so my point is i dont give a rats arse what other buggas are charging . i work to standard and charge what i need to live a good life . i have and old car and second hand furniture and probably always will. im perfectly capable of earning shit loads more money then i do but that would ruin my awesome life of surfing whenever its pumping, hanging with the whanau and snowboarding bluebird days 3 weeks a year
your in full flight this morning brother haaaa’’
cheers huie
My shaper,who is well known charges me 680 with a spray,5 plug set up,carbon patches, and i would gladly pay the 720 that he usually charges people.My boards are always ready in under three weeks and i have never had a shit one yet. They are also the strongest iv ridden,compared to two other boards i tried out last year which i got 3months out of(the same three months for both boardslol)
My mate won’t get a board from him cos he thinks thats a rort and would rather spend fifty dollars on petrol to drive an hour up the coast to another fairly well known shaper to order a ‘custom’ that was the exact dimensions as the one on the rack but didn’t have 'for #$%^ " on the bottom next to said dimensions, which the shaper pulled up on his laptop and said this is it here. Will be ready in three weeks. 13weeks later my friend collects his boards and whilst we are there i check out this guys setup, Here is what i see…
His wife is opperating his shaping machine and his mate is finish sanding boards… not a planer in sight.
I ask wheres all your tools mate, his reply… nah we dont need em these days mate,ya dont get an accurate board with a planer and all that,plus we couldn’t keep up with the orders hand shapin… !
I jokingly say,yeah seems like that machine is really keeping you infront … i then say to my mate ,how long ago did ya order these boards…13weeks ago wasnt it hahaha. THEY BOTH LOOK AT ME LIKE IM THE F@#$ WIT!
This was three months ago and my friend has just ordered another batch,meanwhile im still riding two boards i have had all year which have lasted me ,we both surf the same waves and at about the same level.
JH your boards look really nice and i think you should be charging more,i think any hand shaper out ther should be charging upwards of 700 for basic shortboards and more for extras and longboards etc
if people want quality they should be willing to pay for it, if they want a cheap thrill that last 10minutes then buy a cheap craft that has been machined and finished by some guys wife and his mate and stamped with his name.
Im pretty sure a monkey could be trained up to operate a machine and also finish sand a surfboard.
720 sounds pretty fair to me . is that with a proper finish coat?
cant the dude up the coast shape accurately with a planer lol
none of you buggas can build a decent big guy shortboard tho
still trying to sell us mini guns
j
btw john your internet yellow pages listing doesnt have a link to the website
haha nah from his comment i guess he can’t.
my shaper shapes beuties with a planer, and he also has some really nice big guy models just released this year.
I ask for just a regular wet sand
but you can get protec or polished finish aswell.
Hey Paul, thanks for that, I passed it on to my web guy. My big guy boards are great, not guns, big sorta equals old too I reckon. You guys have been great as usual, but you all missed the point. I probably didn’t explain it clearly enough. It will cost most people different amounts to build a board, depending on lots of things. Some world champs have given me $100 on top of cost, though that total is now the coast. HOW MUCH, if you knew me, you surfed pretty good and you had never paid anywhere near full price, though aging now, would be a fair price for me to say on top, $100, $200, $300?
cheers H.
Hey John, I aint got much experience here at all mate, but I reckon the amount you charge should be able to support the lifestyle you desire, simple as that. If you cant support the lifestyle your after ( which is different for all people, some simple, some not) then either your to cheap or your boards suck and we both know thats not the case
Hey Digger, I guess you charge whatever you can get. This area is over loaded with board makers, shaping machines etc. They make too many boards, then have to almost give them away when the bills come in. I’m asking about acquantiences ringing up and saying how much? It’s like the surf, your’e gonna get more waves surfing with less credentialed surfers [kooks haha]. How’s the channels going now? Have you got them sorted?
cheers H.
Still hackng away and praticing John, but at the moment im concentrating on converting a 35 foot bus to live in with my family, once done Im not sure where I will be able to shape so may have to hang the tools up for a while. We decided its not worth renting anymore and so the bus is the go. Hopefully one day will take a extended trip wherever we please with no thoughs on anything else than chasing the swell.
As for acquantiences, if they aint willingt to pay for your labour let em have popouts, haaa. Im a synical old bastard these days and I watched one mate go under in the surfboard industry and never want to see that again. At our work place someone asked for a discount that I knew well, my reply to that was that I needed 5 foot of concrete layed at my place to extend our wide driveway, I do believe in the bartar system if someone wants something cheaper, he said he couldnt do that, I told him he couldnt have a discount.:)
Hey Dig, I hope that is not who I think it is? Is it? Bartar is good, hey be careful of the dream of travelling around Australia surfing, my neice just split from her hubby of abt 30 years, chicks dont nescessarily have the same dream, well maybe at the start, though get tired of it pretty fast. I just finished cleaning up an old single fin of mine I was lucky enough to get, will post some pics tomorrow,
cheers H.
