Happy New Year! 🎉
We hope you had a restful holiday, and that you’re preparing yourself for 2024!
For Alpine Parrot, 2023 was like every other year: up, down, and uncomfortable 😂 Let’s get into it:
The Ups 🙌🏽
For the first time ever, we had product available for the season in which it was intended to be used! Our Ponderosa Pants were an absolute hit this past spring and summer, where we learned that we need to make more of our most popular sizes (because we sold out of them so quickly 😅).
We also got to meet a bunch of you in person at a variety of events, and we interacted with so many of you online. Your joy with our products keeps us going every day!
We got to do giveaways with some incredible brands (shoutout to Smartwool and Granite Gear!) and partnered with amazing community organizations like Fat People Hiking Bay Area and Outerthere.
The Downs 😒
Y’all. 2023 was a doozy of a year - not just for Alpine Parrot, but for the outdoor industry as a whole. As customers, many of us benefitted from the constant sales as companies did their best to turn their inventory into cash. As a small business, however, we had to make some really tough decisions, which will be reflected throughout 2024 and beyond.
Here’s the deal: we needed a miracle November. It went pretty well, but it wasn’t the miracle we desperately needed. We still have a lot of inventory in stock (though not in the sizes most of you want - we hear you!), and while we're super excited that our spring 2024 lineup is on its way to us, we've got our work cut out for us to make 2024 the best year we've ever had!
The Uncomfortable Reality 😬
Our team has gotten smaller, and we have to slow down in order to speed up. If all goes well, 2026 (yep, that’s not a typo) will be our biggest year yet. We’re not just thinking about next year, we’re thinking about the next decade.
But we can’t make it to 2026 if we can’t make it through 2024, so if you love Alpine Parrot and want to see us stick around, here are the few real, tangible things you can do to help:
- 🗣️ Tell everyone you know about us: Share our posts and stories on social media. If you have friends in the media, ask them to write about Alpine Parrot. Walk into your local outdoor retail stores and ask them why they aren’t carrying us (and if they are, thank them).
- ✍🏽 Write a review for the products you love. Other people read reviews before deciding to spend their hard-earned money, and your positive comments help them make their own decisions.
- 💵 Buy our products. Every item sold is an opportunity for us to make something new and give back to our communities in a meaningful way.
We’re ready for 2024 💖
If there’s one thing that 2023 has taught us, it’s that Alpine Parrots are ridiculously resilient. We’re excited about our new products coming this spring, and we’re even more excited to engage with more people in our community. We have some super exciting announcements coming in the next few months, so stay tuned!
What are you excited about for 2024? Let us know at hello@alpineparrot.com or @alpineparrot on Instagram and TikTok - we want to hear from you!
High fives,
Raquel
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