The coastal Alaska choice of footwear, Xtratuf boots, are once again trying to prove their "tuff-ness." At the Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle last month, the representatives for the brand of boots, Xtratuf, made it clear that after receiving two years of complaints about the deteriorating quality of workmanship of their boots, they promise that they have restored the trademark resilience and durability to the brand that had been absent for the past couple of years.
At the Marine Expo, the Xtratuf booth received a flock of dissatisfied customers who were anxious to share their disappointment and frustration in the current quality of the once-beloved brand. Xtratuf's parent company, Honeywell International, moved the production of the Xtratuf brand from Rock Island, Ill., to a factory in China back in 2011. Alaskans, who make up a third of the consumers of the Xtratuf brand, have been claiming that ever since the move to China, the quality of the boots has gone down, even to the point of no longer being waterproof beyond the first few weeks of owning them.
However, marketing representatives from Honeywell speaking on the behalf of the Xtratuf brand went above and beyond the call of duty to answer any questions that their consumers might have had and calm any concerns about the future of the brand.
"Alaska is our core market for Xtratuf boots, and we build these products for Alaskans and make sure that these products fit the typical Alaskan's needs," said Sean O'Brien, the global director of footwear for Honeywell. "We do a lot of business on the 'boat coasts,' as we call them, which is the major marine and fishing centers across the country. A lot of our boots are sold in New England, which includes Maine lobster fishing, as well as the fishing industries in Boston and Cape Cod, and we even extend down in the Chesapeake Bay region in Maryland and Virginia. But our primary customers have been, and hopefully will remain, in Alaska."
In response to the concerns that many customers expressed about the deteriorating quality of the Xtratuf brand, O'Brien and other marketing representatives did their best to explain the difficulties of transitioning the production of a major product like Xtratufs to a new overseas manufacturer and eased the minds of many who had given up on the brand.
"It was just a transition period when we first moved the manufacturing of Xtratufs to China, but we've gotten rid of all the hiccups," said O'Brien. "I would say with a 100 percent guarantee that over the past nine months, we have fixed all issues. After hearing feedback from our customers, we imposed new rigorous training and testing of the boots in our new factories and spared no expense to make sure things were up to our specifications. We are now specifically testing everything that comes off the line. We have great quality boots and we're pleased with the new results, and so far we have no issues."
Xtratuf has had a presence at the Seattle Pacific Maritime Expo for the past four years, and during that time, Xtratuf has had the policy of not only holding daily raffles to give away free pairs of boots, but also investing in a new generation of customers.
"We give away a lot of kids' boots," said O'Brien. "Anyone who brings their kids to the show, what we've always done is that if a pair fits the kid, they can walk away wearing their new boots right then and there."
The representatives at the Marine Expo gave away anywhere between five to seven free pairs of boots every day, and the majority of Xtratuf customers seemed satisfied with the company's willingness to listen to the concerns of everyday customers as well as making a sincere effort to make up for the past two years of inconsistency in their product.
"We are a global manufacturing company, and we are selling a product all over the world," said O'Brien. "When we are trying to get a new facility up to speed, there is always a learning curve that takes a while to get the kinks out, but over the past nine months, we've implemented a new system of training, inspection, and testing that has fixed all problems that we encountered during the transition. We always support our product 100 percent; the product is out to be spot on for the needs of our consumers, for both the East and West Coasts, and we'll always be here, doing the best we can in supporting our loyal customers and retailers."
So despite the dwindling number of "Made in the USA" Xtratufs that are floating around Alaska, Honeywell's personal guarantee in the new quality of the China-made boots might be enough to breathe some confidence back into the brand that many Alaskans had given up on. Only time -- and perhaps another fishing season -- will prove whether the new globalized version of the brand is as tough as the name suggests.
This story first appeared in The Bristol Bay Times/Dutch Harbor Fisherman and is republished here with permission.