ASR Show Question

General Discussion
1

This question is for the guys who still go to the ASR trade shows.

I’m doing some “housecleaning” as I start some business changes. Part of this has been clearing out old e-mail accounts and cleaning up my own. I am past being amazed by the number of emails from Chinese businesses seeking to make everything from surfboards to wetsuits to clothing under “my label”, but after looking at a variety of them over and over again this morning I realized many said something to the effect of “See you at Booth XYZ at the xxx trade show”.

Do these offshore knockoff factories actually have booths at the major surf trade shows?

2

You might find some of them are the the actual licenced manufacturers of the name brands. So much stuff made in China it’s unbelievable.

3

an dey ben having booths since late '80’s in them thar shows, only thang, nobody noticed then…

4

Thanks guys. That makes sense. I know the clothing has been done there quite a while; guess it was only time before the hard goods came. The late 80’s is about when I stopped going. I’ll reserve comment on the subject and send the email on toemail hell or wherever it goes.

5

I saw part of a container shipment of a pretty major label that came from China. The quality looked insane; it really discouraged me at first. My guess is that they will even get better as I am told that these companies employ engineers and scientists. The guy told me the local company has a person full time who unpacks the boards, takes the ‘made in China’ stickers off, and re-packs the boards into the same padded boxes for distribution.

We get hit all the time on our website, they even show pictures with broken English explanations. They were at the last ASR here, right next to the guy who had the fake plastic shell surfboards for hanging on walls and the guy with the self-propelled surfboard… …I’m serious.