DECKERS OUTDOOR CORP (DECK) Business, 2010

Unless otherwise specifically indicated, all amounts in Item 1. and Item 1A. herein are expressed in thousands, except for share quantity, per share data, selling prices, and employees.

General

Deckers Outdoor Corporation was incorporated in 1975 under the laws of the State of California and, in 1993, reincorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware. We strive to be a premier lifestyle marketer that builds niche brands into global market leaders by designing and marketing innovative, functional and fashion-oriented footwear developed for both high performance outdoor activities and everyday casual lifestyle use. We believe that our footwear is distinctive and appeals broadly to men, women and children. We sell our products, including accessories such as handbags and outerwear, through

Table of Contents

quality domestic and international retailers, international distributors, and directly to end-user consumers, both domestically and internationally, through our websites, call centers, retail concept stores and retail outlet stores. Our primary objective is to build our footwear lines into global lifestyle brands with market leadership positions. We seek to differentiate our brands and products by offering diverse lines that emphasize authenticity, functionality, quality and comfort and products tailored to a variety of activities, seasons and demographic groups. Virtually all of our products are manufactured by independent contractors outside of the United States (US). Our continued growth will depend upon the broadening of our products offered under each brand, expanding domestic and international distribution, successfully opening new retail stores, increasing sales to end-user consumers, and developing or acquiring new brands.

In July 2008, we entered into a joint venture agreement with an affiliate of Stella International Holdings Limited ("Stella International") for the opening of retail stores and wholesale distribution for the UGG brand in China. The joint venture is owned 51% by Deckers and 49% by Stella International. Stella International is also one of our major manufacturers in China. In May 2008, we acquired 100% of the ownership interest of TSUBO, LLC, a high-end casual footwear brand. In March 2009, we acquired 100% of the ownership interest of Ahnu, Inc., an outdoor performance and lifestyle footwear brand. In September 2009, we began to reacquire our international distribution rights, beginning in Japan. In January 2010, we acquired certain assets and liabilities, including reacquisition of our distribution rights, from our Teva distributor that sold to retailers in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg (Benelux) as well as France. In September 2010, we purchased a portion of a privately held footwear company as an equity method investment.

On May 28, 2010, we announced that our Board of Directors authorized a three-for-one stock split to be effected in the form of a stock dividend. Each stockholder of record received two additional shares of common stock for each share held on June 17, 2010, that was paid on July 2, 2010. All share and related information presented in this Annual Report on Form 10-K reflect the increased number of shares and decreased stock prices resulting from this stock split for all periods presented.

Products

We market our products primarily under two proprietary brands:

UGG®. UGG Australia is our luxury comfort brand and the category creator for luxury sheepskin footwear. The UGG brand has enjoyed several years of strong growth and positive consumer reception, driven by consistent introductions of new styles in the fall and spring seasons and strategic geographic expansion of our distribution. We carefully manage the distribution of our UGG products within high-end specialty and department store retailers in order to best reach our target consumers, preserve the UGG brand's retail channel positioning and maintain the UGG brand's position as a mid- to upper-price luxury brand.

In recent years, sales of UGG products have benefited from significant national media attention and celebrity endorsement through our marketing programs and product placement activities, raising the profile of our UGG brand as a luxury comfort brand. We have further supported the UGG brand's market positioning by expanding the selection of styles available in order to build consumer interest in our UGG brand collection. We also remain committed to limiting distribution of UGG products to high-end retail channels.

Teva®. Teva is our outdoor performance and lifestyle brand and pioneer of the sport sandal market. We have expanded the Teva product line over time to include open and closed-toe outdoor lifestyle footwear, as well as additional outdoor performance footwear, including multi-sport shoes, light hiking shoes, amphibious footwear, and rugged outdoor travel shoes.

In recent years, we have focused on regaining our leadership position in the performance sandal market, while broadening our performance platform to include other outdoor activities such as multi-sport and light hiking to lessen our overall reliance on sandal sales, while bringing youthfulness back to the brand through contemporary designs, colors and materials. In 2008, we introduced a modest assortment of

Table of Contents

fall and winter footwear. We followed that up in fall 2009 with a more complete collection of seasonally appropriate performance and lifestyle products for men, women and children. The fall 2009 line included high performance light hikers with eVent waterproof membranes and Vibram rubber outsoles, rugged multi-sport shoes and a range of women's lifestyle boots in both leather and suede with warm, faux fur linings. In 2010, we continued to build on our water-related performance heritage and continued to inject youthfulness into the Teva brand. We introduced a more expansive collection of performance and lifestyle open-toe product, while also significantly increasing our offering in closed-toe light hiking, multi-sport and rugged casual footwear.

In addition to our primary brands, our other brands include Simple®, a line of sustainable and stylish footwear, TSUBO®, a line of high-end casual footwear that incorporates style, function and maximum comfort, and Ahnu®, a line of outdoor performance and lifestyle footwear.

