Kathmandu pushes into Europe and North America with wholesale-first soft launch

Kathmandu is an outdoor clothing and equipment retailer, the namesake brand of KMD Brands alongside Rip Curl and Oboz, built on a large store network across New Zealand and Australia.

That the Kathmandu brand can sell outside Australasia through wholesale distribution and e-commerce first, and only earn physical stores after a year of market data.

Kathmandu was once the hero namesake brand of KMD Brands (formerly Kathmandu Holdings), but its many stores across New Zealand and Australia made it the group's most exposed brand when lockdowns hit peak winter trade in both countries.

The group began shipping goods to wholesale customers in Europe and Canada, with the United States to follow later in 2022. CEO Michael Daly said the launch would stay small while demand was tested, with online operating across all those markets, and that in 15 months — later in 2023 — the group would review data on a year of Europe and Canada plus first US shipments before considering stores. He added that more stores would open in Australia than internationally in the next couple of years.

The sequencing removes the classic retail-expansion risk: stores come only after wholesale accounts and e-commerce prove the concept in-market.

Choosing 'influential outdoor accounts' borrows distribution credibility from the specialty retailers the category already trusts.

The bet is funded by recovery, not desperation — domestic trade back at pre-Covid levels is what makes a foreign experiment affordable.

It answers a structural problem: a brand this dependent on two countries' winter seasons needs geography that doesn't share their lockdowns.

When a store-heavy retailer goes abroad, wholesale-plus-online is a cheap way to rent credibility and read demand data before committing capital to stores.

As of 21 September 2022, wholesale shipments to Europe and Canada had begun, US shipments were planned for later in 2022, and a store decision was deferred to a review in late 2023. No sales results from the new markets are reported in the material.