$259 includes shipping!
Driving us all outta business…
How do they do it???
mas produced
cheep labor
infirior components
my neighbor got one for 200 bucks
says it works good but one fin box pulled out on 2nd wave
Build something different… move the target…
ken, i’m not shure about cheap materials. i watched about a year ago a doku about a german high tech race boot builder who moved his producion to asia in order to save costs and with cheaper labor achive higher quality as they had more man power/hour per boot.
i think we might have a chance if we build custom and have close relation ships/feedbacks with/from the user.
salu2
uzzi
read the post down about 6 or so. surftech’s advertising on sways.
all you need to know and more! a great read…
Quote:
mas produced
cheep labor
infirior components
my neighbor got one for 200 bucks
says it works good but one fin box pulled out on 2nd wave
They have different levels of quality. Some of it is as high as anything you will find in America or Australia. Some of them have American and Aussie shapers doing Q.C. It’s just the retailers want the cheapest to sell easy. The thinking is they average surfer will quite after a year anyway so why should it matter. There is nothing wrong with the quality of many of the asian boards I have seen. I would say most are on par with Rusty, Lost and Merrick for the shop boards.
GSI boards (Anacapa, Webber) retail at less than half that.
Once you pour the foam for the blank with cheap labor, the board is under $100 in materials. Add labor and shipping.
The general answer to how can domestic surfboard makers survive is that you will have to build a differentiated product. Something different, something better. If you build a board that looks and rides just like a GSI board, you will lose.
Move the target, set the trends. They’re followers. Lead
Quote:
Move the target, set the trends. They’re followers. Lead
Great advice. Now if we can convince Joe surfer to spend the bucks the dom industry is saved.
Quote:
Quote:Move the target, set the trends. They’re followers. Lead
Great advice. Now if we can convince Joe surfer to spend the bucks the dom industry is saved.
The beginner market will be ruled by the Asian market. The market is those surfers who want something different and are willing to pay for it. Unique usually has it’s own client base where the herd is every changing like the incoming and outgoing tide.
As an investment, I doubt I would touch a domestic surfboard manufacturing company. I’m not saying a US based surfboard company can’t survive. They just can’t generate the cash that an outsourced operation can.
Don’t think they don’t have advanced technology overseas to build anything we can. They do.
Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and one very wealthy guy, recently was interviewed on TV. Berkshire Mills isn’t operational any more. From what I gathered, overseas labor drove them out of business…
“right up there is a photo of the big Hathaway Mill in New Bedford, Mass. That was there in 1960, well, I bought the first stock in '62, then in '65 when I took control, now it was over a million square feet. It had probably 50 million dollars of replacement value of machinery and equipment in there. When we finally gave up on the textile business 20 years later, we got less than $200,000 sold for scrap iron. And for that building which is over a million square feet, I got minus $250,000.”
He made a point of mentioning how the cost of domestic labor makes it practically impossible to stay competitive.
Even China is now outsourcing to Viet Nam… it’s cheaper.
No Asian, Mexican, Thailand, Japan, American, or any will or can replace my hands.
I realized this as I was taking off on a late drop this evening.
People will pay for this.
It’s the difference between a Hyundai and a Maserati.
The educated will always, in the long run never settle for less than the best.
A true craftsmen’s hands can not be duplicated.
I bought a 7s superfish xl about 4 months ago. I bought it coz it was going cheap. 4 months later, i cant really complain about quality, or the way it surfs. The deck has been hit with my knees a few times, no problems. I dont ride it anymore, but that’s purely because at 7’3’’ its way too big for me ( i’d just had a baby and expected to not be surfing for a while, but i still got out twice a week ). I would not buy one again, but only because there are shapers here locally ( one about 1km from my house ) who do great boards at good prices, and i think they should be supported ( i just bought a second hand shortboard from him ).
Remember when the people used to boycott products
I wish we could convince the general public to buy American
And yes r.cone aint no one dublicating my hands
I was gonna respond to GL’s post and affirm that we are indeed moving the target everyday where I work
but then John comes on and pronounces us done… I don’t buy it.
I know for a fact they can’t build what I build. They don’t have our technology and we’ll keep advancing as they try
to copy, if they make that attempt. If the market softens more, they may not see it as worthwhile.
Warren Buffet don’t surf. I could care less what he thinks.
JM, I’m surprised you’d post something that negative. Go take a walk through the eucalyptus tree forest to that reef break
near your house and clear your head. If your board gets destroyed at the end of your leash, call a shaper, not China.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way!
Mike
this post only opens up old wounds. In Australia we have guys who wouln’t repair promote or sell asian imports. Now most of them do.
Make a good product, establish a clientele , look after them by supplying a great not good product and most of all , enjoy your craft.
Quote:
this post only opens up old wounds.
You know, you’re right on that. I usually don’t participate in these ‘‘globalization’’ threads for that reason.
But this was about competing on price with Asian boards. My point was the way to compete is to move the target.
Mike
Quote:
No Asian, Mexican, Thailand, Japan, American, or any will or can replace my hands.
I realized this as I was taking off on a late drop this evening.
People will pay for this.
It’s the difference between a Hyundai and a Maserati.
The educated will always, in the long run never settle for less than the best.
A true craftsmen’s hands can not be duplicated.
Actually for the most part they already have replaced you and millions like you in other crafts. Local surfboards hang on because it’s a cottage industry where who, what, and when still to some small degree matter. The longer the asian stuff hangs around the more accepted it’s going to be and the harder it’s going to be for local shapers without major reputations. When the old masters finally die or quit…there is no one that can replace them or do what they were able to do.
Sorry…there is no difference like that between a hyundai and maserati. Where do you think some of the so called leaders are made?
The educated will in the long run will see that paying a shaper $450.0 for a shorty they can buy the same thing for from asia for under $200 does not make much sense. The shaper right now can provide the custom art, but asia will figure that one out as well as there are many Americans and Aussies over there helping them along.
A true craftsmans hands can’t be duplicated? Actually…they can and they have.
I am not being rude or trying to debate you, but the way to compete with this is to figure something else out other than the norm. Be creative and innovative. If the best the Surfboard industry can offer is eggs, fish, longboards, shortboards and bonzers the same as has been done now for awhile and tell the new surfers they are just plain cooler than buying from overseas…the asians are going to eat the industry alive at some point. They work longer hours, they don’t care if they miss surf and they for the most part have a strong work ethic.
Just saying we are better is not going to work for much longer. We are going to have to actually be much better and then convince those we want to buy our products.
Hi Mike -
Sorry if I came across as negative. I was only trying to be realistic.
As a hobbyist I make most of my own boards by hand and will continue to do so for myself and a few friends as I have for the past 40 years.
I’m afraid that as a consumer, I’m not doing much to support the surf industry but I don’t really see myself as “The Enemy” (as declared by Skip Frye) either.
“Lead, follow or get out the way!” - I thought that might have been a quote attributed to George Patton but I looked it up. Turns out it was Thomas Paine who said it.
Here’s another one of his… though I’m not sure what either has to do with any of this.
“There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.”
Tyler, Lance Carson, Tom Wegner, Matt Calvani are busier than ever.
Focus on quality hand crafted and tuned board and the market is there.
It the high volume segment which is struggling as far as I can see.