Tents

I received the following information from the Outdoor Warehouse buyer and designer, who has requested not to publish his details on the forum, but who is known to me, regarding the 360 degree tents:

“The 360 degree brand is an in house brand, with me being the designer and sourcing products from overseas.
I have read the (VE tents thread) and it seems that the members are quite up to date with what’s going on with our brands and how FA fits into our business.

There are 2 big reasons we switched the 360 brand over to FA.
1 – as we own the FA brand, we started looking at opportunities to expand the brand in the market, covering more categories and products. Switching current 360 products that work well for us offer to FA is a no brainer.

2 - FA also have more specialist knowledge on the designing of their products as they do just that, I for instance need to deal with allot of other retail related issues which kind of limit my time spent on pure development of specialist product. In short, FA can and will give you better products in the end.

I noticed on the forum that members have a fear on discontinued tents as spares might get scarce, rightly so, but we do make provisions for spares on all of our tents.
It does happen that we discontinue some products and end up sitting with some spares, but after a while, if there’s no demand in a year or 2, we write them off and dispose of them.

On the cool mountain tent, we do have some spares left and I would like it if you can talk to other forum members as to what spare they need on any 360 degree tent, then I would be happy to help out where I can.”

So if anyone out there requires spares for any 360 degree tents and is unable to obtain them through the OW outlets, please pm me the details and I will follow up with the designer and try to assist you to obtain the required spares.


Further to my enquiry regarding the mention of a Cool Mountain III tent elsewhere on this thread, I received the following response:

“We never stocked a Cool Mountain 3 tent, the only 3 person 4 season tent we had was the Summit and the Storm.”

The 360 degree Summit is the older stock tent referred to by Dillon which is also part of the discontinued range.

Once the remaining 360 degree tents are sold out, the 360 degree tent brand will no longer exist, although hopefully the good aspects will be incorporated into the FA tent range.

I think I am trending towards the cool mountain.....its cheap enough to warrant buying a discontinued product

It would be very cool if firstAscent/OutdoorWarehouse supplied Ghaz or any other VE members some of the fA tent range to trial/test and report on. Certainly wouldn't do their sales any harm if the tents are any good, and if there are issues then the designers can address them...

andrew r wrote: It would be very cool if firstAscent/OutdoorWarehouse supplied Ghaz or any other VE members some of the fA tent range to trial/test and report on.

I like that idea

I believe that the decision to cut the 360 Degrees brand of tents is more complicated than it appears and has a lot to do with:

a.) Rising Unit costs in China. This can be seen across other sectors with the increased prominence of Chinese brands such as Huawei who are now beginning to compete on a global scale. Rocvan is a Chinese outdoor tent brand. The increase in these costs can be attributed to a number of factors but essentially mean higher prices when purchasing from traditional brands like MSR etc or having to buy Chinese brands with questionable quality. The quality will eventually improve though. The same thing happened with Japanese products and Korean products - think Toyota and Samsung. History repeats itself.

b.) The first Ascent (fA) tents don't seem to be selling particularly well. 360 Degrees tents are inexpensive and seem to be good quality tents. By removing the 360 Degrees brand of tent, Holdsport are effectively removing a competitor to their flagship brand. A good example is the 4 season fA Snow Dog which retails at R5,999.00 for a 4 sleeper - I could buy 2 Cool Mountain 2 tents for R4,000.00, have greater flexibility and still save R2,000.00. The fA Traverse 2 looks to be a good tent but you'd be paying an extra R800.00 for a 3 Season tent.

In my opinion it's all about the bottom-line.

tonymarshall, would it be possible to find out if they have any spares for the Trek II? I'd love to buy them instead of them being written off and disposed.

Also considering buying the Cool Mountain II before it disappears, especially if I could get some spares.

Would be nice if we could get a similar FA tent (especially double entry)

joshilewis,

Yes, it certainly would, and that was the offer made by the OW 360 degree designer, for 360 degree tents. Is the Trek II a 360 degree tent though, or are you referring to the K way Treklite II? pm me the specifics of your request, exact tent model and details of what spares are required etc, and I will find out for you. I can't guarantee success, but the designer has the best access to the spares stock list, especially in terms of knowing what may be interchangeable between tents, and is the best person to help.

I understand there are still Cool Mountain spares available, but the branch should be able to assist with these when (if) you buy the tent. This could also apply to you Stretch, if you have a concern about the pole fatigue cracks.

I agree, in one of my earlier posts I remarked that the good points of 360 degree tents don't seem to have filtered through to the FA range yet.

Definitely a 360 Degrees Trek II. Will PM. Thanks

Ok, good, I'll wait for your details. (I'm not that knowledgeable on tents and equipment )

Anybody else interested in me assisting them to obtain 360 degree tent spares through my contact with the designer, please get the requests to me asap. The idea was to consolidate VE member's requests into one list and send all the requests in together, with a follow up response on what is available and the prices, and then arrangements for the various items to be distributed to the relevant branches where members would collect and pay for them.

At some stage in a week or 2 I will have to cut off this process and submit whatever I have received up to then, although this whole process could be repeated again in the future.