Sales and Distribution

At the wholesale level, we distribute our products in the US through a dedicated network of independent sales representatives, as well as through employee sales representatives who serve as territory representatives or key account executives for several of our largest customers. Our sales representatives are organized geographically and by brand and visit retail stores to communicate the features, styling and technology of our products. In addition to our wholesale business, we also sell products directly to consumers through our websites and retail stores. Our brands are generally advertised and promoted through a variety of consumer media campaigns. We benefit from editorial coverage in both consumer and trade publications. Each brand's dedicated marketing team works closely with targeted accounts to maximize advertising and promotional effectiveness.

Our sales force is generally separated by brand, as each brand generally has certain specialty consumers; however, there is overlap between the sales teams and customers. We have aligned our brands' sales forces to position them for the future of the brands. Each brand's respective sales manager recruits and manages their network of sales representatives and coordinates sales to national accounts. We believe this approach for the US market maximizes the selling efforts to our national retail accounts on a cost-effective basis.

We distribute products sold in the US through our distribution centers in Ventura and Camarillo, California. Our distribution centers feature a warehouse management system that enables us to efficiently pick and pack products for direct shipment to customers. For certain customers requiring special handling, each shipment is pre-labeled and packed to the retailer's specifications, enabling the retailer to easily unpack our product and immediately display it on the sales floor. All incoming and outgoing shipments must meet our quality inspection process.

Internationally, we distribute our products through independent distributors and retailers in a vast number of countries, including countries throughout Europe, Asia Pacific, Canada, and Latin America, among others. In addition, as we do in the US, we sell products directly to international consumers through our websites and our retail stores, including retail stores with our joint venture partner in China. We utilize a third-party logistics company in the United Kingdom (UK) for the distribution of inventory to our UK retail stores. In Japan, we work with a trading company for importation and use a third-party logistics company for distribution to our wholesale customers and to our retail store. We operate a distribution center in the Netherlands for the distribution of Teva products in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg (Benelux) and France. Our principal customers include specialty retailers, selected department stores, outdoor retailers, sporting goods retailers, shoe stores, and online retailers. In 2010, we continued to assume the distribution rights from certain international distributors and sell directly to retailers in those regions, and we plan to continue distributor conversions in the future.

Our five largest customers accounted for approximately 28.9% of our net sales for 2010, compared to 30.0% for 2009. One customer, Nordstrom, accounted for greater than 10% of our consolidated net sales in 2010 and 2009, with the majority of those being related to our UGG segment.

Table of Contents

UGG. We sell our UGG footwear and accessories primarily through high-end department stores such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale's, as well as independent specialty retailers such as Journey's, David Z. and internet customers such as Zappos.com. We believe these retailers support the luxury positioning of our brand and are the destination shopping choice for the consumer who seeks out the fashion and functional elements of our UGG products.

Teva. We sell our Teva footwear primarily through specialty outdoor and sporting goods retailers such as REI, L.L. Bean, Dick's Sporting Goods and The Sports Authority as well as on-line retailers such as Zappos.com. We believe these retail channels are the first choice for athletes, outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers seeking technical and performance-oriented outdoor footwear. Furthermore, we believe that retailers who appreciate and can fully market the technical attributes of our performance products to the consumer best sell our Teva footwear.

Other brands. Our other brands are sold throughout the world primarily at better department stores, outdoor specialty accounts, independent specialty retailers, and with online retailers that support our brand ideals of comfort, style and quality. We also sell our Simple brand through health and wellness retailers that target consumers seeking fashionable, youthful, functional, and sustainable footwear. Key accounts of our other brands include Nordstrom, Dillard's, Hanigs, REI and Zappos.com.

eCommerce. Our eCommerce business enables us to interact and reinforce our relationships with the consumer. We operate our eCommerce business primarily through uggaustralia.com, Teva.com, Tsubo.com, Ahnu.com, and SimpleShoes.com websites. Our websites support the brands' marketing goals and also drive offline sales by providing information to consumers about the brands' products and where to find retailers that carry our brands. We have expanded our international capabilities by developing sites to service international markets. These sites are translated into the local language, provide product through local distribution centers and price the products in the consumers' local currency. In 2010, we significantly upgraded our eCommerce platform to support our international and domestic sites and opened and operated an international call center to accommodate these international website sales. Our eCommerce business has offices in Flagstaff, Arizona and Richmond, England. Order fulfillment is performed by our distribution centers in California and the UK in order to reduce the cost of order fulfillment, minimize out of stock positions and further leverage our distribution centers' operations. Products sold through our eCommerce business are sold at prices which approximate retail prices, enabling us to capture the full retail margin on each direct to consumer transaction.

