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Northwest Regional Report

“It’s tough to stay open in a small town,” says Jon Tomashiro, owner of Extreme Boardshop in Grant’s Pass, Oregon. Tomashiro says smaller shops have come and gone, and the main competition comes from a mass-merchandise chain store across town. It hasn’t been easy-Tomashiro has had to work at two jobs just to keep his business alive. Things seem to be paying off, however, and he’s building capital with merchandise such as Burton, Lib Tech, Gnu, and Morrow. He views these companies, his excellent customer service, and extensive demos as key to his steady growth in sales.

Reuben Davis, owner of Low Down in Ashland, Oregon, says the increasing number of chain stores has all but forced the specialty retailer out of business. Price gouging took its toll on him when a chain moved into town and sold its entire stock of snowboard gear at wholesale. Now the chain’s prices are too high for the Ashland market, he says, but “you can only gouge too long before eating it.”

What sets Low Down apart from the chains is that it’s a family-run business anchored in the community. His television ads make it clear that store profits stay in the community-instead of being sent to another state like the chains. He also supported local riders by fighting to get a skatepark built in Ashland, and a local resort has included him in its development committee for future parks and lifts.

Things have changed a lot for Drew Hampton, manager of On Edge Snowboard Shop in Idaho Falls, Idaho. A big chain store in the mall, plus a couple of other shops have all moved into town-and carry many of the same brands found in On Edge. The shop features Burton, Lib Tech, Gnu, and Never Summer. Hampton is trying to compete with the use of promotions, excellent tune-ups, and rentals. The shop also sponsors a snowboard team, snowboard movies at a local theater, and a daily snow report on nearby resorts.

“The mall-style stores have had the biggest effect on local competition,” says Kyle Finn, owner of 35th Avenue Sales Limited, in Federal Way, Washington. While a few specialty stores have gone out of business in the area, the situation is fairly stable says Finn. “Big stores just take business because of their accessibility,” he says. He admits snowboard shops in malls are convenient for both parents and kids since they’re shopping in the mall already. Finn keeps the hardcore customers because he hires people who know what they’re doing and he carries brands not often found in the big stores. Part of his customer-service initiative includes always offering free labor-even if a board is bought somewhere else, Finn says his shop will mount bindings for free.

More shops equals more snowboarders and business for all says Candace Stime, owner of Extremely Board in Issaquah, Washington. According to Stime, smaller shops went out of business because they weren’t running it like a business. “Specialty matters,” says Stime. “Kids won’t go back to big stores that are in it to make a buck.” Customers will go into her store and ask if it’s rider-owned. That’s why Stime says she finds unique ways to show customers Extremely Board cares about the sport and its riders-whether it’s through the shop’s layaway program, consignments, or just spending time educating their customers.

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• December 01 1998 | 83 views

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Recall Woes Plague Step-ins

Burton and Emery go the distance to service customers.

Just days before the Thanksgiving holiday-traditionally one of the busiest retail sales times of the year-retailers, resorts, rental shops, and consumers received a bombshell announcement from binding manufacturer Emery. All SIS step-in 1998/1999 Adult snowboard bindings, which are sold under the Rossignol, Original Sin, and Emery trademarks, would have to undergo an immediate quality-control inspection.

The root of the problem was with the transmission bar on the bottom of the SIS binding-a part that was subcontracted out by Emery. On certain affected bindings, and in specific high-vibration conditions, misalignment of the transmission bar could result in the rider stepping out of the binding.

A month earlier, on October 30, the much-anticipated Burton SI system was also recalled when flaws in the automatic engagement system were discovered. This problem forced some riders to manually lift the engagement tabs to lock in, instead of having the tabs automatically engage when the rider stepped into the binding.

How big of a problem were these two recalls? Burton National Sales Manager Clark Gundlach declined to give an exact number of SI bindings recalled worldwide. However, industry estimates says this number is probably around 40,000 to 60,000 units-with one estimate as high as 100,000 units.

