OUR STORY
LeatherUp.com Started in 1999 in a store front in Downtown Los Angeles. The vision of it’s 2 co-founders was to bring affordable leather jackets to people online at the fraction of the price they would see in malls. Buying a leather jacket was still a novel idea online back in 1999. In fact it was a crazy idea.
One of its Co-Founders Albert Bootehsaz had over 25 years in manufacturing and making leather clothing in Los Angeles and importing leather from around the world. Albert knew fine leather like no one else. He made some the finest leather clothing for celebrities and big fashion retailers. He at one point had over 60 craftsmen working for his factory in Los Angeles, as cheap imports swamped the US market in the 1990’s he was forced to shut down his operations and think about the future.
He saw ecommerce as the future and teamed up with one of the brightest minds in the ecommerce space and LeatherUp.com was born. The concept was to make our own exclusive clothing using Albert’s 25 years of manufacturing experience but make it better. Use higher quality leathers, better fit, better liners, better zippers and cut out the middlemen retailers. Let all the savings go to making a better product. Go direct to the customers and let them reap the savings and benefits. The Internet changed everything, for the first time a startup could bypass inefficient sales networks and sell directly to customers at a fraction of the retail price.
Big changes were on the horizon, led by the ecommerce team. They wanted to start selling motorcycle gear, they saw it as a natural transition and leveraging LeatherUp.com expertise in leather making. It would also help offset the seasonal nature of the leather jacket business. Albert was resistant at first but eventually he realized this was something he had to back.
In 2003 LeatherUp decided to start making Xelement Motorcycle Jackets, up till that moment no website on earth had made their own in-house motorcycle gear brand.
It was crazy, why would you do that people told all the executives. They brought in a few styles and they sold out within days, the biker line by 2008 had grown from 5 sku’s to over 300 styles ranging from jackets, boots, vests, pants, and accessories. Xelement alone has sold over $150 million since being started in 2003, being one of the top motorcycle gear brands in history. As we head into 2020 it’s going strong and only getting better. More advanced features, more features you only find on high end jackets now come standard but the same amazing prices.
Customers started to notice that for 30-50% less they were getting the same quality products, in most cases the boots and jackets were coming from the same factories that made the brands that were 2-3 times the price.
It was a meteoric rise. LeatherUp kept expanding its lines to cover more items, including action biker cameras, Bluetooth devices, helmets, and much more. The vision has always been to bring the highest quality products and charge customers a lot less then they would otherwise. Cutting out the entire middleman operation where store owners buy from distributors who buy from factories. Each step of the way all 3 would take a markup, in most cases doubling the price on each step. A $100 jackets could end up being $399 in a store, LeatherUp was not about this market inefficiency. They turned the biker industry upside down, taking this 3-level system down to 1. Factory Direct.
LeatherUp expanded and moved to Las Vegas to better handle the growing volume. Expanding its staff and product line, while always remaining true to it vision of giving bikers and causal leather buyers the best quality products for unreal prices.
Fast forward to 2019 LeatherUp after 20 years in business has changed ownership and been taken over directly by one of its largest suppliers of motorcycle jackets. This will enable LeatherUp.com to continue to give even higher quality and value for years to come. Being the first truly vertical biker and leather gear manufacturer will position LeatherUp for decades more of success and many more happy customers.
Big changes are coming in 2020, as LeatherUp has expanded its executive staff and will expand the website from 50,000 products to over 200,000 motorcycle and fashion products. LeatherUp name is one of the most searched names online, when we first opened our Canadian website in 2015 sales soured to over a $1 million in a few months with no marketing. People all over the World know LeatherUp and our stable of top industry brands like Xelement, Vulcan, Outlaw Helmets and many more. Outlaw Helmets has sold almost 1 Million Helmets since 2006, making it one of the most recognized helmet brands in America.
With the new ownership group LeatherUp.com will be a making a massive push internationally in 2020 and 2021, expect to see us in Europe, Middle East, and Asia. There is a growing demand for quality biker gear worldwide and LeatherUp.com plans to enter and reshape all these markets like it has in the U.S. Thanks to all our customers for 20 great years and we want to make the next 20 years even better.
Some Past Headline and Milestones:
LeatherUp.com 2008 Sales Pass $20 Million: High customer satisfaction 4.7 out of 5.0 stars by Google Checkout and continued customer loyalty and strong word of mouth push sales higher.
2006 LeatherUp.com Record Sales: Strong Word of Mouth and Repeat Customer Business with high Product Satisfaction
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