American Rebel rides the concealed carry wave with trendy coats, backpacks; cracks market for safes

• American Rebel headed by flamboyant country music star Andy Ross, with offices in Nashville, Tennessee and Kansas City,
• Sells coats and backpacks to hold concealed guns
• Diversified business into $500 million market for safes and vaults, building the industry’s first cannabis inventory control safe

What American rebel does:

American Rebel Holdings Inc (OTCMKTS:AREB) is riding the concealed carry wave by designing and marketing coats and backpacks to hold guns. The company is also expanding its business by cracking the market for wall safes, personal safes and vaults. 

Flamboyant Nashville country music star Andy Ross is the CEO of American rebel and he is channeling his star power to grow his current venture into a patriotic brand by embracing a connection with the American heartland. 

Ross saw a market opportunity in the concealed carry wave with resurging interest in personal safety, particularly among females and younger populations. American Rebel’s initial product offering was a stylish celeb-powered collection of concealed carry products, which were launched at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in 2017.

The company is a progression of the Nashville singer’s many passions, including sports and hunting. Ross supports gun rights and the Second Amendment. He has hosted Maximum Archery and other popular TV shows for 12 years. He is also well-known in the archery world as the founder of Ross Archery, ranked the world’s fastest-growing bow manufacturing company in 2007 and 2008, according to trade magazines.   

The company is named after Ross’ spirited, patriotic hit song “American Rebel” featured on his third album Time to Fight released in 2016.  

American Rebel, which has offices in Nashville, Tennessee and Kansas City, sells coats and backpacks to hold concealed weapons priced between $69 to $200. 

Ross got his entrepreneurial spirit from his father, Bud Ross. When Bud was playing in rock-n-roll bands in the early 1960s he became tired of amplifiers breaking down, so he taught himself about electronics and founded Kustom Electronics in Chanute, Kansas in 1964. The company became one of the world’s largest makers of sound equipment. Kustom amps were used by The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash and many others. In 1981, Bud Ross also founded Birdview Satellite, which made home satellite systems which became wildly popular in rural America. 

“When someone tells me I’m a chip off the old block, that’s the greatest compliment anyone could ever give me,” Ross told Proactive.

How is it doing:

American Rebel is eyeing a big opportunity as the concealed carry product market is currently estimated at nearly $1 billion in annual sales.  

Utilizing currently available inventory and products under development, the company reaches profitability in 2020, easily surpassing $8.9 million in annual revenue, according to a company business plan.

Sales nearly tripled in 2018 compared with the same period a year ago, filings show. The company’s bestselling large pack available in six different colors features an isolated pocket for an optional ballistic panel insert and one large main compartment with many smaller compartments and pockets.

Sales were evenly distributed among the company’s Freedom Concealed Carry Backpacks, Men’s Defender Concealed Carry Coats and Men’s Cartwright Concealed Carry Coats. 

American Rebel has introduced the Men’s and Women’s Freedom Lightweight Concealed Carry Jackets and the Women’s Lightweight Freedom Concealed Carry Hoodie on its website, americanrebel.com, and will soon be adding these new products to its offerings on Amazon. 

The company sells its products through its website and Amazon. However, it also selects a handful of high-impact trade shows and markets tirelessly and strategically year-round. It is a regular at trade shows like the NSSF SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the NRA Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the NBS Spring Semi-Annual Market Show and the Iowa Deer Classic. 

This puts the American Rebel brand squarely in front of its target market of gun-rights supporters. A number of these events are industry-only trade shows where sports industry people gather to showcase new products and network.

This year, the company diversified its business into the $500 million market for safes and vaults.

In July, the company started shipping six different models of floor safes, wall safes and personal safes to retailers and specialty safe stores across America.

The American Rebel high-tech safes have double steel doors, digital keypads and can withstand a house fire for 75 minutes, says the company. The safe are available in orange, gray and blackout trim.

Inflection points:

Going forward, American Rebel expects to achieve a sizable bump in safe sales from a new type of customer: dispensary owners.

As a customer-centric company, its engineers spent a great deal of time with a Colorado dispensary owner understanding the needs of his business. The result is a sleek cannabis safe, which the company claims is the cannabis industry’s first inventory control safe.

In June, the company introduced the safe at a cannabis event in St Louis to what it described as “an overwhelming response.”

That’s hardly surprising given that the custom-built safe is roomy so that it can accommodate dividable plastic containers. The door panel comes with lockable compartments and there is a writeable surface for listing inventory.

Before the American Rebel cannabis safe, dispensary owners had to make do with arduously retrofitting big gun safes, remodeling them expensively with dividers and shelving.

On a separate note, management believes the American Rebel brand name may have significant licensing value to third parties that seek the American Rebel name to brand their products to market to the company’s target demographic.

What the boss says:

In a recent interview, American Rebel CEO Andy Ross told Proactive: “Safes are a core product in stores that carry products for the shooting sports. We believe that our safes and our concealed carry line work well together to keep our customers concealed and safe inside and outside the home.”

Contact Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]

Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive 

Story by ProactiveInvestors