With the Emery recall, Pascal Joubert des Ouches, snowboard marketing manager for Rossignol, says 60,000 to 70,000 units were affected: 15,000 pairs for Rossignol U.S., 5,000 for Rossignol Canada, 5,000 for Original Sin, with the remainder from international Emery and Rossignol sales and from MLY’s U.S. distributorship of the Emery SIS system.

The total cost of the two recalls could easily exceed one-million dollars.

Both situations allowed the affected companies to show customers the lengths they would go to solve the problem as rapid-response plans were put into place.

Burton Calls ‘Em Back

With the Burton SI recall, retailers and consumers were instructed to second-day ship the bindings back to Burton’s Burlington, Vermont-based headquarters.

Vice President of Marketing Dave Schriber says the retro-fit could have been fixed in the field by retailers, but it was easier to have the bindings sent back immediately (before too many were sold) to get it taken care of.

“It is totally not a safety issue, it’s a convenience issue,” he says. “There are two orange indicators that tell you when you’re in. There is no possibility of a false positive. Sometimes you have to wiggle your foot to get it to engage, and sometimes-no matter how much you wiggle-there’s no way it’s going to engage so you’d have to reach down to engage it. To us, that’s not a step-in. But we’ve got the fix and it’ll be lightning quick.”

There was no good time to catch the problem, but sources at Burton say only about 35 percent of the step-ins had been shipped before the recall. “It’s still early enough in the season when not a lot of people are out riding yet,” Schriber adds.

Burton promised retailers and consumers that the bindings would be repaired and shipped back by second-day air within five days of their receipt in Vermont. Although this goal was not met in some instances, most retailers generally gave Burton high marks for how it handled the situation.

Repaired Burton SI bindings feature a hologram sticker on the highback.

The Worst Possible Time

The SIS 1998/1999 adult snowboard bindings recall couldn’t have happened at a worse time-for a number of reasons. The Thanksgiving weekend represents the launch of both the busy shopping and snowboarding season, and most product had already shipped.

Rossignol, MLY, and Emery also placed a lot of emphasis on the rental market when it came to the SIS binding, and had negotiated some SIS-exclusive rental deals with some resort.

If these rental shops didn’t have product, each customer turned away would represent a lost rental sale the SIS-exclusive shops could’ve billed the brands for-which could’ve easily climbed into the tens of thousands of dollars.

“We made it by the skin of our teeth,” says Marc Bujold, the U.S. snowboard division manager for Rossignol, referring to keeping these important customers open through Thanksgiving with product to rent. Bujold says the retrofit was proceeding on schedule and that 75 percent of the bindings had been fixed by the first week of December. “We haven’t received any negative fallout,” he says, “but we really had to jump through hoops to get it done.”

Indeed, Bujold says that when it came right down to it, Rossignol spent the money necessary to minimize the impact of the recall.

“We hired a full-time employee to handle the 1-800 number, we flew in fourteen of our Rossignol reps so they could see and understand the problem, we worked two shifts on the Thanksgiving weekend turning screws, we made more than 100 counter-to-counter courier drops to get the needed equipment to reps so they could drive to our rental accounts and keep them open.”

Bujold says these reps were given carte blanche to use the necessary resources to make the repairs as quickly as possible. “I told one rep, ‘You need five guys to make repairs to the Heavenly Valley rental operation? Hire ‘em!’” says Bujold.

And who will be picking up the tab for these costs? According to Bujold, a separate budget was formed to keep track of expenses and when the recall is over, Emery will receive an invoice for this amount, which Emery’s insurance will ultimately pay. This will also be the case at MLY, according to Sales and Marketing Manager Mark Miller, who says he was nearly finished with his company’s 2,000 retrofits on December 1.

“We aren’t going out and spending money like crazy to f*** Emery,” says Bujold. “We’re doing this to service our customers and to minimize the impact it has on their business.”

Since Rossignol owns 30 percent of Emery, the recall renewed speculation that Rossi would endeavor to purchase the remainder of the company from Owner Robert Emery. Indeed, Joubert indicated in late November that this purchase might be imminent. How the recall will affect the asking price is open for speculation-but a fire sale could be in the cards.

