Outdoor gear sales dropped in 2023, leaving mountain retailers struggling with high rents, high taxes and too-few workers
Overall sales of gear and apparel dropped 3% last year. Independent stores were hit much harder as core outdoor consumers slowed their spending
Hugh Carey/The Colorado Sun
Mountain Outfitters outdoor gear shop shut down last fall, after almost 40 years in business.
Owner Doug Bittinger said it was “one of the most difficult decisions” he and partner Cindy Reese ever made. After the best year ever in 2020, when the pandemic drove hordes of people into the outdoors and into outdoor gear shops, an economic storm led to the worst years ever for the Breckenridge gear shop.
“It all goes back to housing,” said Bittinger, who bought the store with Reese in 2012.
The explosion of home prices during the pandemic drove away his workers, who could not afford to remain in Breckenridge as new owners took over properties, he said. He was short-staffed and paying the employees he could find 75% more than 2019 wages. Property taxes tripled as the value of the building he and Reese owned soared.
Read more from Jason Blevins at ColoradoSun.com
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