In order to buy local your shop must treat you with respect. I've found recently shops dont give you the level of care you would see only a few years ago. For example, you spend a few hundred on a board, throw in a pad or leash for free. Instead people try to milk you for every cent you have. I was burned by my local shop and am in the process of finding a new one to be loyal too. I like how they educate people but its a bigger issue than just buying a tee shirt from your shop. This is incredibly complex. In order to make a real difference you need to make REAL changes. Grow organic food, ride a bike, buy/make local cloths. People make seemly good choices but really dont know the impacts. Best quotes, "I'm a vegan because I care about how animals are treated and their quality of life" BUT.... they dont care about the migrant worker slaving to pick their veggies. Long story short, if you are going to make a change make sure its actually going to make a change.
It starts with us. What we do, and how we do it, on a daily basis. Little things add up to big things. There's a great little book called, "50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth." When I was teaching science, we started each class with one little tip from that book. It was recently re-published and has been revised. Little things you can do every day that over your lifetime, or throughout a community, can make a big difference.
haha i like the quote very true.. all change is change whether big or small, we dont know the results of our actions but we still got to do our part. you might be walking down the street and see a little candy wrapper on the floor, you go out of your way to pick it up and throw it out. that good action probally had close to zero impact worldwide, but the business man walking behind you, who saw u bend down to throw someone elses trash,,,,just got inspired to make his whole busi. recyclable. so if your going to make change, you really dont have to know its gona work.. just do it.
So true! I always try to pick up trash I come across making my way to and from the water, just as I'm sure everyone tries to. Not to uncommon to see people looking your way trying to figure out what your doing, then proceed to do the same. Small little things can make a huge difference.
OK...this is what I meant. Yes, you may pick up the wrapper and throw is away, fine...That is good for your conscience and nothing more. That wrapper is going to be picked up by some waste management company and disposed of how THEY see fit. That wrapper needs to be transported via truck(gas,carbon) to its location. Recycling is great but there is still negative impacts to the earth. We are humans, we will ALWAYS be impacting our environment. Its been that way ever since we stood on two legs. We just have to make sure its sustainable with our current population. Make a change a REAL change. Grow a garden, teach someone how. Buy reduced biodegradable packaging. I agree each contribution makes a change but I think people need to THINK more about the actual problem. Prime example is Freeganism=finding use out of other people's garbage. Some people can live off the waste of others in this country. There is a lot of value in sh*t we toss.
oh man. I have my opinions on this and most of you won't agree with me but that's alright. I would be happy to pay $1 more for a t-shirt or $5 more if I knew it was made in the US. But it's been a loooong time since I've seen a tag on a shirt that said made in the USA. 15-20 years ago a t-shirt was $17 now they are $17. Does anyone see anything wrong with that? That's the problem, when you outsource everything to other countires where labor is cheap, the initial effect is great! You get $17 t-shirts. But eventually, when you do it enough your country and the companies in it become nothing but middle men. While holiday shopping I got a sweater from Banana Republic for $7. I had to wonder, why is this nice sweater so cheap? We love our $7 sweaters but there will be a price to pay when our economy tanks because we no longer produce anything as a nation. Of course the guy in that video says he would pay an extra $1 for a shirt. His sponsor, obviously Patagonia, probably sends him boxes of stuff for free. Doubt he's bought many t-shirts recently. If he was really worried about the environment, he shouldn't have flown to halfway around the world to have an interview with a factory worker. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. If anyone streams netflix, watch the movie called I.O.U.S.A. it's about 2-3 years old but it will make you think.
Surf shops make next to nothing on a surfboard sale. If they give you 2 bars of wax you should be grateful. All surfboards do for a shop is get surfers into the shop to buy other items. Mark up on a surfboard is nothing. Maybe 20%. So $100 of the price of a $500 board goes to the shop. When you buy a t-shirt or other product mark up is 100% or more. So that $24 leash costs them $12. Mark up of most merchandise you buy in any store is 100% or more. But no one would buy a surfboard from a shop if they marked it up 100%. They would all go direct to the shaper. So, if a shop stocks a board for 6 months or a year before you buy it, they've lost that $100 profit on overhead for rent, heat, ac, shop rat wages, etc. The worst part is that boards take up more space in a shop than anything else they could be selling for more profit. I've always thought it was crazy when people expect all this free crap when they buy a board. Usually it's people who don't understand how hard it is to make a surf shop profitable. Surfboard Cost Blank = $75 Fins & Boxes = $25 Contract Glassing = $200 Shaper's profit = $100 Total = $400 Surf shop price = $500 Mark up = $100 Free leash = $12 (wholesale) Free traction pad = $20 (wholesale) Free wax = $1 Total = $33 $100 - $33 = $67 Now how does the surf shop owner feed his kids when he only makes $67 on the sale of your board and it's the only board he sold that week?
