As a Rep. I have personally seen examples of delays in every single step which Greg mentioned in his post. The real problems come when the delays stack up (i.e. delay in getting the blank THEN delay in glassing, color, etc.). I always try and project at least 8 weeks turnaround time, and that’s after I confirm we have the blank in house. I also try and warn the shops that they should try to put their orders in early to avoid the delays associated with the Spring production crunch. The conflict the shops back East have is that if they order earlier they have to pay for the orders earlier, and they dont start getting $$ until after the Summer season starts. So most orders get put in late and we all stress about getting the boards on the shop racks by Memorial Day. It’s a fact of life in this business, so after a while you sort of get used to it.
Greg, all,
I do empathise with the difficulty of getting things done, and I know it’s a long chain of events that all have to come together, in sequence, to produce a custom board. My resentment doesn’t come from the time it took, but the way in which it was handled. If the shaper / shop had taken the time to explain to me why it took six months, I would be fine with it. Instead they came up with a boilerplate excuse, which happened to be the same one they used on a friend of mine. Also, after asking around, I found out that during the period my board was supposedly being shaped, the guy went to Indo twice, and Mainland mex. I have never been to indo, because I’m trying to run a small business of my own, and can’t afford the expense or the time.
I am a photographer, and in our business, also for very little money, the customer is king. If you don’t give them exemplary service every time, they will never use you again. Period. I have pulled two all-nighters in the last six months, and have had to reshoot a couple of jobs on my nickel, just because the client wasn’t satisfied. I lost money on those jobs, but they will hopefully come back again, and keep referring me as they have in the past. We don’t even get to give excuses, and if the lab screws the film up, the client doesn’t want to hear it. In short, I have to take responsibility. I do, however, make Damn sure that all who contribute to my work are as reliable as I need them to be. I bring my vendors business, so I have a little leverage. If a lab screws up my film, I’ll give them one more chance, then use another lab. If an assistant is late, he gets taken off the list.
I value the shaper relationship. It gets better the more boards you get from one guy, because you can make little tweaks to optimize your design. Also, boards on the rack aren’t made like I need them. The board I ordered has 2x4 oz on the bottom and 2x4 on the deck, with a 6 oz. deck patch and yet another 6oz stomp patch. I’m 200 lbs, and this is norcal, so shop boards don’t last me even a year. This one is still kicking after two and a half. My friends call it the war horse. Most custom shops have given me my boards in about three weeks, six tops, and if it’s going to take longer, I’ve been told exactly why, and that was fine. But there has to be accountability for shoddy service, and since the shaper or shop is who the customer deals with, it’s their responsibility to keep their vendors in line. Needless to say, he won’t be getting my business, or any kind of reccomendation except to stay away, which is kind of a shame, since after all that, I really like the board. Well, too bad.
wells
One more possible source of delay which should be mentioned is that of the single custom board which is ordered from a shop that just received a shipment from the same shaper. In other words, the one custom board is ready but the shop does not need any others, so if the single board was shipped it would cost $125 for shipping the box (on top of the cost of the board to the shop). As it would be hard to pass that $125 along to the customer in the retail price of the board, the shop usually holds off on taking delivery of the custom until they need at least 3 other boards so that each board costs $40 to ship, which is way easier to build into the retail price of the board. So you can add that on to the list as another possible delay in getting delivery of your custom.
Mmanzi is right about the dealers. They can throw another wrench into things as well. I’ve had dealers send me orders that were two months old before I got it. Now I’m supposed to make up for this? Plus, this may be a dealer who owes me money and is out 60 or 90 days on the last order because he had to pay his Quicksilver bill before he pays me. I used to deliver boards and some of the dealers were far away. I made the custom orders wait until I had enough orders to drive up. That could be two months. And shipping boards is a nightmare in itself. I’ve spent WEEKS on the phone with shipping companies trying to find out why they charged me 3 times what they said they would. ( I think the way shipping companies work is that their invoice is an opening bid on the shipment. From there you hassle “Mexico” style to get the correct price.) Again I’m not making excuses but this is the tough part of business and it’s these hassles that are the hardest part. Building the boards is the easy part and that’s not easy.
There was a day when my job was to put 8 shapes a day in the rack and pick up a $1000 check on Friday. I generally had two designs a year and shaped generally three sizes of each of those. That was in the 70’s and 80’s. Today you work much harder for much less and the custom order is one big reason why. When I semi retired last year, I had something like 35 different designs and every one could be mathmatically scaled to any size. Generally we’re talking 36+ sizes for each model. That’s over 1200 different shapes that I did on a daily basis and then there were variations and combinations of those.
