Katin Plays the Long Game to Double-Digit Growth
Katin’s Mac Beu and Dale Rhodes have spent the better part of a decade with their heads down building out an infrastructure of the right accounts and the right product for the 69-year-old surf brand. Now, the brand’s reaping the benefits.
Katin’s looking at double-digit growth again this year. It’s a brand retailers buzz about, consistently called out for its popularity among shoppers visiting the roughly 500 accounts Katin sits in globally. In the spring, the business launched its first boys’ collection at retail, which was not only successful but further boosted orders for the men’s business.
“I think our success at retail is coming from a wide range of factors, but I’d have to say product leads the way,” said Beu, who serves as Katin president and general manager of his family’s print and manufacturing company, OceanAire Sportswear Inc. “One of the brand’s earliest mantras was ‘Quality, Durability, and Good Looks,’ which is something we really put into everything. The Katin brand has been able to capture the new customer looking for something with substance and history.”
The brand lives in surf shops, but broad distribution – including everything from outdoor accounts to men’s boutiques, resorts, and Urban Outfitters – offers proof points of Katin’s relevance beyond its heritage as the boat cover business started in 1954 by Nancy and Walter Katin.
“Mac has built out the internal dream team (over) the past 15 years,” said Rhodes, the vice president of sales who joined the business a decade ago when Katin counted about 200 accounts in the U.S. “Our success has been built on a strong product mix and storytelling, great design and marketing teams, and solid processes. We are always focused on being the best partner to our retailers so they can be successful every day, so this formula has been a proven success and we’ve worked really hard to be consistent. And, as a brand, our ideology is not competing against other brands but only competing against our last collection.”
Katin at Quiet Storm in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Photo courtesy of Katin.
Slow Cooker Growth
It’s a heads-down approach that’s allowed Katin to quietly absorb market share, along the way building out a full assortment that includes T-shirts, flannels, outerwear, pants, walkshorts, trunks, headwear, socks, and other accessories.
Katin at Rooster Bus in Scottsdale, Arizona. Photo courtesy of Katin.
“It’s done as well as we thought and maybe a little better in some areas,” said Curl Surf Shop owner Sammy Duvall, whose former store in Florida had carried the brand about a decade ago. Earlier this year, he brought Katin into Curl’s Downtown Disney District store in Anaheim.
“They have some definitive pieces that I think is their strength and that sets them apart from other brands,” Duvall said. “The fit of their T-shirts is one of the better fits in the industry. Their blank colors and washes, whether it’s a lavender that’s a little different or their mineral tees have done extremely well for us.”
Duvall described the Katin hat styles as having a more boutique quality and said the 17-inch Retreat Cord Local walkshort is also selling well at Curl among the mostly younger demographic drawn to the brand.
“Sameness is not doing great right now,” Duvall said. “Katin’s stuff is different and catches your eye.”
Most categories are doing well for the brand, with the exception of trunks being a bit slow, according to Beu.
The brand enjoyed an additional tailwind the past few years, with an influx of new customers going outdoors and Katin offering retailers the reliability of inventory availability that some brands couldn’t provide. However, Katin’s trajectory has been consistent for far longer than the COVID period.
“This year has been solid,” Beu said. “We’ve had double-digit growth for the past 12 years and if everything holds up, this year as well. We focus on controlled growth and remain right-sized to our business model.”
The approach to crafting the product is the same tack taken with accounts. They’re not looking to cast a wide net and instead will go after the best retailers for the brand, building the business from within those doors.
“The strategy has always been quality over quantity,” Beu said. “Partnering with the best retailers globally that share our ideologies has been the winning formula.”
They also will not build out the direct brick-and-mortar channel. The original Katin Surf Shop remains the brand’s lone door and it’ll stay that way, with Beu saying there isn’t a need to change the current operating model by growing company-owned retail.
From the Maui Strong collection by Katin, which is raising money for Hi-Tech Surf Sports owner Kim Ball’s charity Maui Sports Foundation. Tens of thousands of dollars have so far been raised, with all proceeds going to the foundation. Photo courtesy of Katin.
A New Customer
Katin at Sun Diego in San Diego, California. Photo courtesy of Katin.
Subtle logos on product and graphics that read vintage have helped Katin come across as more heritage than corporate. That’s key for the new customer the brand is resonating with.
“I have three kids that are Gen Z and I watch their buying habits and what they’re into,” Rhodes said. “The new customer wants to differentiate from the bigger and more distributed brands. This new customer is their own individual. They are their own influencer and not into following top pro surfers on tour. They are not brand driven like kids were in the early 2000s anymore. They want good product that evokes a great feeling inside.”
Market shifts provide another potential opportunity for Katin and others, such as Roark, Vissla, Salty Crew, and Rhythm, viewed by industry watchers as the lines poised to nab more share amid the imminent sale of Boardriders to Authentic Brands Group.
“It’s funny. I get asked this question a lot and I answer it the same: not much is going to change,” Rhodes said of whether Katin could be impacted by disruption from the Boardriders deal. “As long as a brand’s checking at the register, the retailer won’t make any changes, unless the owner or buyer’s ‘moral compass’ says they don’t want to support a brand that sells to everyone and anyone. However, we’ve seen a solid uptick in wall and table space the past three years because of these changes. We’re not looking at the Boardriders situation to benefit ourselves because we all can live and thrive together.”
Beu maintains the same philosophy that’s kept the Katin engine running for decades now amid a constantly changing landscape.
“Currently, in our industry there is a lot of noise and moving parts,” Beu said. “We need to stay focused and do what we do best. Our biggest opportunity is to never get complacent and always be evolving, whether that be fabrics, fits, understanding consumer needs better, or building meaningful relationships with new and current retail partners.”
Kari Hamanaka can be reached at [email protected].