-Sean O’Brien and Robyn Hakes

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• December 01 1998 | 106 views

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In Through The In Door: Popular promotions used by snowboard retailers

“The business of America is business,” said Calvin Coolidge, and who are we to argue? The business of a snowboard retailer is business too, attracting more and more of it to your store in ways that are cool, fun, and service all involved: the customer first, but also the manufacturers, suppliers, local mountains, store employees, and the sport and industry in general.

SNOWboarding Business wanted to find out if retailers had any devious promotional strategies for luring customers through their doors. Promotions ranged from the simple to the gargantuan. In between we found lots of ideas for snowboard retailers wanting to attract some attention and some dollars to their store.

The Swap Sale

Of all the promotions we found, the swap sale was one of the most popular. At O’Neill Surf Shop in Santa Cruz, California, Andrew Walford says swap sales work well for his shop. “Our swap is the weekend before Thanksgiving,” he says. “People bring in their old snowboards, boots, or other gear, and put them on consignment in the shop parking lot. If it sells we cut a check for them, or they can spend the money on in-house product. We’re providing them a service and they’re turning around and supporting the store.”

In Southern California, Hansen’s Boardroom employs the same strategy-although they take a little off the top. “We have a thing in October called the ski swap,” says Retail Sales Associate Kevin Cooper. “People bring their used ski and snowboard gear and we put our own tags on it. If they sell it we keep fifteen percent and they get the rest. We always put last year’s stuff out at a discount, which is a good way to get rid of extra inventory. Our ski swap attracts hundreds of people. They’re out looking at all the old stuff, but inside we have all the new stuff and a lot of times people just decide they want what’s current, so they’ll come in and buy. But it’s the ski swap that attracts them. It works.”

The Consumer Expo

A step up from the swap sale is the consumer expo. “We invite various manufacturers to come and set up ten-foot by ten-foot booths in front of our store,” says Anthony Scaturro of EZ Rider in Burlington, Massachusetts. “It’s set up like a buyer’s trade show, but geared toward consumer product. Along with the booths we have a barbecue, live bands, and DJs playing music all day long. We set up a street skateboarding course and the Waterville Valley Ski Resort brings down a halfpipe.”

The expo attracts approximately 2,500 people over two days. “The reps talk all day about their construction techniques and all the unique qualities of their product. The consumers get their heads filled with all the different materials, constructions, and styles of riding.”

When those people sort out all the information and decide to buy, they usually come back to EZ Rider. “It’s very successful and worth it all the way around,” says Scaturro. “People have a good time and learn a lot. They ask about it all year.”

Cal’s Pharmacy likes to be different, according to a store employee called Bird, and that distinctiveness extends to participating in a local Portland consumer expo.

“We do the show right before the holidays for the new season,” Bird says. “One year we built a Japanese garden with a little pond and a bridge with snowboards inside. Last year we did a big Russian Constructivism thing. It was a big building in the middle of the show. We had all our products on display inside, and it attracted a lot of attention to our store. We just try to be a little different, but I think people appreciate that.”

Thinking Big

Princeton Ski Shop services the metropolitan New York area, so it has to think big. “We rent Giants Stadium the second week in November and have a huge ski and snowboard sale,” says Princeton Owner Jack Meyers. “We buy discontinued boards from manufacturers at reduced rates and sell them at ridiculous prices. The manufacturers send reps and we bring in celebrities from time to time. We have refreshments and it’s a pretty big sale.”

Princeton rents the Giants Club, which is an indoor space of about 50,000 square feet. Meyers estimates last year’s attendance at about 45,000 people. “We do it Monday through Saturday. We’d go into Sunday, too, but New Jersey still has Blue Laws, so we can’t be open on Sunday.” Meyers wouldn’t say how much money the sale raises, other than that it was, “a lot.”

