Northern Ireland Outdoors Forum - Hiking, camping and more

General => Gear Questions, Information, Reviews and Competitions => Topic started by: suspectmonkey on June 17, 2010

Title: Raw Outdoors
Post by: suspectmonkey on June 17, 2010
Raw Outdoors (http://www.rawoutdoors.co.uk/)

Just came across this website.  Found them through a distributor who lists them as being in Hillsborough, but going by the address on their home page it looks like they are based in Saintfield.

Any one ever came across them before, and do they have a shop you can walk in to or are they just online retailers?  From looking at the website they seem to have some pretty cool kit in stock, including some nice looking 1-2 person Marmot tents.  They also stock the lightweight Adventure Medical kits so might try and grab one of those some time!
Title: Re: Raw Outdoors
Post by: ChuckMcB on June 17, 2010
They used to have a shop near the Ulster Bank in Hillsbro', it closed perhaps two years ago, don't remember it moving anywhere.

The address in their "Contact Us" page looks just a house (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=5+Laurelbank+Road+BT24+7LT&sll=54.454739,-5.879402&sspn=0.000772,0.002747&gl=uk&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=5+Laurelbank+Rd,+Saintfield,+Ballynahinch,+County+Down+BT24+7LT,+United+Kingdom&ll=54.459562,-5.881419&spn=0.012248,0.027595&z=15&layer=c&cbll=54.459637,-5.881332&panoid=YBGWrA8JtKNalWiLdplN1A&cbp=12,308.49,,0,17.06).

Title: Re: Raw Outdoors
Post by: twentyclicks on June 17, 2010
Yeah, they had a small shop in Hillsborough as well as the online shop.
They closed the physical shop a few years ago to run the business online only.  Nice folks.
Title: Re: Raw Outdoors
Post by: LennyJ1 on June 17, 2010
They have the same sort of web site as Jackson Sports
Title: Re: Raw Outdoors
Post by: ChuckMcB on June 17, 2010
Don't think they are connected...their web design company has just used a cookie cutter e-commerce template. (check out the grey on white links at the bottom of each page...they all link to similar site most of which use exactly the same tempate)

(any web/SEO nerds in the house will wonder how Jackson-Sports would feel if they knew that their site links to and boosts their competitors including surf mountain)
Title: Re: Raw Outdoors
Post by: twentyclicks on June 18, 2010
Don't think they are connected...their web design company has just used a cookie cutter e-commerce template. (check out the grey on white links at the bottom of each page...they all link to similar site most of which use exactly the same tempate)

(any web/SEO nerds in the house will wonder how Jackson-Sports would feel if they knew that their site links to and boosts their competitors including surf mountain)

It's probably a two way street.  Each company has to be confident in it's products, pricing and service; although they might be annoyed at the price they paid for "their own website" if it is merely a template!
Title: Re: Raw Outdoors
Post by: suspectmonkey on June 18, 2010
Those e-commerce templates are becoming really popular.  I quite like them though, it makes it really easy to find what you need as they all follow similar conventions.  The link exchange thing seems to work pretty well also, especially for Jackson as they always rank highly in Google.  Although if you were a passing visitor on the site you might wonder why an outdoors shop has links to other shops at the bottom of their page!

Any way, another outdoor shop for me to bookmark ;)