Jason LaRose Explains Why Bombas Can Set the Terms on Wholesale Expansion

Bombas CEO Jason LaRose used his CommerceNext opening keynote to draw a line between two kinds of DTC expansion. Some brands go to wholesale because their acquisition engine has stopped working and they need the volume. Bombas built its push into wholesale and retail on a different foundation, one where 70 percent of category sales already happen in physical stores and the business does not depend on that channel to survive.

LaRose, who took over from founder David Heath, said the opportunity was obvious from their first conversation. “He asked, can you believe we’re north of $300 million in revenue? And I said, no, I can’t believe you’re only at $300 million,” LaRose recalled. “How is this not a multi-billion-dollar global brand, especially one with 44% aided awareness in the US and only 2% market share?”

LaRose said he spent his early months listening rather than changing things. “The first thing I wanted to do was listen. I did not inherit a place that was broken,” he said, adding that the culture, product and mission were already strong. The gaps he found were operational rather than cultural. Bombas ran a single warehouse in Mexico, had lost control of its own inventory, and sourced roughly 95 percent of its product from China. It now runs multi-node distribution from Ohio and Los Angeles and sources across eight countries, with China down to under 10 percent.

That same discipline shaped how LaRose talked about wholesale. “A lot of brands end up in wholesale because the acquisition engine is working less well and they need relatively cheap sales,” he said.

“We didn’t build a cash-hungry acquisition engine, so we get to go opportunistically, where the consumer wants to be.”

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With 70 percent of category sales still happening in physical retail, LaRose framed the expansion as reaching customers who are already shopping there rather than chasing volume the brand needs to hit a number. He said he is willing to walk away from any partner that will not merchandise Bombas the way the brand needs to show up. “There isn’t any wholesale relationship or store worth sacrificing what the brand is,” he said.

His advice to younger DTC leaders was to bring more than a sales team to a retail partner. “A lot of brands go to wholesale with sales teams, not marketing, product and merch teams. They abdicate responsibility for what the product looks like, and then you become that brand instead of the brand you wanted to be.”

LaRose brings the same operator mindset to the mission. “We run the mission like a channel. It is not a charitable thing in a closet,” he said, noting he watches on-time-and-full metrics on donations the way he watches eCommerce. Bombas recently crossed 200 million pairs donated.