The Easter Board Hunt

The Easter Board Hunt is the most unusual promotion we found, and one of the coolest. It is a mature version of the traditional Easter egg hunt. Marc Loebe, the owner of Boardroom of Jackson Hole, came up with the idea last winter, and has been congratulating himself for it ever since.

Last Easter, Loebe hid a Lib Tech Doughboy model snowboard in one of the patrol shacks on the mountain at Jackson Hole. He then left a series of seven clues scattered all over the mountain, one clue leading to the next, eventually leading to the hidden board.

“We had about 50 people of all ages and sexes involved in this thing, and I wanted to make it fair,” says Loebe. “You had to ride at least one lift for every clue, and I made people go all over the mountain, and it’s a big mountain. There was a bit of luck and digging involved.”

Loebe adds that he didn’t feel any immediate effect on his business after the East Board Hunt, but that it created goodwill. “People had a lot of fun hunting down that board,” he says, “and I’ve been asked about it all year. I imagine next year’s hunt will be much larger.”

A Strong Team

George Johnston, general manager at Milo Sport in Salt Lake City, Utah, uses the straight forward technique. “I guess we’re kind of boring,” he says. “We do direct mail off our mailing list to people who have purchased from us before. We do a video premiere at the beginning of the season at the University of Utah,” he says

Johnston says that Milo’s strongest promotional asset is having a strong team. “As far as shop teams go we have one of the strongest in the country-J.P. Walker, Jeremy Jones, Jason Murphy, Brandon Ruff, Timmy Osler, Tanino Copene, Mikey Leblanc,” he continues. “These guys display Milo everywhere they go, and that creates word of mouth. We think there’s no better advertising than word of mouth.”

The Halloween Bash And The Thanksgiving Turkey

Jay Erickson of Alternative Bike and Board in Minneapolis, Minnesota believes sales are bad for the industry, so his store puts on a couple of fun, no-pressure bashes around the holidays to attract people and get them looking at new product.

“We have a newsletter called Whiteout that’s mailed to about 3,000 snowboarders in Minnesota and Wisconsin,” he says. “Whiteout promotes all the different things we do in our shop. Every year we have a Halloween bash. We don’t put any new product on sale. Only last year’s stuff is discounted. They’re more like parties-we offer free pop and candy.”

For the Halloween bash Erickson brings in a 720 skateboard arcade game. “It’s a relic from the 80s that uses a joystick and a button, but people really get into it, and we have competitions,” says Erickson. “We also put a trampoline out back and people compete with that. We do snowboard tune-ups while you wait and we hand out antenna balls and stickers.”

Shop-Sponsored Snowboard Trips

Pro Sports New York is a specialty skate, snow, surf, and wakeboard shop in the heart of New York City. Space is very tight and they’ve found the best way to promote the store and snowboarding is to provide one-day snowboard trips to the local mountains. “Once a season we’ll organize trips to the U.S. Open in Vermont at Stratton Mountain,” says store employee Daniel Benzaken. “But in the winter we provide one-day trips to Hunter Mountain in the Catskills, which is about a two-and-a- half hour bus ride from the city.”

PSNY charges 55 dollars for the Saturday trips, and that includes the bus ride, breakfast, and a lift ticket. “We use those big, luxury buses, which are comfortable, have bathrooms, and video screens. On the way up we’ll show snowboard videos and maybe raffle a snowboard or some other gear. If people need a lesson they can get that and a limited-access lift ticket for the same 55 dollars.”

Benzaken says the trips are very popular in New York City and are generally full through the winter. Other specials PSNY offers are 25-dollar snowboard rentals. Customers can apply three of those rentals toward the purchase of new equipment for a 75-dollar discount. PSNY also provides lifetime service for all the equipment they sell.

Video Premieres

A video premiere is an inexpensive and fun way to get the blood pumping at the start of the season.

Greg Groves, owner of The New Ground in Edmonton, Alberta likes to host video premieres. “We rented a big movie theater in Edmonton and had about 200 people there,” he says. “Not crazy but a good stoke session none the less.

