Chris Pew, an expert backcountry skier, was a founder and the CEO of 12-year-old TREW Gear, a premium niche brand for technical backcountry ski apparel. TREW Gear's products–snow bibs, jackets, pants, and accessories–were selling well through independent and specialty retailers and direct to consumers on trewgear.com. Heavy on Pew's mind, however, was how to continue growing the business, particularly the question of whether he should start selling TREW products on Amazon.com. Would TREW's presence on the behemoth US-based e-commerce platform help the company grow, long-term? Shorter-term, would selling on Amazon deliver the 20% increase in revenues his investors wanted to see by the end of the year? And if Amazon wasn't the best choice, what distribution strategy should he embrace?
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Case Study|
November 11 2022
TREW Gear: Is Amazon the Trail to Growth?
This case was prepared by Professor Jim Lecinski and Helena Bouchez.
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Received:
April 29 2025
Accepted:
April 29 2025
Online ISSN: 2474-6568
© The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University
2022
Northwestern University
Cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion and are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. This case was based on publicly available information and author interviews with Chris Pew, to whom the authors are grateful. For pedagogical purposes, the authors might have fictionalized individuals, conversations, strategies, assessments, or other details. To order copies or to request permission to reproduce materials, call 800-545-7685 (or 617-783-7600 outside the United States or Canada) or email custserv@hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means–electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise–without the permission of Kellogg Case Publishing.
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Article history
Received:
April 29 2025
Accepted:
April 29 2025
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Case study:
TREW Gear: Is Amazon the Trail to Growth?
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Citation
Lecinski J, Bouchez H (2022;), "TREW Gear: Is Amazon the Trail to Growth?". Kellogg School of Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/case.kellogg.2025.000055
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