{"id":284130,"date":"2026-05-08T08:35:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/284130\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T08:35:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:35:34","slug":"inside-hey-dudes-country-themed-austin-store-location","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/284130\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Hey Dude’s Country-themed Austin Store Location"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cHey Dude<\/a> Country\u201d has arrived in Austin, Tex., at 1708 South Congress Street, representing the brand\u2019s first full-price store.<\/p>\n

\n\tCrocs<\/a>\u2018 sibling \u2014 both are owned by Crocs<\/a> Inc. \u2014 has 75 outlet doors, but not one full-price standalone until now. The store, which had a soft launch last Saturday to test logistics and operations, officially opened its doors Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\tHey Dude<\/a> brand president Rupert Campbell <\/a>described the location, \u201cvery famous for music traffic\u201d and a mix of old Texas and new, as ideal for the brand.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of traffic here, particularly on the weekends. Tourism is very strong here as well. [The store\u2019s] not in the shopping center area. It\u2019s on the street area,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cAnd we designed that purposely because we want to be absolutely in the community, and this is what the store is. It\u2019s an old store that we\u2019ve renovated. We have a barber shop next door to us.\u201d The brand largely kept the original fa\u00e7ade of the building, a nod to the authenticity of old Texas while updating the interior representing new Texas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur creative director lived here for 15 years, and put everything together in terms of the creative of the store. He talks [a lot about] a younger generation and an older generation coming together, and when they come together, you get magic. And this is what we have in the store,\u201d Campbell said. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe store spans around 3,300 square feet, much larger than its outlet doors so it could provide access to the full range of the brand\u2019s offerings for men, women and kids, as well as offer limited edition collections that will be available only at the Austin store. The store also will have access to products launched online, but are not offered at the brand\u2019s outlets.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve created this icon store because we wanted to be at the heart of Hey Dude country, where we know the consumer loves us,\u201d he said, adding that focus groups and insights<\/a> learned from studies pointed to the South as being the brand\u2019s \u201cheartland.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat also makes Austin ideal is the two groups of tourism in the area, the first is from the early start of summer and throughout the season, and the second is in the autumn when football season starts. The location also sees traffic volume over the holidays for the Christmas period, the brand president said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThose traffic stats means the location should get footfall from both established fans of the brand and people being exposed for the first time. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe U.S. is our No. 1 market. We want to stabilize the business and bring the business back to growth which is everyone\u2019s plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the Crocs Inc. first quarter earnings<\/a> report on April 30, the company said Hey Dude revenue fell 12.3 percent to $154 million. Direct-to-consumer revenue rose 8.6 percent to $71 million, while wholesale sales were down 24.7 percent to $83 million. Crocs CEO Andrew Rees said in a conference call that the brand continues to \u201cdeliver against\u201d its three-pillar strategic plan. <\/p>\n

\n\tData from Charm Io for the period from April 2025 to March 2026 showed that Hey Dude made the top 10 U.S. TikTok Shop shoe performers coming in at second place<\/a> with $32.5 million in revenue. Hey Dude was beaten out of the top spot by its sibling Crocs at $52.4 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tCampbell isn\u2019t looking to build other full-service locations for Hey Dude just yet. \u201cWhat we want to do with this store is immerse ourselves with the community and build from the grassroots up a love of the brand in Austin. We want people from around the U.S. to come here and see and feel and immerse themselves in the brand, and we want to get this store right,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe store\u2019s opening also includes the launch of the cheekily-named \u201cHey Dude Country Club\u201d program. Campbell candidly acknowledges it as the brand\u2019s way of a \u201cparody\u201d on the notion of a country club as Hey Dude\u2019s customer base is \u201claid back.\u201d The marketing spin elevates participants as \u201cbrand ambassadors\u201d instead of loyalty members. And while the membership program includes the usual range of special offers and discounts and invites to special events, it does go one step further to foster member participation \u2014 what Campbell describes as a \u201ctwo-way conversation\u201d building community from the grassroots up.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey will be able to help us scope how the brand moves forward. We\u2019ll get them to get involved in product creation, what the product looks like and how we get product to market,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be able to test things early with this community [and] we\u2019re going to use them as a baromet for some of the things that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA special tab on the Hey Dude site will feature content and events notification, as well as enable the member community to interact with each other and the brand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHey Dude Country\u201d has arrived in Austin, Tex., at 1708 South Congress Street, representing the brand\u2019s first full-price…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,104470,104471,104472,42129],"class_list":["post-284130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-crocs","tag-hey-dude","tag-loyalty-program","tag-store-opening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}