Hey Doyle,
Thanks for the tip about google anylytics, my guy has it up and running. You said something about seeing where the lookers were coming from? On there so far I can only see how many and nothing else. I feel my web guy has just about abanded me, so I am not in a good place with it all, after spending a lot of money, any tips would be greatly appreciated,
cheers H.
[quote="$1"]
Hey Dig, I hope that is not who I think it is? Is it? Bartar is good, hey be careful of the dream of travelling around Australia surfing, my neice just split from her hubby of abt 30 years, chicks dont nescessarily have the same dream, well maybe at the start, though get tired of it pretty fast. I just finished cleaning up an old single fin of mine I was lucky enough to get, will post some pics tomorrow,
cheers H.
[/quote]
Hey Harris, cant say who it is, I have quite a few friends to be crazy enough to be in the industry, including yourself in a way, so will leave it at that but I hate seeing anyone in any industry go under, its gut renching. As for travel, it will be all over australia and not just chasing waves, first stop ayers rock for me, take my kids everywhere, home school them as we do that already, my wife has the same dream as me, freedom......... no one to tell me how to live, no one asking for electricity bills ect..... and showing our children australia in all its beauty, or what is left of it as we once knew it mate.
Dont give up on the website mate, its awesome, hopefully some one out there can advise on how to set up that google thing, as i know it works but just dont understand how to do it. Im sure someone on here will be able to explain it to you either by message, or by pm giving you the option to call them so they can talk you through it, wont be to difficult, just have to find the right person John
Good on you Digger, sounds a better plan than the nephew in law had, life is change, haha, now for threatened punishment to my groms, it’s RIGHT, your’e going out the back of D’Bar these school holidays, my 10 year daughter thinks ‘oh o’ , the 7 year old son says lets go., that’s a win win.
if you make plenty of money you will be encouraged.
I would wish you more than your humility would allow you to accept.
You seem to limit your direct question to $100.00 $2oo.oo $300.00 I would say
$500.oo. heck give a hundred to your significant other $100.00 to charities
far and wide and 100.00 for growth and 100.oo for food.and 100.00 for rent.
and dont keep anything for yourself,as the building of a good board is
enough reward for a surfboard addict.
…ambrose…
take the money
you are worth it.
Just enough, thanks.
If you log into Analytics, you should be able to click into Audience -> Demographics -> Location which will show a map and give a breakdown by country. From there you can drill down within each country to the state level which will show the approximate locations of the viewers, just keep in mind the locations most likely are the closest server from which they accessed your site. In my experience, it’s close enough to say it’s the actual user’s location.
Now if you navigate to Traffic Sources -> Sources -> All Traffic, this will tell you from which site a viewer ended up on your site. Traffic Sources -> Sources -> Direct will tell you the page from which they navigated to your site. Each of these pages contain a bunch of metrics for duration of vist, etc… I am not terribly well versed in all the aspects of analytics and search engine optimization, but Google Analytics should be able to give you enough information to tell you which pages are working and which are not. I don’t use it for any commercial activities, I’m just curious what kind of traffic my blogs generate. Most is driven by me via Twitter or Facebook.
Also check Traffic Sources -> Sources -> Referrals
This tells you which sites sent traffic your way. I bet you see a few from Swaylocks in there. Keep an eye on that, you want a good variety of referrals sending targeted surf-related traffic your way. Post board pics on any local surf forums and consider buying banner ads on them.
Another good one is Content -> Overview
Scroll to the bottom and it will list your top 10 most popular pages. Likely, right now the number 1 page is your home page. Figure out what the first board model page is in that list and put images and a link to it on your home page. You sell surfboards, put images and links to them on your home page. Lead the customer where you want them to go. Learning about who you are as a shaper is important, but people are coming to your site to look at boards. Make it as quick and easy as possible for them to get to the information they want. The Content -> Overview will tell you what visitors to your site are interested in. Use that, and dial in your site. Just like shaping a board, build it ride it, then go back and refine it. Google Analytics is the feedback loop for your web site. Learn how to listen to what it’s telling you and adapt your site to better fit your customers needs.
Something to read about is Conversion Goals, those are really important to set up to start analysing the data better:
http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1032415
Set up Conversion Goals on your Contact Page and Board Orderform, then you can cross-reference that with Traffic Sources and start seeing some really useful data. Like what websites send traffic your way that orders boards.