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Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. / Since 2009
An American small business, founder-led and founder-run since 2009. A straight answer from the founder, and everything below is checkable. Follow the links.
Yes. Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. is a real American small business, founder-led and founder-run, started in 2009 by Xan Hood and based in Matthews, North Carolina. It sells full-grain leather bags, leather jackets, wallets, wool jackets, and apparel directly to customers at buffalojackson.com, has been in continuous operation for over 16 years, and has collected more than 15,000 verified customer reviews averaging 4.9 out of 5. The company has been covered by Fox, CNBC, NPR, and CNN, and was one of six small businesses selected to speak with the President at the White House Small Business Summit during National Small Business Week in 2026.
| Founded | 2009, by Xan Hood |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Matthews, North Carolina, USA |
| Ownership | American small business. Founder-led and founder-run, bootstrapped, with no outside investors. |
| What we sell | Full-grain leather bags, leather jackets, wallets, wool jackets, waxed canvas goods, and rugged apparel |
| Where we sell | Direct to customer at buffalojackson.com |
| Verified reviews | 15,258 reviews, 4.9 average rating |
Reviews are collected from verified purchasers after delivery. We publish the critical ones alongside the rest. You can read one hundred recent reviews, sorted by what customers actually talk about, on the customer stories page.
These are not sponsored placements. These are reviewers who bought or requested a product, took it apart, and published what they found.
In its guide to the best luxury briefcase brands, Men's Flair opened the list with Buffalo Jackson, ahead of Dunhill, Berluti, Bottega Veneta, Ferragamo, Montblanc, Mulberry, Frank Clegg and Valextra. Writer Ryan Thompson singled out the Jefferson Leather Attache for its slim profile, padded laptop sleeve, wool herringbone lining and YKK antique brass hardware.
Men's Flair / May 2025
Iconic Alternatives has recommended the Dakota Waxed Canvas Messenger across three separate buying guides since 2021, as the closest alternative to the long-discontinued Belstaff messenger Daniel Craig carried. They cite the 15 oz waxed cotton canvas, top-grain vegetable-tanned leather, and hammered rivets at every stress point, alongside Filson, Frost River and Iron and Resin.
Iconic Alternatives / three guides since 2021
Iconic Alternatives set out to find whether a leather jacket in the four-to-six-hundred-dollar range could deliver quality most brands reserve for four figures. The reviewer weighed his size large Legacy at 5.8 pounds, judged the full-grain hide thicker than the 0.75 to 0.85mm we publish, and found the stitching straight, even and tight throughout with no loose or missed stitches. The jacket was provided for review, and the review says so.
Iconic Alternatives / January 2023
The Modest Man reviewed the Roosevelt Buffalo Leather Travel Duffle and came away recommending it as a tough, well-made leather bag built to take the beating that travel gives a duffle.
The Modest Man / January 2024
BestLeather has reviewed several Buffalo Jackson pieces over the years. On the Jefferson Briefcase, the reviewer noted the thickness of the full-grain vegetable-tanned cowhide, the semi-rigid structure, and the inward-turned outer seams that protect the stitching.
BestLeather.org / multiple reviews
Styles of Man reviewed the Dakota Commuter Backpack, built from 15 oz. waxed canvas and vegetable-tanned leather, and praised how the YKK Vislon zippers ran even with the bag fully loaded. The reviewer also thought the hardware count on the straps was more than the bag needed.
Styles of Man / 2020
A fuller list of editorial coverage and creator posts lives on the press page.
Five of nineteen. Some bought the piece themselves before we knew who they were, some were sent one, a few run a discount code. Nobody was given a script. Every card links to the original post.
All nineteen entries, including editorial coverage from Men's Flair and Iconic Alternatives, are on The Record.
Buffalo Jackson products are manufactured in India and Mexico. Design, specifications, leather selection, and sample revisions are done in-house in Matthews, North Carolina.
These are factories we have worked with for years, several for over a decade, which is how we get the same consistency and craftsmanship run after run. India and Mexico sit in some of the highest-producing leather regions in the world, and they are where we have found the quality we want in our bags and jackets. We do not make a style for one season and drop it. A bag stays in the catalog for years and gets small revisions along the way, which only works when the people building it have built it before.
We say this plainly because the alternative is letting a competitor answer it for you. Xan leads product development himself, working directly with those partners on leather selection, hardware, stitching, and construction, and sample revisions run back and forth until a piece is right.