“Two seasons ago we showed Subject: Haakonsen, TB6, Simple Pleasures, and Steak and Lobster,” he continues. “We made it cheap, like four dollars, because it was just a promotion. We gave away snowboards and product and got everyone amped.”

Races

Promoting a race or a freestyle event at a local mountain is a good way of putting the finish line at the door of your store. Boardsports of Eugene, Oregon does a variety of promotions: local advertising, a snow phone, and a snow update on the local radio station. Boardsports also likes to promote races on the local mountain, according to Rain Couture. “We’ve done everything from slalom to freestyle for people from five years old to 50. We did a couple GS events last winter, but people seem to like the freestyle events more.”

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• November 01 1998 | 133 views

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Crystal Mountain Announces Major Growth Plan

With 1,000 acres of backcountry terrain accessible only by hiking or long traverses, Crystal Mountain, located just to the east of Mt. Rainier in Washington state, has a reputation of being a serious snowboarder’s mountain. Once a small, slow-growth, privately held ski club, Crystal’s 1997 purchase by Boyne Inc. has put the mountain on the fast-track for major growth.

SNOWboarding Business visited the mountain this spring and met with Marketing Director Kelly Graham to get a first-hand view of the master development plan.

Some of the improvements are already underway: there’s a spruced-up base lodge and a new six-person, high-speed detachable chairlift has been installed. During our visit, the slow Midway Shuttle was being pulled out and replaced with another six-person, high-speed detachable chairlift-dubbed the Chinook Express.

However, most of the improvements are still a ways away. The master development plan calls for increasing the number of lifts from nine to seventeen-including a 100-passenger tram to the top of Silver Queen mountain. This will increase the amount of lift-serviced terrain by 1,000 acres. The plan also calls for limited development in the base area with the construction of a 95-room hotel, conference facility, improved employee housing, and remote base lodge.

There are also plans to install a horizontal lift that will link the bottom parking lot and North Backcountry trail terminus with the main lodge-saving visitors from the current slog.

For the summer of 1999, Crystal plans to spend a million dollars on a lighting system for night riding that will illuminate the terrain serviced by Forest Queen Express and the Chinook Express. A new 400-seat restaurant will also be built in Campbell basin.

“Because we’re on Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest land, we’re never going to become a huge overnight destination resort like Vail,” says Graham. “Everything we do, down to the smallest improvement, needs to go through a rigorous environmental impact review process. We’re in close cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service.”

In fact, this spring Crystal Mountain was awarded the Silver Eagle Award For Excellence In Water Conservation for its preservation of Silver Creek, a fish-bearing stream bordering Crystal Mountain’s gravel parking lots. The awards are presented annually by The Skiing Company.

A draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is expected to be issued in January 1999, and a final EIS seven months later. Barring any unforeseen delays in the process, Washington locals can expect to be zooming up for fresh powder in tram comfort during the winter of 2000. “With 2,300 acres, we will be one of the largest and best-served resorts in the Northwest,” concludes Graham.

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• October 01 1998 | 167 views

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The Fall Line

Telluride Has Award-Winning Season

The Telluride Ski & Golf Company (Telski) hit a record number of rider days, posting a total of 375,027 visits for the 1997/98 season, a 22-percent increase over the 1996/97 season total, the company’s former record.

Colorado Ski Country USA (CSCUSA) presented ski instructor of the year and ski patroller of the year honors to two Telluride employees: Ski and Snowboard School Instructor Dave Schuiling and Telluride Ski Patrol’s Jill Curtis.

Telluride was also recognized for design innovations. Mountain Sports & Living (formerly Snow Country Magazine) presented the resort with the magazine’s 1998 Design Award for Resort Access Innovation for its gondola and chondola systems. The award recognizes the resort for solving access challenges through creative design and implementation.

Vail Resorts Invests 59-Million Dollars In Resort Improvements

Vail Resorts, Inc. announces plans to invest approximately 59-million dollars for the upcoming winter season in resort improvements for its Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Beaver Creek mountain resorts. The capital improvements are part of the company’s growth strategy to enhance its core operations and related amenities.

