Nike

This is how the world works.. People want the best deals possible, doesn't matter if it is from the local shop or a big retailer, if they can save $30 they are happy. Local shops are expensive, the only time I go in is if I need hardgoods(surfboard/snowboard etc..) or a bar of wax or if they are having a sale. Everything else can be bought online now a days and save yourself atleast 20%..

As far as I am concerned the INTERNET is what is killing local shops, on any given day you can go online and buy the same shirt that was $30 for $18 etc.. Now a days everything is free shipping and people are a lot more comfortable ordering products online. I know if I want a t-shirt/jeans or a wetsuit i'll just go onto a site like whiskeymiltia or departofgoods and save myself over 30%...

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Originally Posted by toasteroven

I know if I want a t-shirt/jeans or a wetsuit i'll just go onto a site like whiskeymiltia or departofgoods and save myself over 30%...

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& you're ok w/ that? you do realize that shops don't (& can't) survive on board sales, right?

supporting your local shop isn't about necessarily getting the best possible price on something (a concept which, IMO, has gotten blown totally out of proportion. but that's a different rant), it's about supporting A. a local business that supports the economy of the town you live in B. the local surf community to ensure that said shop will stick around.

i really think that the thing that has changed is that the majority of "surfers" don't actually live along the coast anymore. wasn't there a thread on here a while back that showed that most posters live an hour or more inland? so most surfers don't really have a local shop anymore, or any investment in the communities in which they surf, so who cares if the local surf shop closes? you can just get it online & save 30%, right?

oh, & screw nike, target, et. al...they don't belong in surfing & it really sucks that the company that makes the most comfortable boardshorts, IMO, is owned by them.

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Originally Posted by hanna

see, i don't this as an issue. if people don't get paid to surf, so what? surfing is not a spectator sport - it does not require pros and contests and fans and endorsements to endure...and if all of that went away tomorrow, would it affect your surfing at all? not at all - shapers would still shape, people would still innovate, and everyone here would still go surfing. football fans need the NFL, baseball fans need MLB, but surfers do not need the ASP, Volcom, Nike etc etc.

that's because while money may be necessary to sustain the industry, it is not necessary to sustain the sport. if you can't make a living from surfing, tough beans. surfing doesn't owe anybody a living because it was never about the money in the first place.

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This. Spot on Hanna.

IDK... Do I like Nike in the surf world? No. It seems to be just one more step towards mass participation and exploitation of the sport. However aren't we moving that way anyways? Honestly no one's clean ...Quik and the rest of them sell their clothes at midwest department stores and these mass surf camps run by companies to raise the next generation of consumers does slightly piss me off. Surfing used to be an escape from the masses... something you put the time to learn, it was hard, it kept a lot of people from doing it... it was ours. Now.... it is not.

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Originally Posted by lipride20

Most people don't know this but Nike bought Hurley a few years ago. I don't really understand why Nike is trying so hard to expand in the surf/skate industry when they own a company that already has a good reputation.

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Ah yes, the Ponzi scheme that are all publicly traded companies. If you have a company 401K and just press play on whatever they recommend, you might already indirectly own some Nike stock. Along with all of the moral hazards that owning it entails. The problem is, any publicly traded company has an obligation to its shareholders to provide a return on investment (ROI); by one of two means A) paying a dividend or B) increasing the price of each individual share. Companies that pay a dividend are great, who cares If the price per share ever goes up (I do), I make money just by owning the stock (I’ll want to sell it eventually). Companies that don’t pay a dividend are different. They need to increase the share price so that investors can justify owning it by having a nice ROI and thereby making it more attractive to other investors. How do companies do this? By having growth quarter over quarter. What is growth? Well, growth is making more money. Here’s the problem with that. Say you’re the largest sportswear company in the world, you’ve dominated the market for 30 years and on May 30,2010 you posted 1.9 billion in profit, May 30, 2011 you posted 2.1 billion in profit and in May 30,2012 you posted 2.2, well next year you have to do even better. Otherwise, people sell your stock. When you’re at the top, generating exponential growth just gets more and more difficult and you have to come up with more and more ways to do it. The year-over-year growth you generate becomes a smaller and smaller percentage compared to the growth you had in previous years. You’re still making money hand over fist, but that little growth number, gets smaller and smaller and smaller and the company becomes less attractive to big investors because the potential for its stock price to increase is diminished. DELL is a perfect example of this and of what happens next. The company must look in other directions for new revenue streams so that they can generate more income and so they diversify into other industries besides their core business sector. When Nike started, they sold tennis shoes for runners and that was it. There’s only one rule, if you’re a publicly traded company; you gotta grow every quarter, every year, forever. Which is fine, but on a long enough time line, every growth curve must flatten out. That’s the Ponzi scheme that I alluded to; but hey, it’s the only game in town, so why not play it? All that being said, I’d never looked at Nike. Holy cr@p, this company is gangbusters, 15B in assets, 5B in liabilities, a .015 div, and a reasonable P/E. Of course, Nike does have a sh!1 rep, one of the reasons I’ve never looked at them as an investment. They employ children in sweat shops, manufacture all of their goods over-seas and for being so expensive, the stuff they sell is poorly made, from cheap materials and doesn’t last. The quality sucks for someone trying to get longevity out of their gear. I personally think one of the reasons Patagonia is such a good company is because it is privately held by its founders. It’s not beholden to a board or shareholders. Same with In-N-Out. Quality is everything. I wouldn’t buy any of Nike’s crap.