Retail Stores. Our retail store business allows us to directly reach our customers and meet the growing demand for our products. In addition, our UGG Australia concept stores allow us to showcase the entire lines for spring and fall; whereas, most retailers do not carry our full line. In 2010, we opened six stores in the US and three internationally. As of December 31, 2010, we had a total of 18 UGG Australia concept stores and nine retail outlet stores worldwide. Products sold through our concept stores are sold at prices which approximate department store prices, enabling us to capture the full retail margin on each direct to consumer transaction. The outlet stores sell some of our discontinued styles from the previous season, plus products made specifically for the outlet stores. During 2011, we plan to open additional retail stores in the US and significantly expand our retail store business internationally.

Product Design and Development

The design and product development staff for each of our brands creates new innovative footwear products that combine our standards of high quality, comfort and functionality. The design function for all of our brands is performed by a combination of our internal design and development staff plus outside freelance designers. By utilizing outside designers, we believe we are able to review a variety of different design perspectives on a cost-efficient basis and anticipate color and style trends more quickly. Refer to Note 1 to our accompanying consolidated financial statements for a discussion of our research and development costs for the last three years.

Table of Contents

In order to ensure quality, consistency and efficiency in our design and product development process, we continually evaluate the availability and cost of raw materials, the capabilities and capacity of our independent contract manufacturers and the target retail price of new models and lines. The design and development staff works closely with brand management to develop new styles of footwear and accessories for our various product lines. We develop detailed drawings and prototypes of our new products to aid in conceptualization and to ensure our contemplated new products meet the standards for innovation and performance that our consumers demand. Throughout the development process, we have multiple design and development reviews, and members of the design staff coordinate with our domestic and overseas product development, manufacturing and sourcing personnel. This ensures that we are addressing the needs of our consumers and are working toward a common goal of developing and producing a high quality product to be delivered on a timely basis.

Manufacturing

We do not manufacture our products; we outsource the production of our brand footwear primarily to independent manufacturers in China. During 2009, we began to diversify our manufacturing locations by outsourcing a limited amount of production to manufacturers in Vietnam, and in 2010 increased this production volume. We also outsource the production of a portion of our UGG footwear to an independent manufacturer in New Zealand. We require our independent contract manufacturers and designated suppliers to adopt our Factory Charter, which specifies that they comply with all local laws and regulations governing human rights, working conditions and environmental compliance before we are willing to conduct business with them. We also require our manufacturing partners to comply with our Ethical Supply Chain guidelines and Restricted Substances policy as a condition of doing business with our company. We require our licensees to demand the same from their contract factories and suppliers. We have no long-term contracts with our manufacturers. As we grow, we expect to continue to rely exclusively on independent manufacturers for our sourcing needs.

The production of footwear by our independent manufacturers is performed in accordance with our detailed specifications and is subject to our quality control standards. We maintain on-site supervisory offices in Pan Yu City, China and Macau that serve as local links to our independent manufacturers, enabling us to carefully monitor the production process from receipt of the design brief to production of interim and final samples and shipment of finished product. We believe this local presence provides greater predictability of material availability, product flow and adherence to final design specifications than we could otherwise achieve through an agency arrangement. To ensure the production of high quality products, the majority of the materials and components used in production of our products by these independent manufacturers are purchased from independent suppliers designated by us. Excluding sheepskin, we believe that substantially all the various raw materials and components used in the manufacture of our footwear, including rubber, leather and nylon webbing are generally available from multiple sources at competitive prices. We generally outsource our manufacturing requirements on the basis of individual purchase orders rather than maintaining long-term purchase commitments with our independent manufacturers.

At our direction, our manufacturers currently purchase the majority of the sheepskin used in our products from two tanneries in China, which source their skins from Australia, Europe and the US. We maintain constant communication with the tanneries to monitor the supply of sufficient high quality sheepskin available for our projected UGG brand production. To ensure adequate supplies for our manufacturers, we forecast our usage of top grade sheepskin in advance at a forward price. We believe current supplies are sufficient to meet our needs in the near future, but we continue to search for alternate suppliers in order to accommodate any unexpected future growth.

We have instituted pre-production, in-line, and post-production inspections to meet or exceed the high quality demanded by us and consumers of our products. Our quality assurance program includes our own employee on-site inspectors at our independent manufacturers who oversee the production process

Table of Contents

and perform quality assurance inspections. We also inspect our products upon arrival at our distribution centers.

Patents and Trademarks

We utilize trademarks on nearly all of our products and believe that having distinctive marks that are readily identifiable is an important factor in creating a market for our goods, in identifying the Company, and in distinguishing our goods from the goods of others. We currently hold trademark registrations for UGG, Teva, Simple, TSUBO, Ahnu and other marks in the US and in many other countries, including the countries of the European Union, Canada, China, Japan and Korea. We now hold more than 260 utility and design patents and registrations in the US and abroad and have filed for more than 100 new patents which are currently pending. These patents expire at various times, and patents issued for applications filed this year will generally have a remaining duration from now to 2025 for design patents and from now to 2031 for utility patents. We regard our proprietary rights as valuable assets and vigorously protect such rights against infringement by third parties.

