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Since our very first issue published in 1898, Outdoor Life has covered outdoor gear with independence and rigor. From Jack O’Connor’s old gun columns to today’s in-depth video reviews, field testing gear and reporting the results has always been part of our publication’s DNA.
Which is why I am excited to now introduce our new online gear shop, which represents the culmination of more than a century of gear coverage. This new online retail site will carry a wide variety of quality outdoor products, and purchases made from the site will help to power the Outdoor Life you know and love into the future. There are a few key points that longtime OL readers should know.
Editorial Independence Remains Our Priority
If you’ve followed Outdoor Life closely, you know that we’re not scared to piss off folks on occasion. This often includes manufacturers who have overhyped their products. That’s because we believe that reader trust is OL’s single most important asset. If we report the truth, good or bad, we have faith that you will keep coming back. This has been the promise that the OL editors made at the very beginning, and it’s the contract we uphold today.
In all of our gear reviews and buying guides, we will continue to celebrate the top-performing products (whether they are carried in the Outdoor Life shop or not). Likewise, if a product falls short, we’ll continue to call out those flaws.
Unlike some other media outlets in our space, we have no editorial obligation to a single brand. We shoot, hunt with, and wear whatever is new and noteworthy, because that makes the most interesting content. This will continue, regardless of which brands are carried in the shop. Simply scan a few of our recent gear reviews (like our rifle scope test or binocular test) and you will find this to be true.
The OL Shop Will Become More Than Just Another Online Gear Site
Over time, the shop will begin to host content from the hundreds of gear reviews we’ve written through the years. Beyond basic specs and product descriptions, the Outdoor Life shop will include details about how the products actually performed during testing. Our “editor’s picks” will highlight the top performing items in a category. Video reviews will show how products work (or don’t work) in the field.
Our aim will be to educate the reader, or potential customer, about the gear they are considering buying, whether they end up buying it from us or someone else.
Our Content Strategy Hasn’t Changed. The Digital Landscape Has
The OL team is proud that we already spend a ton of time and effort producing the most in-depth gun and gear reviews in the outdoor space. We have been able to fund these efforts by linking to online retailers who sell the gear that we cover. If one of our readers purchases a product from these online retailers, we made a small commission. Added up over the course of the year, these commissions become a meaningful source of revenue that powers our editorial team to create more content.
At its best, it’s a system of meritocracy. Those who create the best content grow the biggest audiences and, in turn, make the most money — to make more content.
But that system has been corrupted with the popularization of Artificial Intelligence. Now, more and more folks are simply asking ChatGPT or Claude, “what’s the best wader for duck hunting?” These chatbots scrape online articles to produce an answer for the user, who then makes their purchase. That hunter will rarely see the original source material. In other words they will never come to our reviews and field tests at Outdoor Life.
And the chatbots don’t much care if they are lifting content from OutdoorLife.com or someone’s basement blog, or even a manufacturer’s own website. In time, this will lead to the degradation (I believe the modern term is “enshittification”) of gear reviews, and, well, first-hand expert information in general.
Our way to combat this is to own the online shop ourselves. We believe that so long as we have the best and most thorough information, and the best available products, the reader will end up with us.
We Are Just Getting Started
In the weeks and months to come, we will be adding many more brands and gear categories to the shop. We’ll be offering deals on select products that have performed admirably in our field testing. And we’ll be turning out a lot more stories and videos.
If you’re looking to purchase some new gear, I do hope you check out the OL shop. But the truth is, there are many reasons to love the outdoors and our passion for quality gear is only a sliver of Outdoor Life. So, after all these years, thank you for reading, following, and watching.