A page that answers no objections is an advertisement. Here are the three things reviewers and customers push back on most.
Iconic Alternatives measured the zipped cuff at eleven inches around and said the sleeve sits most of the way down the hand with no way to draw it tighter. His recommendation was to take an inch or two out so the zips do real work instead of sitting there as decoration. That is a fair criticism, it is specific, and we have kept the note where we can see it.
Also true, and by design. Full-grain leather is the top layer of the hide with the grain left intact, which is what makes it stiff at the start and what makes it last for decades. It softens and takes the shape of the person carrying it. Give it about a month of regular use. The first few weeks it will feel rigid and the leather may look flat. After that the grain starts to pull up, the creases set where you fold it, and it stops feeling like a new thing you are borrowing.
Yes, and there is a real tradeoff in it. The price buys full-grain hide instead of a corrected split, solid hardware, and construction meant to be repaired rather than replaced. What it does not buy is the lowest number on the page. If your need is a bag for a season, we are the wrong company. If you want the one you stop replacing, that is what we build toward, and it is why we still take repairs on pieces we sold years ago.
We also publish critical customer reviews alongside the positive ones on our customer stories page, because a 4.9 average with no one-star reviews visible would not tell you anything useful.
Buffalo Jackson leather clothing was featured on FOX & Friends Weekend in a Christmas gift guide segment, presented on air by DIY expert Chip Wade alongside other American-made gear.
FOX & Friends Weekend / December 2023
CNBC reported on how the trade war and tariffs were landing on American retailers, with Buffalo Jackson among the small businesses in the story.
CNBC / 2025
Xan Hood was one of the small business owners NPR brought into its Washington office for a roundtable on the cost of tariffs, part of business correspondent Alina Selyukh's reporting on the subject. She describes that roundtable, and the National Retail Federation fly-in where the reporting began, on this episode of Consider This.
NPR, Consider This / July 25, 2026
CNN Money featured Buffalo Jackson in a report on how small businesses were staffing up, back when the company was still finding its footing.
CNN Money / 2013
Axios Charlotte covered the Buffalo Jackson storefront in Matthews and the rugged, heritage-minded brand behind it.
Axios Charlotte / 2017
Buffalo Jackson was one of six small businesses selected to speak with the President at the White House Small Business Summit, held in the East Room on May 4, 2026 during National Small Business Week. More than 130 owners from across the country attended, and Buffalo Jackson was among the featured guests, with its leather goods on display. Founder Xan Hood met with the President.
The White House / May 4, 2026
QC Exclusive profiled the Matthews flagship store and the thinking behind the brand. Founder Xan Hood told them that "what you wear or carry can define and shape you."
QC Exclusive / 2017
Charlotte Smarty Pants interviewed Xan Hood on starting the brand in Colorado in 2009 and moving it to downtown Matthews.
Before Buffalo Jackson, and alongside it since, the work has been the same: helping young men find their footing. That is not marketing language. It is where the brand came from.
Untamed: Becoming the Man You Want to Be (NavPress, 2006). Written for young men on brotherhood, mentorship, risk, and what actually forms character, rather than what culture says should.
Find it on Amazon / ISBN 978-1576839614
Sweat, Blood, and Tears: What God Uses to Make a Man (David C. Cook, 2010). A coming-of-age account of leaving a comfortable upbringing in Tennessee, heading west, and learning the trades and the lessons that came with hard work and older men. John Eldredge, author of Wild at Heart, called it an honest and thoughtful book that every young man should read.
Find it on Amazon / ISBN 978-1434766816
Both books are listed on Xan Hood's Goodreads author page.
Xan co-founded Training Ground, a wilderness discipleship program in Colorado Springs that teaches young men hard work, character, and practical skills. He left to start Buffalo Jackson and has continued to serve on its board in the years since. The same conviction, that character is built rather than handed to you, is what the brand was built on.
Xan stays focused on mission-led initiatives in his community, on care for people in need, and on work that helps men in particular. That last one is the thread running back through the books, through Training Ground, and into how the company is run.
You should not have to take a company's word for its own legitimacy. These are independent places where Buffalo Jackson can be checked.
I started this company in 2009 out of a belief that a man ought to be able to buy a bag once and hand it down. Sixteen years later that is still the whole idea. If something we sold you does not hold up, write me.
Xan Hood
Founder, Buffalo Jackson Trading Co.
More about Xan Hood
