Country Outfitter Turnaround Chronicled By Online Site Racked

You know Country Outfitter.

You’ve heard the name, you’ve seen the boots. If you used Facebook at all in late 2012, it was practically impossible to have missed. The company spent a lot of money to guarantee as much.

Three summers ago, Acumen Brands, the online retailer’s parent company, doubled down on plans to make Country Outfitter the internet destination for cowboy boots and all things Western wear. Intending to bring industry to Fayetteville, Arkansas, Acumen recruited talent with the enticing carrot that it might transform the city that less than 80,000 people call home into the Silicon Valley of the South.

At that moment, the company didn’t have much to boast about, save for a troubling surplus of inventory. Country Outfitter, Acumen’s flagship brand, was a boot company that could hardly move a boot. “To be honest, Country Outfitter was failing,” says Josh Clemence, who was a brand manager at Acumen in 2012. “We had a lot of product that we could essentially give away.

So they did: They gave away at least one pair of boots a week for more than a year via an audacious, unproven, and arguably infuriating takeover of countless targeted Facebook feeds. Within four months of its initial giveaway push, Country Outfitter amassed 7 million Facebook fans.

The brand was loved. The brand was reviled. The brand was relevant. But now, after a few years of staggering success, it appears 7 million Facebook fans—now down to 6.6 million on its main page—aren’t enough to keep a small-town startup afloat.

This is the story of how Country Outfitter seized the internet’s attention, and how it intends to keep it.

To read the full article, as reported by Racked’s Stephie Grob Plante, click here.