Get those pieces
Tayson: that you're looking for. So yeah. I mean we haven't talked about this at all but I would almost say it'd be great. If we were able to do that like every Tuesday that's typically they were sending out an email. So at any time you guys see an email from us? Hit your inbox. Know like, hey, I could go check the clearance section. There's probably new stuff in there, but we'll talk about it. Maybe we'll get creative at first and then come
Tayson: back to that. But that would be pretty cool to have it down to a schedule level.
Brigham: Yeah, I think that would work.
Tayson: I'd say the last thing that I just wanted to note. Also from a company perspective is there are products that we get that are not not worth it to fix per se. In other words, maybe they're they're Sunk cost. They're We've price of them and the price of their pair doesn't add up. And just You guys know, we actually don't trash that product either. And we found different Avenues over time to actually take that gear and donate it to different organizations
Tayson: that do the repairs themselves, and then it's worth it for them. So, for instance, if we have a product, that is a 50 dollar product, and we've got a fifty dollar repair, that's needed, it's not worth it for us, but if that's you personally and you're and where these organizations we've donated to, it might still be worth them, doing some kind of a repair on it to keep that product in circulation because we're giving them the product. They have no money
Tayson: invested into it. So really our goal here is that all products that come in and out of the doors at our vitals is going somewhere. Other than the trash and I feel like we've done a phenomenal job at doing that. So we're just gonna continue to do that and try to make sure our gear can stay in circulation as long as possible.
Brigham: Yeah. And those organizations are typically, Charities are non-profits that are taking it to help with dire circumstances for People so yeah we've done it with you know Boy Scout type groups before but we've done it to crisis centers and organ.
Tayson: That as well. So that's been a really cool thing to see, and it definitely makes me happy when we when we find someone or somewhere that has the ability to donate some selling hours into it just to make the products workable again. So, okay. Well, that's a quick overview of why I feel like use gear is important to you. And some of the things that we've done internally to optimize this and hopefully make it available to you guys to get your
Tayson: hands on some used gear as some kind of prices, make it more affordable and get you Outdoors, which is our whole goal out here at revital is just to get you outside more comfortably and more confidently and hopefully, this aspect of the business helps you To do that. Thanks for tuning in to this podcast. Make sure you are rating. This podcast on iTunes or whatever podcast app you're using that really helps us out as we continue to do things. We have
Tayson: some cool stuff coming up. We've got some big hikes that we're going to be covering and we'll pull a lot of information out about that. One's like a 75 mile or that we're doing in three days and once over 100 miles that we're doing in five days. Big days plan. We've got some because of that it really puts a strain on the gear. We're using the performance level of those pieces of gear. But all we've been doing a lot of training
Tayson: here at the office. Trail running a lot of weight cutting and dropping which has been a lot of fun and there's just gonna be a lot more content that's going to be coming out in the near future about all of that. And I think you're going to be inspired by some of the stuff we do. And I think you'll also find to you and hopefully some really good takeaways and helping you guys, you know, prep for your dream hikes and your,
Tayson: I mean the things that you've got, I mean, one of them, for instance, is a hike here in Northern Utah, called you a high line and that's been on special mine and Brigham's, bucket list. I think a lot of guys bucket list for a long time that we Talked about it every year. How are we gonna make this happen? When are we going to get the time so on and so forth? And so really dive into how we did make it
Tayson: happen and some of the changes that were needed to get the time and make it just a reality. And hopefully as we talk about that as well it'll be very inspiring to you guys to figure out how you can do the same thing. Get your dream hike down and start putting a plan together to not only prepare your gear, which is an important aspect. But all. So prepare yourself which is perhaps the bigger more important part of the equation. So make
Tayson: sure your stay tuned, make sure you subscribe for that and we'll catch you guys on the next podcast. Hey everybody. This is Tayson again. And really quick. I wanted to invite you to join, probably the best thing that we've ever put out which is the Live Ultralight membership, buying and affording gear is arguably. The biggest reason that people don't get out and truly enjoy nature. You want to go but you don't trust your gear. It can't handle the expected, weather, or
Tayson: temperature ranges, or you simply don't have the right gear in the first place at all. That's exactly why we created the liberal side membership. It works a lot, like a simple savings account for your gear. You simply Auto load 10 dollars with store credit into your account every month, and you get instant access to year. Round discounts, you get free priority shipping and prioritize shipping. By the way, early access to New Gear, the world releasing or early access to sells that
Tayson: are going on. You get limited edition gear, you're going to get expert coaching, and access to the obtained inside our closed, Facebook group, which is also gated not, anyone can join this, right? And something very, very cool where you can now get our most vetted, our favorite gear from other brands that we're now putting on the website, but members are going to get it at additional discounts and instant rebates. So, for instance, if you want that new cat on water filter
Tayson: that we've been talking about a ton lately, you can get it with your membership credits and you're also going to get with a membership discount and an instant store credit rebate. That's just Auto added to your account after checkout. This membership has too many amazing things to cover. So what I want to recommend you do right now is stop everything. Pause this audio head over to our vitals.com forward, slash membership to sign up and start building your credit. We're going to
Tayson: releasing some new products in there really soon at Big discounts. So go sign up today at Outdoor Vitals.com, forward slash membership, and we will catch up inside the closed, Facebook group after that we can continue this conversation over there.
