The Supply Side: RunMitts’ convertible mittens lands deal with Walmart

Susan Clayton, creator of WhitePaws RunMitts, still can’t believe her patented mittens are coming to Walmart stores by the fall of 2026. After a decade in retail selling to REI and Title Nine, and online, Clayton scored a meeting at Walmart’s Open Call event in October.

“I originally applied at the Road to Open Call event they held in Baltimore in June,” Clayton said. “I did not receive a fast pass to Bentonville, but the buyers instructed me to reapply through the traditional process. I figured that I had nothing to lose, so I applied through the RangeMe app. And I didn’t hear anything until September. I did get an invite to Bentonville for the following month. I really could not believe it. I knew I had to get down to Arkansas and see what happened.”

She pitched her fleece-lined, thumbless convertible mittens that also have a pocket for hand warmers and scored a golden ticket. Clayton was one of only four fashion suppliers to get a golden ticket at this year’s event.

“The meeting went well,” Clayton said. “I was very prepared from the event I attended in June. I had all my numbers and my short pitch about why I started the company and why I manufacture them in the U.S. and source the fleece from a U.S company.”

BACK STORY
Clayton lives in Baltimore and, for years, was an avid runner and a run coach for the local chapter of Back on My Feet, which is a running club for the homeless and recovering addicts. She said they ran three mornings a week at 5:30 a.m. in all types of weather.

She could not find mittens that she liked for running. Looking for something warm that would protect from cold and moisture but also free her hand quickly without taking off the glove.

“I was always losing a mitten when I would take it off to answer a phone or grab a drink,” she said. “I saw a guy running with socks on his hands and thought to myself that I could try and fashion something like that. I am a knitter, and I began to think about a design and worked with a manufacturer on a prototype that met the needs of a runner.”

It was 2013, and Clayton owned and ran a hair salon business for nearly two decades. She focused on the mittens in her spare time and knew that one of the first things she needed to do was to secure a patent attorney.

“I worked out in a local gym, and I had heard too many stories of people who had ideas in the fitness area and then had them ripped off because they did not have a patent or trademark,” Clayton said. “I found a really good patent attorney who helped me. It took about three years to get the patent approved. I spent around $20,000 over the three years, and it took three tries before we got it in December 2015.”

She named her business RunMitts. But she could not trademark it, so the mittens themselves are called WhitePaws RunMitts.

Between 2013 and the end of 2015, Clayton said she researched fabric, manufacturing and what was already in retail. She met a New York manufacturer at a fabric expo and visited the company in early 2020 to get help with design and the fleece fabric choice. That manufacturer connected her with a fleece supplier in New Hampshire, who continues to supply her with the fabric.

“The mittens are made of Polartec fleece, and they’re very durable, soft, and moisture-resistant,” she said.

In the early years of RunMitts, Clayton made her sales by word of mouth and online. She also attended race expos and running events and still sells them directly to consumers. She bootstrapped the business, having sold a piece of real estate to cover the patent fees and the first small production run in 2016. This was still a sideline business, and Clayton kept working full-time in her hair salon.

SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES
Clayton said in early March 2020, when the world had shut down because of the pandemic, she and the manufacturer in New York met via Zoom. Fabric samples and design prototypes were sent by mail. Clayton said the manufacturer also made masks to match the gloves.

“We could not find masks anywhere, and we didn’t want to leave our house without one,” Clayton said. “She made masks for me, and I sold them all over the world via social media for about a year or so. It was crazy. I ordered hundreds of those masks. I could not keep them in stock.”

Then, in 2021, Clayton was approached by REI, an outdoor specialty retailer, to sell RunMitts in three of their stores. She said REI reached out to her after reading in an outdoor magazine about the lack of suppliers among people of color in the outdoor fashion retailers.

“I started in four REI stores,” she explained. “It was really exciting, and we did a big launch and overstocked. It took us some time to work through it and balance the supply with the right demand. The mittens sold well, so today I am in 106 of their stores across the country.”

The mitts also landed in three Title Nine stores and a sports specialty store in her area. Clayton said she is happy being a small supplier to retail and earns a good living from it while supporting other U.S. jobs.

“You don’t have to be the next unicorn,” she said. “I sell mittens, and I have a growing business, slow-growing business, and I am perfectly fine with that.”

She’s excited about getting into Walmart because of the broader access.

“Even my own family was asking about REI,” she said. “They were not familiar with this specialty retailer. I knew that everybody knows Walmart, and so when I heard about the Open Call, I thought that I had nothing to lose.”

Clayton said she will sell around 5,000 pairs of mittens this year, with a goal of 7,500 pairs in 2026.

This slow, but steady growth is how she has managed to expand the business over the past decade. She still works a couple of days a week in her hair salon serving long-term customers, and the rest of her time is spent on growing mittens distribution. Clayton said there have been many failures in her RunMitts journey, but her attitude has always been to try and figure it out.

“Either it will work, or it won’t, and you just have to keep trying,” she said.

Editor’s note: The Supply Side section of Talk Business & Politics focuses on the companies, organizations, issues and individuals engaged in providing products and services to retailers. The Supply Side is managed by Talk Business & Politics, and is sponsored by HRG.