I agree that not all factoies and owners handle dealing with the public well. There is something called professionalism and not all of us can be that professional everyday. I’ve been guilty of lost, misplaced or screwed up orders myself, much more than once. It happens. I wish the custom board had somehow not gotten as complicated as it has. I think in many ways it has become a detriment to both the industry and the consumer. I think that I could offer 4 to 6 designs that would cover most customers with maybe 8 sizes each, along with simple tastful color choices and ONE fin system. I think 95% of the customers would be stoked. A bit more of knowing what they are getting is correct. Right now things are so out of hand that everyone is suffering. And IMHO if you can’t live with those choices, you pay THROUGH THE NOSE for a true “custom.” That’s the way ALL other businesses work.
I think this begs the question…why doesnt everyone raise their prices?? Even a $10 bump in prices should help the bottom line in the long run.
That’s called price fixing. How could it possibly work when there are so many shapers competing for their share of the market, including backyarders? There were a few over here who tried to start a ‘shapers guild’ with price fixing agreements and ‘get your board from a registered master builder or risk dissatisfaction’ style advertising. They were even muttering about making it illegal for non members to buy materials. Pathetic, if you ask me. Roy
Well…
We deal with that issue in photograpy too. Low barriers to entry to the biz means that some young dude who wants to be a shaper can easily come along and undercut the guys who have been doing it for 30 years. It’s called low-balling, charging less than is feasible to sustain a business in order to gain a market share, and generally, the practice is despicable and results in a lower quality standard all around. Then you have the chinese boards and the factory pop-outs using cheeep intl. labor…There’s only so far you could raise prices over the cost of materials, because people would then start to shape their own more and more, and shapers would be priced right out of the market.
Why you say don’t all shapers get together and agree? Highly illegal. Photographers face similar anti-trust laws, and even though we can form trade organizations, all they can do is try to educate their members to create a higher standard and fair pricing guidelines, they can’t really come together to influence the market in any way.
That being said, has there ever been an attempt to organize shapers? create some sort of certification so that the public can see that this guy is a bona fide craftsman and not some backyard convert? maybe that’s what the industry needs…If customs are so costly and troublesome, why are they usually priced below shop boards?
So for all you guys who have dreams of becoming shapers, don’t just make a kool logo and put pieces of crap out there for a hundred less, no matter how tempting. Take the time to learn how to make a quality product, then price it accordingly, with pride and confidence in your work. if everyone did that, maybe we would see things get better for the guys like Greg, who have more than earned it.
My 2
Wells
That’s exactly what I am talking about. Certificating shapers would have to be the biggest load of BS. How many top shapers started out as backyarders? Plenty, and now you propose to close the door on new entrants via a shapers guild? Shame on you. Backyarders have every right to do their thing. How on earth do you decide who is a bona fide craftsman anyway? Roy
nice answer from the land of downunderness-- I think those who choose to bullshit and cheat their way through life make that much easier on those of us who choose choose to act as professionals- integrity is definately a good quality look for in a shaper
Easy there killer, I’m not talking about the heavy handed tactics that you might have seen in NZ, and backyard shapers could still put out their stuff, but to become certified, you would have to demonstrate that you ran a clean safe business and put out a quality product. The consumer would then decide. As I said, there isn’t much room for collusion in most of our country’s anti-trade laws anyway. Most of the established creative-based industries that I can think of at least here have such organizations. Architects, carpenters, contractors, plumbers, commercial artists, graphic designers, ceramic artisans, jewelers, the list goes on and on. For photography, in my market, it’s the ASMP, or american society of media professionals. I am not a member yet, but someday hope to be, and I would have it no other way. All it does is give photogs resources like pricing guides, fair and safe business practices, some insurance opportunities, and other such services, and a way to demonstrate to the potential customer that they stand a good chance of getting a quality product. The consumer can still go to the cheap hack whose parents bought him a fancy camera for his birthday, but thanks to the ASMP, at least they can tell the difference. I am actually the photo equivalent of a backyard shaper myself, having never gone to school. I’m self taught, but I did some hard years as a freelance assistant, getting paid shit money to sweep up studios and take the blame for all the photographer’s mistakes. Without such organizations, there can be no standards set for good product, and all you have is a bunch of hacks who do jobs on the cheap, creating crap. Standards are eroded, Everyone loses.
