If I was doing this for the money, I’d be doing something else. “Once you bring in outside people with the promise of growing, things often change and can suffer. “A passion product like paddling can’t be a commodity,” says Bush.

Then that ‘cheaper’ part went away, as did the ability to get product.”Īnother flaw, he suggests, is that they treated everything like a commodity-which doesn’t necessarily work in paddling. “One, people can get the product and two, it’s cheaper. “E-comm in general has two benefits,” says Bush. “You take away that unique selling proposition and everything changes. “Their model was everything was on sale all the time, and when COVID came they couldn’t do that anymore,” says Bush. But it didn’t necessarily work when they wanted to expand into skiing.” “The Messana brothers are brilliant and figured out a smart business plan that worked for a long time for them. “I was surprised but not shocked,” says Darren Bush, the longtime owner of Madison, Wisc.’s Rutabaga paddlesports store. Other retailers in the category hint at seeing the writing on the wall. But the expansion didn’t necessarily pan out. In 2016, the company merged with Summit Sports, a four-store ski retailer in Michigan, to form Outdoor Adventure Brands, bringing Austin Canoe & Kayak’s expertise and business model to the skiing industry. Thank you for trusting us for all these years and see you on the water!”Īustin Canoe & Kayak was founded by brothers Peter and Steve Messana in 2005, quickly growing from one lone store into an operation with four more stores in Texas and a growing e-commerce platform.

We are currently building a bigger and better experience for our customers.

Minneapolis, Minn.-based The House, a division of Camping World, has acquired the retailer’s leftover inventory, with ACK’s website and E-commerce page directing consumers to Austin Kayak’s FaceBook page reads: “Austin Kayak is now officially part of The House ( ACK is committed to our customers and our mission to allow the world to discover paddlesports. 1, for both its Texas stores as well as its four Summit Sports ski stores in Michigan, which it merged with in 2016. Austin Canoe & Kayak, a longtime Texas paddlesports retailer with five stores and a robust e-commerce platform, has closed. Sound the Taps song for another paddlesports retailer.

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