Company · Specialty Retail · Michigan
Gazelle Sports
The Kalamazoo running store that turned selling shoes into a 40-year habit of getting Michigan moving.
The Kalamazoo running store that turned selling shoes into a 40-year habit of getting Michigan moving.
In December 1985, two clerks from a Kalamazoo running shop opened a store of their own. Seven banks had refused them a loan, so friends and family put up $60,000 instead. Forty years later, Gazelle Sports runs seven stores across Michigan and an online shop - and still fits shoes the same slow, deliberate way it always has.
Gazelle Sports is a specialty running and active-lifestyle retailer. It sells running and walking shoes, athletic apparel, accessories, and soccer gear from brands including Nike, Brooks, ASICS and HOKA. But the merchandise is only half the business. The other half is the fitting: a staffer who watches you walk, asks about your mileage and your aches, and hands you the pair that actually fits. That is the product Amazon cannot ship, and it is the reason West Michigan runners drive past big-box shoe walls to get there.
The customer base runs from the first-timer who started jogging during lockdown to the competitive marathoner chasing a personal best - plus walkers, families, and the thousands who sign up for the races the store helps put on. Roughly 140 employees staff seven store markets and the online division.
The problem Gazelle Sports solves is deceptively simple: most people buy the wrong shoes. A poorly fitted pair causes blisters, shin splints and quiet discouragement that ends a running habit before it starts. The store's answer is expertise - gait analysis, honest questions, and staff who run themselves.
Beyond the fitting, it solves a second problem: isolation. Running alone is hard to sustain. So the store built training programs, group runs and community events that give customers a reason to keep lacing up - and a community to do it with.
That combination - product plus expertise plus community - is what converts a one-time shoe sale into a customer who comes back for years.
“Our mission is to inspire others to move.”
— Gazelle SportsNike, Brooks and HOKA will all sell you shoes online in two clicks. Gazelle Sports sells the twenty minutes before the purchase - the fitting most retailers skip.
The store built She Runs Grand Rapids, Borgess Run Camp and Girls on the Run programming. When your product is movement, the starting line is your marketing.
The Gazelle Sports Foundation, started in 2012, channels event proceeds toward movement access in underserved communities.
Its competitors are Fleet Feet and other specialty chains, big-box sporting goods stores like Dick's, brand direct-to-consumer channels, and online sellers such as Amazon and Zappos. Gazelle Sports doesn't try to out-price them. It out-serves them, in person, in markets it has served for decades.
Running, walking and trail shoes from Nike, Brooks, ASICS and HOKA - sold with in-store gait analysis and expert fittings.
Performance and lifestyle apparel, socks, nutrition, GPS watches and running gear for men, women and kids.
Cleats, balls and equipment for players across the region.
An omnichannel Shopify Plus shop extending the catalog nationwide.
Run camps, group runs and signature events like She Runs Grand Rapids and Girls on the Run.
A nonprofit arm turning race entries into active-living access for underserved communities.
The model is omnichannel specialty retail: revenue from brick-and-mortar stores and a Shopify Plus e-commerce site, with reported annual revenue estimated near $10.6 million. What sets the economics apart is loyalty. Expert fittings, training programs and events build relationships that produce repeat business - the kind of retention that discount channels rarely earn.
The expertise is deep and homegrown. CEO Jen Brummitt joined in 2003 as a part-time shipping and receiving employee, built the store's first website, and worked at nearly every level before being named the company's first CEO in 2020. CMO and co-owner Cara Cross started on the Grand Rapids sales floor in 2011. This is a company where leadership grows up inside the stockroom - and that institutional knowledge is exactly what the fitting experience runs on.
“Digital has been a focus, but now it can't just be small; it's mission-critical.”
— Jen Brummitt, CEOChris Lampen-Crowell and Bruce Johnson open the first store downtown in December, funded by $60,000 from friends and family after seven banks said no.
The company expands to Grand Rapids, adding partner Ken Sung.
Sequite comes aboard as financial director, completing the ownership team.
A third storefront opens in Holland, Michigan.
The retailer builds an e-commerce presence, ahead of many independents.
A nonprofit arm launches to channel event proceeds toward movement access.
The company moves east with a Northville store, later followed by Birmingham.
Jen Brummitt is appointed the company's first-ever CEO.
The founders retire; the company becomes woman-owned and operated under Brummitt and Cara Cross.
Gazelle Sports marks four decades of locally owned specialty retail across seven Michigan stores.
Gazelle Sports occupies the specialty-retail lane between commodity big-box stores and faceless online sellers. As footwear increasingly sells direct-to-consumer and through algorithms, the independent running store's value proposition sharpens rather than fades: the slow, human part - the fitting, the local knowledge, the community - is the part that can't be automated. That is the space Gazelle Sports has defended for 40 years, and its succession to a homegrown, woman-owned leadership team is a bet that the model has decades left.
A Michigan-based specialty running and active-lifestyle retailer founded in Kalamazoo in 1985, selling footwear, apparel, accessories and soccer gear across seven stores and online.
As of 2024 it is 100% woman-owned and operated, led by CEO Jennifer Brummitt (majority owner) and CMO Cara Cross (minority partner), after the retirement of the original founders.
Across Michigan: Kalamazoo, two Grand Rapids locations, Grandville, Holland, Northville and Birmingham - plus an online store.
Premium running and athletic brands including Nike, Brooks, ASICS and HOKA, along with apparel, accessories and soccer equipment.
In-store gait analysis and expert fittings, plus training programs, group runs and community events like She Runs Grand Rapids and Girls on the Run.