I don’t own any Nike stock, nor am I recommending anyone else do the same and anybody who ever took financial advice from me would be in a world of financial hurt as my two main financial advisors are the Mogambo Guru and the Cardiff Kook.

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Originally Posted by njsurfer42

& you're ok w/ that? you do realize that shops don't (& can't) survive on board sales, right?

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I am well aware of it, I worked at a surf shop for 4 years, which is now out of bussiness. I watched the downfall of it. FYI I live 5 minutes from the beach. My "local" surf shop is now brave new world, it used to be NFE, where I worked, if you are familiar with the area...

And yes, I am ok with it, because there are no more "local" shops around here. Any local shops in my area have moved themselves onto the island, and bank 90% of their income from the summer crowd or brave.. which I just don't like that place in general. The only shop i supported, actually gave things back to the community. Put on FREE local contests for the kids, had days where they went down to the beach with a crap load of foam boards to teach kids how to surf and so on.. Why support a local shop when they don't support the local scene and would rather take their business onto the island and bank off of the summer crowd 3 months out of the year.

I will never support Nike, especially target, in the surfing world, but I honestly don't think they had a huge roll in taking out these small shops.. Blame it on the internet, and quicksilver/billabong, they started with the opening of their own outlet stores, before Nike even started with surfing.. It was only a matter of time before one company stepped up and tried to take over the younger generation.. Just so happen to be Nike.

Im not a huge fan of Nike anything much less their surf stuff BUT I would buy them in a heartbeat over Hollister.

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Originally Posted by hanna

see, i don't this as an issue. if people don't get paid to surf, so what? surfing is not a spectator sport - it does not require pros and contests and fans and endorsements to endure...and if all of that went away tomorrow, would it affect your surfing at all? not at all - shapers would still shape, people would still innovate, and everyone here would still go surfing. football fans need the NFL, baseball fans need MLB, but surfers do not need the ASP, Volcom, Nike etc etc.

that's because while money may be necessary to sustain the industry, it is not necessary to sustain the sport. if you can't make a living from surfing, tough beans. surfing doesn't owe anybody a living because it was never about the money in the first place.

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Solid post, nothing more I would add to that

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Originally Posted by njsurfer42

supporting your local shop isn't about necessarily getting the best possible price on something (a concept which, IMO, has gotten blown totally out of proportion. but that's a different rant), it's about supporting A. a local business that supports the economy of the town you live in B. the local surf community to ensure that said shop will stick around.

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Most surf shops in my area buy maybe 10 percent of their surfboards from local shapers (I'll loosely define "local" as the entire east coast to give them the benefit). Most of the types of surfboards they carry can be, and are being, (made very well i might add) by many established shapers within 3 hours of the Delmarva. However, to suit their bottom line nearly every single local shop chooses to purchase most of these boards from west coast, and overseas sources.

I'm genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on consumers buying retail products from non-local sources (internet) in roughly the same proportion as local surf shops buy their surfboards (since this is one of the few - but not the only - products they carry where excellent local sourcing is possible) so we can assess the shop's committment to the local boardbuilding economy.

By the way, i estimate about 90% of my surf related dollars are spent in local shops. Mostly 1-2 boards a year and 1-2 wetuits every 2-3 years.

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Originally Posted by scotty

Most surf shops in my area buy maybe 10 percent of their surfboards from local shapers (I'll loosely define "local" as the entire east coast to give them the benefit). Most of the types of surfboards they carry can be, and are being, (made very well i might add) by many established shapers within 3 hours of the Delmarva. However, to suit their bottom line nearly every single local shop chooses to purchase most of these boards from west coast, and asian sources.

I'm genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on consumers buying retail products from non-local sources (internet) in roughly the same proportion as local surf shops buy their surfboards (since this is one of the few - but not the only - products they carry where excellent local sourcing is possible) so we can assess the shop's committment to the local boardbuilding economy.

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Interesting point. I'm not at all surprised at that. It's basically the way almost every industry is now and it's pretty much unstoppable, unless you choose to pay more for local (or at least US made) goods. I know it hit me hard the first time I went to Wal Mart and Target and decided to look at every item I was purchasing and a vast majority of them are no longer made in the US. It has to be the worst idea ever on a CEO's part. "Let's save some money on production costs by shipping it oversees, and in the process we lay off an entire plant's worth of workers here in the US." You don't need a degree in Economics to see that you're eliminating the income of the people who buy the products.