http://www.academy.com/shop/browse/brands/yeti/yeti-hopper-coolers

OP your link shows Yeti products.

Oh nevermind. I now see what you did there!.

And even on sale it's still way more than RTIC's stuff. Pass

faking the fakers

Part of good business is realizing when a product is dying and about to start eating valuable retail space. Yeti is almost there. Why let that turd sit on the shelf for weeks when you can bring in the same product with a weird name like RTIC, sell them like hotcakes, mark them up and STILL have them be cheaper than the competitor product? I mean...it makes no sense. Bros are gonna shop at Bass Pro and D i c k ' s anyway....let them pedal it.

I think Yeti makes some very high quality products and own a few of them but I also own an Rtic soft-sided cooler that I think is fantastic. I got the Softpak 40 and it's half the price of the Yeti Hopper 20 and based on comparison between my Rtic and a buddy's Hopper I don't see double the performance.

That being said, I'll still buy and own Yeti products and do appreciate that the company is very generous in their support of numerous conservation causes and that's a large reason why I'll purchase their products.

However, I recognize huge numbers of potential customers out there will not buy Yeti when there are products like Rtic that are less than half the cost and perform equal to the Yeti. I'm even starting to see Rtic stickers on vehicles. So I have to wonder what the end game is for Yeti and particularly the PE firm that's taking them public and looking for a $5B IPO, which IIRC is something like a 32 multiple of EBITA.

Other than lawsuits forcing Rtic to use different marketing, is there really enough IP in Yeti to shut down Rtic? Personally, I don't think so. There's not a single technical aspect of anything Yeti makes that hasn't already been done by somebody else that I can find.

Finn Maccumhail said:

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However, I recognize huge numbers of potential customers out there will not buy Yeti when there are products like Rtic that are less than half the cost and perform equal to the Yeti. I'm even starting to see Rtic stickers on vehicles. So I have to wonder what the end game is for Yeti and particularly the PE firm that's taking them public and looking for a $5B IPO, which IIRC is something like a 32 multiple of EBITA.

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This may very well be the start of Yeti's new strategy. Even if they do win the lawsuit with RTIC, there will be others that are slightly less identical for cheaper prices. Yeti is very well known for not allowing their distributors to vary on price, at least not publicly like this. So either they are recognizing, feeling, and adapting to the loss of market share or Academy is giving them the bird and not planning on carrying their products anymore....