Not always... In my town we have a mom & pop hardware store. Their prices are higher than Home Depot and Lowes. But, when you walk in they know your name, they remember the project you were working on last weekend and can help you get what you need this weekend. They are right down the street. At Home Depot you have to chase the guy down to help you and he doesn't know you from the next customer and doesn't care if he helps you cause he's never going to see you again. I'd rather pay more for the local guy who cares. Same philosophy is what killed the manufacturing jobs in this country. Someone shopped around and found the best deal and found it was cheaper to ship off manufacturing to China. They put their neighbors and friends out of jobs. It's the philosophy of cheaper is better and I want more more more for less, that got us in trouble in this country. Sometimes it pays in the long run to pay more.
rDJ - How many people are employed by the mom and pop hardware store? 5? how many people are employed at the home depot in lowes in your neck of the words? 50-150. Tell me that home depot/lowes giving all of these people a weekly pay check does not benefit the community. If i stop shopping at home depot, and so does everyone else & they close. thats a large portion of the community eventually with out work, with out pay, and with out money to put back into your local economy. Now if everyone starts shopping at mom and pops, thats putting a large chunk of money into the hands of the 5 employees. Those 5 people are not putting back the same amount into the community as the 50-150 workers who were laid off did.
Think about it this way. If there were no Home Depots there would be more mom and pops for those people to work at. The supply will still need to meet the demand, which will require the same amount of employees. It goes both ways. My opinion is that there should be a balance of the two. But my point was not chains vs locally owned. My point was paying more is sometimes better because you might be gaining a benefit that may not be material or measurable. With the mom and pop you get a store that is conveniently located right around the corner, they know you and they care about you as a customer, and they might be willing to spend a little more time with you to make sure you get what you need. Same goes for online vs local surf shop. You might think you know what you need. You might find it cheaper online. But you didn't get to touch it, try it on, see it, before you purchased. You don't have a shop owner who knows you and your needs, style, size, etc. All I'm saying is that there are intangible benefits you pay for when you go local than can make it worth the extra money. However, sometime finding the better deal is the way to go. That's why I started my last post saying "not always". When it comes to the bigger things like overseas manufacturing, I'd rather pay more and have less and keep the jobs here. That is when ultimately the better deal is to pay more.
outsourcing is the problem Don't be mad at large corporation they got where they are from starting small working hard and growing because we give in .. mom and POP stores would grow that big if they had the chance... We r in a hole bc we buy stuff from other nations bc its cheaper than buying it here. It's interesting to know that while we have embargos on Iran and north karea its a fact that China does huge business with Iran and help them with there military technology and the missiles they have now that we are worried about are all paid by the sneakers you are wearing now. We love cheap stuff but its damaging our future. The info about Iran and china is paraphrased from the news talk radio I heard last night
Exactly, if everyone stopped going to Home Depot and went to Mom and Pop, HD goes out of business and with enough time Mom and Pop changes it's name to Lowe's. This is a great thread. The best on here in a while. I think the guy in the vid has to take it a step further and not say "buy local" but demand manufacturing be brought back to this country. Demand an American version of every product on the shelf. Granted that one may be more expensive (surprisingly, not always) but this at least gives the consumer the chance to support our country vs. supporting Taiwan. Since we're talking about Home Depot versus Mom and Pop. Let's take a box of screws for example. Most likely manufactured in another country. It wouldn't really matter which store you bought it from if those screws were manufactured in this country. If HD was only operating within the US and Mom and Pop is definitely only operating within the US. Those dollars stay completely within the US. Our national debt is $14 tril. A large amount of that debt is owned by other countries such as China. Anyone ever heard of financial warfare? We used it during WW II. For example, Iran doesn't stop their nuclear program and we say, ok, we're going to bomb you back into the stone age. China might step in and say, no, you're not or we are calling our debt and won't buy and more T-bills. You think the economy is bad now, if China did that, it would the financial equivalent of a nuclear explosion. We would listen to what they say and they would be controlling us. Many valid points in this thread. I look forward to reading more.
americas hat I know its unethical, but we should just invade Canada and take all their money and resources I'm not even sure if their army has an airforce lol the rest of the world won't mind. And Mexico...when we get greedy.
Wasn't referring to a production house like Lost, CI or JS. I have no idea what margins those guys run. I'm only familiar with what the smaller guys do.
