RecoFit Compression Gear, a Boulder-based sportswear manufacturing company, is going out of business after a long run.
The online store is offering discounts as part of inventory liquidation.
“After 11 amazing years of outfitting pro athletes and weekend warriors with quality compression products, I am closing up shop to focus on my career as a real estate agent in Boulder at Live West Realty,” owner Susan Eastman Walton said.
She got her real estate license in February 2018. She said she is able to use the skills she developed as a business owner in her new career. It’s challenging as well as satisfying, she said.
Personal circumstances and the changing retail environment made her think of closing her business. Operational costs kept going up, Eastman Walton said. She would import the fabric from Italy, get it to Los Angeles for making products before offering them for sale through a network of specialty retailers and online channels.
“Even though being on Amazon was a good thing overall, it constantly hammered you to lower your price while they took their fees so it was hard to make a profit,” she said.
Eastman Walton launched her company in 2008 with a single product to take care of the shin splints she endured as an athlete. She didn’t like the products available on the market, she said.
“Compression socks were considered to be a medical product,” she said.
Her former husband was in sport manufacturing and that helped open the doors for her in the business, Eastman Walton said. She designed calf compression sleeves for performance and recovery purposes and asked local athletes and coaches to test them in their various specialties — including running, triathlon, cycling, skiing and soccer.
“Their valuable input was used to further refine the designs, which later included shin-splint therapy sleeves, full-leg compression sleeves, women’s compression tights and arm-cooling sleeves,” she said.
She said she will miss working with all the amazing athletes in the community.
Eastman Walton had offers from many interested parties to buy her business, but they all wanted her to stay and manage the business.
“I had made up my mind. I wanted to move on,” she said.
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