A part of life

I thought I would send out a quick mail about what I’ve been up to lately! I have had my hands full to say the least! Anyway, here is a copy of my first newsletter from backpackinglight.dk plus some extras..

Hi Everyone!

It has been a journey to start backpackinglight.dk. This idea of starting a webshop for lightweight gear popped into my head sometime in the spring when me and my wife had just sent in our papers for starting an adoption process. I got the idea because I wanted to offer excellent, lightweight backpacking gear in Sweden and Europe. Why I got the idea to do it in conjunction with the adoption process is because we plan on adopting from a nation that requires us to be abroad for 6 months. So my idea was that my wife and I could potentially have atleast a small side income while living abroad, and at the sametime I could bring a lot of cool gear with me to try out in the wilds of Africa! win win win.

Too much gear to test, too little time! The Sierra designs Flex capacitor 60 after 3 days on the trail.

Anyway, I was hesitant on starting the shop because I saw the competition from Denmark (backpackinglight.dk) and from Germany (Trekking-light-store) as two great shops that are already established and I didn’t really want to compete is such a small nisch marketplace, on top of this the major outdoor companies such as Addnature and Outnorth could easily kill off anything I wanted to do if it so pleased them. I will never be able to compete on price with these monsters or any of the major european outdoor shops – which is also why I won’t carry many of the same products as they do.

However, being the gear nerd that I am and realising that Sweden really is behind the times in lightweight gear, I decided to give a go anyway, and at the same time I had a bit of luck as Niels from backpackinglight.dk wanted to move on and do other things. So, my little idea was closer to reality and I just said to “hell with it, let’s do it!” So I finalised the deal in late July as I was sitting in a bus far above the artic circle on my way to Sarek national park for 10 days out in the wilds. (I know a few of you tried to get a hold of me during this period, unfortunately I was away where internet doesn’t exist)

The excellent Hyperlite mountain gear Ultamid 2. A little bigger than the MLD Duomid and in my opinion a proper two man tent.

So now you have a bit of background about why and how I started backpackinglight.dk, I don’t need to waste your time anymore explaining all the details!

What I really wanted to say is how grateful I am to the instant success that the site has been! So many people already on the mailing list, a lot of orders from great people all around europe. I couldn’t have asked for a better start. With that said, the success has also emptied my inventory a bit, but some of the more popular products are back in stock such as the Tarptent Stratospire 1 (probably the best made tent on the market right now), the Six moon designs Lunar Duo and Lunar Solo as well as the Hyperlite mountain gear Porter pack and Windriders 4400. I have also finally moved everything over to a Logistics center that will help me with the packing and shipping. – They can do it cheaper, faster and better than I can. So packages within sweden should reach their destination within a day or two.

Me chilling after a 7 day hike through Sarek national park, checking to make sure the deal to take over Backpackinglight.dk had gone through. This was the only place along the trail that internet actually worked.. 1200 meters above sea level looking out over Rapadalen.

If you haven’t read it yet, Jörgen Johansson from http://www.fjaderlatt.se wrote an excellent article for backpackinglight.se on how to choose a backpack that you can find here.

If there is anything that you would like me to stock, let me know and I will see what I can do!

Happy Hiking!

Kenneth Shaw
Backpackinglight.se