Duluth Holdings (DLTH)

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A little illusion boosts DLTH's customer satisfaction numbers.

Last night I scanned articles about DLTH and see that much is made of their sky high customer satisfaction numbers, which might be illusory. It's well known that consumers tend to love recent purchases and think less of them as time goes on, and quality problems arise. Consumer Reports Magazine cautions readers about that. Tesla, I think, benefits from that illusion.

A new rapidly growing e-commerce seller benefits especially if they dedicate efforts to shipping lightning fast in a way that's unsustainable in the future. They can fill warehouses to the rafters with inventory and hire more employees in the shipping department. They can also lavish customer-pleasing free Next-Day shipping and no-questions-asked returns. (I don't know whether DLTH's actually done that)

Notice DLTH's deluge of costly national TV advertising before the IPO? Among other benefits, that bust may have served to juice DLTH's percentage of brand new -- and highly satisfied -- customers. How well does DLTH apparel hold up long-term? Not many customers know yet.