Enter ‘Swaylocks Marketplace’:
[]Store owners must be a member of the Swaylock’s Community. []Store owners can (and should) be reviewed by other community members for the “quality of their service.” [*]Bad/dishonest/poorly rated store owners can have their stores shut down.
Mike, you might be onto something pretty big(ger) here…
Best,
Herb
Yes Wells, that sounds fair enough. The talk over here was that you couldn’t join unless you learnt to shape from one of the ‘Old Masters’ but really I think that they were just weeping into their beer. We call these Goobers ‘The Sad Boys Club’
Cheers, Roy
Ah, yes, that’s a narrowly focused group, trying to pull off a wide margin. That’s probably why nothing came of it, everyone said, screw those old farts, I’m getting one from my buddy for half the price. They tried to force it. such ego.
What I’m talking about is a widely focused group, with a narrow margin. lets most applicants in, and doesn’t really raise the price that much. That would weed out people like the f#*kstick who “dropped your order behind my desk” while he was in indo.
man, these forums are great, no?
wells
Enter ‘Swaylocks Marketplace’:
[]Store owners must be a member of the Swaylock’s Community. []Store owners can (and should) be reviewed by other community members for the “quality of their service.” [*]Bad/dishonest/poorly rated store owners can have their stores shut down.
Mike, you might be onto something pretty big(ger) here…
Best,
Herb
Did this idea get off the ground yet?
Not yet - As of only a few days ago, Mike bounced it off the group in this thread:
http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=166551;#166551
I have had a lot of magic boards shaped by a lot of great shapers, but in all my years of surfin (25) and all my boards (oh, God, a hundred or so), I have very, very rarely encountered a shaper who totally had his act together.
In other words, they turned out human. Damn it! How can that be?
I can only count on one hand the number of times, out of a hundred boards, that I got EXACTLY what I wanted when I wanted it.
It’s the same with remodeling a kitchen. Something will change. Nothing is perfect.
Next time buy off the rack. I only did it once in the last twenty years and, frankly, it’s the best shortboard I ever owned. Sometimes you have to just pay a little more and go retail. Custom is great, and magic will happen, but you have to have patience.
Greg’s right on target. I think one of big reasons that surftechs/etal are in the shops is that most manufacturers can’t meet the numbers and/or delivery schedules. My own belief is that utilizing CAD designed boards and shaping machines is the only way to counter this stigma of custom handshaped boards taking six months to get. But that’s a discussion for another thread.
My advise is to first see what you can get off the racks. If this doesn’t work, go buy the blank you want. Find a shaper and get it done. Take it yourself to a glasser or you do it. In other words, take responsibility for the management of getting your board constructed. If this involves a lot of travel (like Ambrose’s story), then accept it part of the process. In any case, you’ll learn alot about making a board for when you decide to do your own.
There are many great shapers out there but unfortunately many of them have a poor bussiness sense. I am one of those backyarders, shaping is my sideline hobby bussiness. I would love to do it full time, but it just doesn’t pay the bills. The few customers I have I tell before hand if there will be a delay and then I still feel dam guilty about it. I do agree things do go wrong I have been waiting 2 weeks for a blank to arrive.
Maybe this shaping guild that is to be formed can arrange some time management couses or seminars for its members. Better bussiness practices can result in better profits for it members.
J.Troy is on the right track. It’s as amazing as gravity - the age old free enterprise miracle of supply and demand. Consumer will always pay more to get a better product. Service is often a big part of the product and in many cases service is the product. There’s an old marketing adage: “If your product is the same as everyone else, your service better not be.” The reverse can be true as well. If the product is far superior than can be obtained anywhere else, people will stand in line and wait for it. Competition eventually enters that scene and evens it out, but service is a tough thing to come by and sustain. Stand by your word, deliver on time, make it right…wow…now there’s a concept!
If the surf comes up on the day you had planned to finish a board, make it work. Go surfing, that’s what you do. But, be true to your word… forget relaxing this evening and work all night if that’s what it takes to have the board ready when you said you would. Everyone wins: you got to surf, he got his board when he was told he would, you feel better about yourself, he tells his friends how great you are, and you’ll have all the business you want despite how many boards are coming off the assembly line in Asia for all the new rookies who will eventually want one of your boards. As magic as gravity! Besides, you have to enjoy the ride.
Well put!!!