Big Sky Gets Even Bigger

Big Sky Ski and Summer Resort is scheduled for major capital improvements in the near future. The first stage is the addition of the 45-million-dollar Summit Hotel and Condominium establishment. The resort has not seen a development project this large since its inception in 1974. The facility is scheduled for completion by the year 2001.

Intrawest Expands Into Europe

Intrawest, one of the largest resort holding companies in the United States, recently expanded into the European market. Teaming up with Compagnie des Alpes (CDA), Intrawest has added eleven resorts in France and one in Italy to its collection. Details of the arrangement have yet to be disclosed, but cross-marketing between the two continents is highly likely.

Intrawest also announced Vernon Valley will sport a new name this season as well as many improvements. Mountain Creek, as the resort will now be called, will receive 50-million dollars’ worth of improvements over the next three years. This past summer, twenty-million was spent on replacing fifteen old lifts with seven new ones, including an eight-passenger gondola. In addition, 715 new snowmaking guns were added. The resort’s waterpark received five-million dollars’ worth of improvements.

Other Intrawest news, the company has completed its acquisition of Sandestin Resorts, Inc., owner and operator of the largest resort and residential community in northwest Florida for 130-million dollars. Sandestin includes 700 rental units, 63 holes of golf, a tennis center, conference facilities, and a 37,000-square-foot resort retail market, all on the 2,400-acre property. Future real estate includes approximately 2,300 planned residential units.

Mambosok Selected For Mammoth Mountain Snowboard Instructors

Mammoth Mountain Resort has purchased 300 pieces from the 1998/99 Mambosok outerwear collection to be worn by snowboard instructors. The resort will also carry Mambosok outerwear in its retail shops at Canyon Lodge and the Main Lodge.

Killington Invests Ten-Million Dollars In Improvements

For the 1998/99 season, Killington, Vermont has invested ten-million dollars, bringing it’s renovation total to 60-million over three years. The goal of the capital outlay this season was to support efforts at growing the sports of skiing and snowboarding through vastly restructured guest services and learning systems including a new learn-to-ski and-snowboard center. Additional improvements include two quad chairs, 250 new tower snowguns, and a new parking lot.

Sugarloaf Invests 1.6-Million Dollars For Upcoming Season

More than nine-million dollars has been spent at Sugarloaf/USA resort, the latest 1.6-million invested for the 1998/99 season. Changes include increased snowmaking by twenty percent; purchase of four new Bombardier groomers bringing the fleet to twelve; replacement of the Pipe Dragon with the Half-Pipe Grinder; and additional improvements to the Sugarloaf/USA shuttle fleet, health club, and village.

Jackson Hole Continues Improvements

Before the 1998/99 season opens, the resort will complete eleven-million dollars’ worth of improvements, including increased snowmaking capacity, the Cody House with the state licensed Kids’ Ranch, a kids’ slope with a moving-carpet ski lift, and a centrally located ice skating rink in the winter and pond in the summer.

Park City Continues To Expand Its Commitment To Snowboarding

Park City Mountain Resort announces several additions for the upcoming season: at Pay Day Halfpipe, expect to see new lighting, handle tow, sound system, dedicated snowmaking, dedicated groomer and snowcat for the snowboard crew, realignment of the Snowboard Yurt at the top of the halfpipe, and the introduction of the Burton Chopper kid’s snowboarding program.

American Skiing Company, Marriott Sign Joint Venture

American Skiing Company and Marriott Vacation Club International, a subsidiary of Marriott International, Inc. announced that the companies have entered into a joint venture to develop luxury vacation ownership properties at five of the Alpine resorts owned by the American Skiing Company.

The multi-million-dollar joint venture consists of select land purchases by Marriott at American Skiing Company Alpine resorts. American Skiing Company grants Marriott exclusive vacation ownership (time-share) development and marketing rights at Killington in Vermont, Sunday River in Maine, Steamboat in Colorado, The Canyons in Utah, and Heavenly in California.

biz_editor

• October 01 1998 | 161 views