Specialty Sports’ President On Pre Season Snowboard Sales

mike lewis

• September 23 2009
• 720 views
• add a comment

In Colorado, Specialty Sports Venture (SSV) reigns over the winter retail realm. With 140 stores operating under 40 brand names throughout the state, SSV definitely has its pulse on the state of shred gear sales. We caught up with President Ken Gart recently to find out how the company’s annual Ski Rex pre-season sale went and get a look in his crystal ball for this winter.

How did Ski Rex go on the snowboard front as far as sales?

Ken Gart

Ken Gart: As a prelude, because we’re partners with a public company, and they’re totally paranoid about any disclosure of untrue information, I’ll give you some general trends, but I have to be pretty vague. Generally, we’re pleased. Some stores were up, and some stores were down. The snowboard category is definitely more of a challenge than ski. Some of our earlier sales saw some big decreases in snowboard that we didn’t see in ski.

Are you talking last year?
No, I’m talking within the last thirty days. We did a sale in Telluride before Ski Rex. We did a sale in Crested Butte before Ski Rex, so leading up to Labor Day, and snowboard was way down. Ski Rex wasn’t that bad, it was close, but it was still off significantly more than alpine, which I think, I actually talked to the Burton guys, and I think that there’s this whole culture that’s morphing into twin tips and big mountain, a lot of different kind of skis for the younger demographic, and not just snowboarding. They might still be buying snowboard clothing, and they might still be snowboarding, but they’re also buying twin tip [skis]. There’s a cultural shift going on.

Were ski sales up this year?
I would say generally flat, maybe a little bit down.

Are you seeing much sales for 2010 gear, or is it mainly carryover?
2010 was better than we expected particularly on the ski front again. Sees like the snowboard customer is a little more value oriented. We actually had some increases in 2010 product at Ski Rex.

Hungry riders turned out en masse for Labor Day's Ski Rex sale at Colorado Ski & Golf in Aurora, Colorado.

What brands stood out on the snowboard front?
Burton is our number one supplier by far. The other hot brand, that was also hot last year, is Mervin, it’s still pretty good, and Ride is doing pretty well too.

Did you lower prices for 2010 snowboards?
We do for Ski Rex, yes.

How much?
It’s probably in the five to fifteen percent range below our norm. We always do that.

What’s your outlook on the snowboard front for this season in general?
I think general skier days for Colorado residents, I’m pretty confident they’re going to be good with the pass sales and the patterns last year. The destination skier and snowboarder is much more uncertain. Snow would help. The stability of the stock market has been good. If there’s stability out there, I think we’ll have a pretty good year.