Seasonality

Our business is seasonal, with the highest percentage of UGG brand net sales occurring in the third and fourth quarters and the highest percentage of Teva brand net sales occurring in the first and second quarters of each year. Thus, our net sales in the last half of the year have exceeded that for the first half of the year, and we expect this trend to continue. Our other brands do not have a significant seasonal impact on our business. Nonetheless, actual results could differ materially depending upon consumer preferences, availability of product, competition and our customers continuing to carry and promote our various product lines, among other risks and uncertainties. See Part I, Item 1A, "Risk Factors." For further discussion on our working capital and inventory management, see Item 7 of Part II, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Liquidity and Capital Resources."

Backlog

Historically, we have encouraged our customers to place, and we have received, a significant portion of orders as preseason orders, generally four to eight months prior to shipment date. We provide customers with price incentives, and in certain cases extended payment terms, to participate in such preseason programs to enable us to better plan our production schedule, inventory and shipping needs. Unfilled customer orders as of any date, which we refer to as backlog, represent orders scheduled to be shipped at a future date, which can be cancelled prior to shipment. The backlog as of a particular date is affected by a number of factors, including seasonality, manufacturing schedule and the timing of product shipments as well as variations in the quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year preseason incentive programs. The mix of future and immediate delivery orders can vary significantly from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year. As a result, comparisons of the backlog from period-to-period may be misleading.

At December 31, 2010, our backlog of orders from our wholesale customers and distributors was approximately $336,000 compared to approximately $245,000 at December 31, 2009. While all orders in the backlog are subject to cancellation by customers, we expect that the majority of such orders will be filled in 2011. We believe that backlog at year-end is an imprecise indicator of total revenue that may be achieved for the full year for several reasons. Backlog only relates to wholesale orders for the next season and current season fill-in orders and excludes potential sales in our eCommerce business and retail stores during the year. Backlog also is effected by the timing of customers' orders and product availability.

Competition

The casual, outdoor, athletic, fashion and formal footwear markets are highly competitive. Our competitors include athletic and footwear companies, branded apparel companies, and retailers with their own private labels. Although the footwear industry is fragmented to a certain degree, many of our competitors are larger and have substantially greater resources than us, including athletic shoe companies,

Table of Contents

several of which compete directly with some of our products. In addition, access to offshore manufacturing has made it easier for new companies to enter the markets in which we compete, further increasing competition in the footwear and accessory industries. Due to the popularity of our UGG products, we face increasing competition from a significant number of competitors selling imitation products.

Our footwear lines compete primarily on the basis of brand recognition and authenticity, product quality and design, functionality, performance, fashion appeal and price. Our ability to successfully compete depends on our ability to:

•shape and stimulate consumer tastes and preferences by offering innovative, attractive and exciting products;

•anticipate and respond to changing consumer demands in a timely manner;

•maintain brand authenticity;

•develop high quality products that appeal to consumers;

•suitably price our products;

•provide strong and effective marketing support; and

•ensure product availability.

We believe we are well positioned to compete in the footwear industry. We continually look to acquire or develop more footwear brands to complement our existing portfolio and grow our existing consumer base.

Employees

At December 31, 2010, we employed approximately 1,500 employees in the US, Europe and Asia, none of whom were represented by a union. This figure includes approximately 800 employees in our retail stores worldwide, which includes part-time and seasonal employees. The large increase in employees during the year was primarily related to increased selling, general and administration headcount commensurate with our growth. We intend to increase our employee count further in 2011 primarily related to retail stores and our other expansion initiatives. We believe our relationships with our employees are good.

Financial Information about Segments and Geographic Areas

Our five reportable business segments include the strategic business units responsible for the worldwide operations of our brands' (UGG, Teva and other brands) wholesale divisions, as well as our eCommerce and retail store businesses. The majority of our sales and long-lived assets are in the US. Refer to Note 9 to our accompanying consolidated financial statements for further discussion of our business segment data. Refer to Item 1A of this Part I for a discussion of the risks attendant to our foreign operations.

Compliance with federal, state and local environmental regulations has not had, nor is it expected to have, any material effect on our capital expenditures, earnings or competitive position based on information and circumstances known to us at this time.

Available Information

Our internet address is www.deckers.com. We post links to our website to the following filings as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, Proxy Statements, and any amendment to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All such filings are available through our website free of charge. Our filings may also be read and copied at the SEC's Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549. Information on the operation of the Public Reference Room may be obtained by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC also maintains an internet site at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.

Table of Contents