BRA’s Melissa Clary On Skate Industry Surf Expo Petition

mike lewis

• October 06 2009
• 239 views
• 1 comment

The Board Retailers Association (BRA) distributed an electronic petition yesterday to core skate retailers to encourage skateboard manufacturers to attend the January Surf Expo trade show in Orlando. The petition has already received 49 signatures and comes at a tumultuous time for action-sports trade shows, especially in the skate world. Smaller, regional shows like The Moat Show and Crossroads have been springing up as attendance by skate brands has dropped off significantly at the larger venues, especially at the August Surf Expo.

BRA says that the petition was spawned by East Coast retailers’ wishes to improve relationships with manufacturers, and to increase the level of support that brands offer retailers. Although most East Coast sales go through wholesale distributors, BRA and its members say that the connection between brands and retailers is essential for the industry to continue to thrive and progress on the shoulders of core shops. We caught up with BRA Executive Director Melissa Clary to find out more on the background of the petition and how she sees this playing out.

Can you give me some background on how you decided to launch this petition?

Melissa Clary

The idea for the petition came from an IASC/BRA round table at Surf Expo in August. Some of the skate shops in attendance at the show had expressed dissatisfaction with the manufacturer presence on the skate side.

It has been declining pretty significantly.
It has, it was like zilch at the August show. The petition is an opportunity for retailers to come together and have a united voice and ask the skate companies to continue to support their shops by coming out to the East Coast. The face time is just so important – having that connect and that opportunity to go out to dinner and synergize on ideas and hype up the vibe of the industry. We understand that there are still issues with show dates and expenses related to attending the trade shows, and we definitely understand the distribution model on the East Coast with most of the shops buying from wholesale distributors like Eastern, but we still feel that it’s extremely important for retailers to have that connect with the manufacturer as well.

There are already nearly 50 signatures – how was this distributed?
We have a tight list, but it still gets around and forwarded. All the anonymous people have to fill out all their information on the back end, and we’ll be able to purge it so it’s just core shops. The final petition will be given to both Surf Expo and IASC. Both of those have mentioned to us that they see it as a great extra encouragement for getting [skate manufacturers] back involved. John Bernards and some of the IASC guys were in the meeting out at Surf Expo and then we discussed it again at ASR.

Most people knew that [the petition] was coming out. It’s not meant to be adversarial or anything like that, but just to let them know, “Hey, we’re still out here. We still need the support. We still need the connect.”

What’s the feedback been like from IASC and manufacturers you’ve talked to?
I don’t know what the result of the petition is going to be, but I can tell you that when we discussed the issue at ASR, there was a lot of head nodding in the room. It seemed like their willingness to come back out [to Surf Expo] in January was a little stronger than it was in August when none of them came. You could tell from some of the retailers in the room that they were kind of frustrated with what had happened in August and that some of the manufacturers had probably had sideline conversations already. There was definitely some head nodding on behalf of the IASC board that they recognize that this is an issue and will be addressing that.

What’s your timeline for delivering this to manufacturers?
We’ll probably let it run for a week or two and then we’ll send it out to all the brand managers, the head guys at all the companies.

Do you have a goal for the number of signatures?
I don’t really. The association has never done anything exactly like this, [but] I’m extremely happy with the response so far.

Do you have anything similar in the works for ASR or surf manufacturers or do you see that as being relevant right now?
It’s not to say that we wouldn’t do it, but the need just hasn’t been as great at ASR, and the need just isn’t quite as great on the West Coast at all. A lot of the manufacturers out there are able to connect with the retailers whether it’s at a trade show or not. We’re really not trying to get too political as far as what show it has to be. I realize that we did ask them to come out to Surf Expo, but…the idea, really the crux of the petition is to get them out to the East Coast, which hasn’t been happening.

I’m sure budgets are the big argument.
Correct, but it’s hard for retailers to grasp the concept because they’re really busy, and have a really tight budget, and they’re leaving their store to see them and they’re not there. It’s definitely created a bit of, I would say, slight hostility, kind of sheer frustration on [retailers’] part. I think that some of those conversations have led to the petition idea. While this did come out from BRA, it’s totally retail driven.

Have you been working more closely with Surf Expo since [BRA Co-founder] Roy Turner went over there?
We’ve actually always had a partnership with both ASR and Surf Expo. Even before Roy was there, we had a really close relationship with the staff and we definitely have continued that since Roy left. I wouldn’t say we’re any closer to Surf Expo than we are to ASR.

Stay tuned to TransWorld Business as this plays out for feedback from retailers, manufacturers, Surf Expo, and the organizers of the skate specific regional shows.