Solo Brands’s new CEO says DTC business ‘can be fixed’

On his first earnings call as Solo Brands’s new CEO since his predecessor stepped down, Chris Metz on Thursday outlined his plan to help scale the struggling direct-to-consumer brand.

The company is currently conducting a full strategic review of its business with the goal of producing a long-term plan, and Metz said that based on his “initial observations, everything I have seen can be fixed.”

Metz, whose resume includes stints at Black & Decker and Vista Outdoor, told investors that the company needed to “fix our D2C or direct-to-consumer business and return this channel to growth.”

Former CEO John Merris previously told Retail Brew that the company was embracing wholesale to help drive sales, and that the shift could cannibalize DTC sales in the near-term. However, he stressed that wholesale—though generally less profitable—could eventually draw return customers back to the direct channel. He also emphasized that a bigger wholesale presence would increase brand awareness, reducing the need for ad spending.

Metz is now singing a different tune. He said while the doesn’t see DTC and wholesale as an “either-or” choice, the company was “born as a digitally native company, and the majority of our sales will continue to come from online efforts.”

• Indeed, CFO Laura Coffey said weakness in the direct channel was behind a 16.2% sales drop in Q4.

In addition, Metz called for an overhaul of Solo Brands’ marketing strategy and for a renewed focus on developing an “innovative product pipeline for our core Solo Stove business.”

Metz emphasized that the Solo Stove, a smokeless, portable backyard fire pit, represented a major growth opportunity for the outdoor product maker.

“I have complete admiration for what the founders and team have built at Solo Stove,” he said. “However, like many entrepreneur-founded businesses, the appropriate processes and capabilities necessary to scale the business have not been built out.”