Duluth Trading partners with Amazon for e-commerce fulfillment

Duluth Trading has entered a wholesale partnership with Amazon to handle fulfillment of its products sold on the e-commerce platform. This strategic decision enables the retailer to gain access to Amazon's Prime shipping capabilities, a significant advantage in today's consumer expectations around delivery speed and convenience. By outsourcing fulfillment of Amazon catalog inventory, Duluth Trading frees internal resources and capital to concentrate on growing its own direct-to-consumer digital channels and physical retail footprint.

This arrangement represents a pragmatic split-focus strategy increasingly common among omnichannel retailers. Rather than building duplicate fulfillment infrastructure to serve multiple sales channels equally, Duluth Trading can optimize its internal warehouse operations for direct orders while leveraging Amazon's scale and logistics network for third-party marketplace fulfillment. The move signals confidence in Amazon's fulfillment capabilities while acknowledging the commercial reality that Prime membership drives significant purchase intent.

For supply chain professionals, this highlights the ongoing tension between channel control and operational efficiency. While outsourcing reduces capex and management overhead, it also introduces dependencies on external logistics providers and potential margin compression from Amazon's fee structure. The decision underscores how specialized retailers are increasingly adopting hybrid fulfillment models rather than pursuing vertical integration.