Gear

Are Craghoppers trying to raise their game? £250 will buy the Rab eVENT jobbie. Can Craghoppers seriously compete with the ME and Rab end of the market?

It's interesting cos Crags had gone over to producing mainly travelly clothing, now they're trying to capitalise on their outdoor heritage, or whatever you want to call it. Not cheap, and, yes, expensive for the label, but then they're more general mountain jackets than any of the Lowe ones or the RAB, which are much more technical.

I guess it's a question of whether the market will bear it,

I can see a lot of Craghoppers eVENT in the sale at the end of the season......

Don't see why they can't compete - if the product is good enough then why not price it accordingly?

Not that I will buy one mind - the Montane Superfly looks far more useful to me ;-)

I think they can't realistically compete at that level of the market because they've always pitched at a much lower end. Taking it to extremes, would anyone buy a Peter Storm Gore Tex XCR jacket for £250?

NO!!

If you want an eVENT jacket that's more of a full weight general mountain walking jacket rather than a technical climbing one, then you pretty much have a choice of Craghoppers or Craghoppers. And I'd say that Crags has generally been a middle market rather than top-end brand and it does have a reputation for decent hill walking stuff, although they've been concentrating on the travel market for the past few years.

Would you buy a Peter Storm Gore-Tex XCR jacket for £250 if they were the only company using XCR and you were satisfied that the there were no question marks over build quality and design? Seems like a fairer comparison fwiw.

I don't see why a company traditionally operating in the mid market can't start to make inroads into high end kit. You wouldn't question the price if a new start up company came along punting the same jacket at that price! Some of the Craghoppers kit has been pretty good - I have some old bouldering trousers that I have lived in for the last 6 or 7 years that they made (shame they stopped making them!). The travel kit is good too, so a move back into hill gear is very welcome imo.

hmmmm,

It does make you wonder too if the "top end" of the market is perhaps OVERpriced for what they supply.

I know there are many variables like limited market, size of company and overheads etc but is it getting a little like the "Levi" syndrome where much is played upon within the brand name, as much as anything else??

There is also an opposing force at work too. Take Berghaus. Years ago if you saw someone on the mountains with a Berghaus label you thought (1 rich barsteward)(2 BBC reporter) or (3 Where did you nick that from)

Nowadays, Berghaus are as common as the sheep in the welsh hills and you even have purists looking down on people wearing the brand.

With the continued and predicted threat of the "bursting of the enconomic bubble" similar to the late 80s boom and bust, maybe the more "exclusive" manufacturers may have to reduce prices or bring out less "exclusive" gear in order to survive with their somewhat "limited" clientelle.

It would really be down to preferences and knowledge of the subject then.

For us mere lay person's, at the moment the thought is, "it is much more expensive, so it HAS to be better."

That is not always the case, and to be honest about it, many people buy things whose "performance" far exceeds their individual needs!!!

(Great though if you are selling the stuff and there are still people with money to burn!!!)

What makes me smile is in resorts like Betws-y-coed, where the tourists who have absolutely no interest in hill walking buy top-of-the range Gore-Tex XCR jobs designed for scottish and alpine mountaineering etc... but will only be used for walking down high streets, inluding at Betws, where they think they are hardened mountain men (or women)!

LOL

Simple cure. Follow them until they take it off and try something else on, then put it on a hanger and back on the rack. Sit back and watch the fun as they try to walk out.

Most people, that can afford it, will buy kit for the activities they aspire to do in the hope that one day they might be doing those activities.

I would find it very difficult to assess whether someone in Betws is just a tourist or is roaming around the place for something to do if the weather is really shitty.

Obviously most 'proper' mountaineers will limp heavily thanks to epic accidents or have missing finger portions because of frostbite. In Snowdonia though, most of them are lurking in Llanberis rather than Betws...

Clearly we need an OM technical tee-shirt that says something along the lines of; 'Contents Guaranteed 100 Per-Cent OUDOORSmagic Person' or something, with 'No, I'm not a bloody tourist' plastered across the back ;-)

But who do we ask to make it, Arc'Teryx or Craghoppers?

If you are paying, it has to be Arc'Teryx. If it's me, Reggata

If it's going to be Arc'Teryx, the spelling better be correct!

I wonder?

this is the far east knock-off Arc-teryx?

I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to re-position your brand more upmarket, but you can try and make too great a jump in one go.Pushing through the £200 barrier takes Craghoppers into completely new territory - especially as a lot of people will look at it and go "but it's not Goretex?"

dunno about the ins and outs of this thread, but cotswold in glasgow are flogging off the new lowe eVent mountaineering jacket at 175 quid - down 50 notes already.

ring now to ensure disapointment...

Phil - my overdraft really didn't need to know about that! I have been saying for the last three winters that it would be the last for my venerable Alpine Pro jacket (very early example of a MkI), and then failing to replace it! Ah well, it still keeps the water out ;-) (usually)