by The Editors on March 15, 2011
Canadian retailer Below The Belt is apparently planning to open a 3,300 square foot Volcom retail store in the West Edmonton Mall in April, according to the Edmonton Journal.
“The new store will be one of the largest Volcom stores in the world at 3,300 square feet and will offer the complete assortment of Volcom and Electric apparel for men, women and boys,” spokesman Rob Whetstone said.
Below The Belt owns 30 retail locations in Western Canada, according to the story. This will be VeeCo’s second Canadian mall store.
[Link: Edmonton Journal]
by The Editors on March 15, 2011
By all accounts core mall retailer Zumiez was getting a pretty good deal by only paying their CEO Richard Brooks $262,500 a year in salary. But, according to a story in the Seattle Times, those bargain days are over.
Everett-based retailer Zumiez said Monday it will pay Chief Executive Officer Richard Brooks an annual base salary of $613,200, more than double the $262,500 a year he had been paid. . . Zumiez cited Brooks’ 18-year tenure with the youth-oriented retailer, its strong financial performance in 2010, and a desire to bring his salary “closer to the 40th percentile peer group target.”
The company made $24.2 million in profit last year so it’s probably about time. Wonder if this new policy on salaries will trickle down? Hope so.
[Link: Seattle Times]
by The Editors on March 14, 2011
The LA Times profiles Tum Yeto’s Tod Swank to get the story of how he decided that making boards in the USA was more important than higher margins.
And Swank thinks Watson Laminates‘ track record gives it an advantage over competitors. . . “Not everyone can get their boards from one of the original laminated skateboard manufacturers in the world. It’s quality. It’s craftsmanship. It’s pride,” Swank said.
Click the link for a couple more reasons why you should buy American.
[Link: LA Times]
by The Editors on March 14, 2011
Midwest skate icon Tucker Gerrick (of Familia fame) has joined etnies as the new senior marketing manager for the footwear brand. And Don Brown couldn’t be happier.
“I’m stoked that Tucker is now at etnies – He has great insights from working with top professional skateboarders, and after working in retail he understands the specific needs of skate shops,” said Don Brown, senior VP of marketing for etnies. “Plus, the fact that Tucker considers freestylers legitimate skateboarders makes me like him even more…. we’ll have him doing spacewalks, railflips, and caspers in no time!”
Follow the jump for the the rest. [click to continue…]
by The Editors on March 11, 2011
No, we did not get up at 6:30 this morning to listen in on VF Corporation’s The Next Five Years conference call (we were a little distracted by the tsunami), but we did read their most recent press release in which Chairman and CDO Eric Wiseman explained his plans for Vans and The North Face to carry the company into the future, yet, oddly, he made no mention of Reef.
Over the next five years VF plans to grown their business by $5 billon dollars. And $3 billion of that is projected to come from the Outdoor & Action Sports division (aka Vans and The North Face):
Building on well-established and highly profitable domestic, international and direct-to-consumer platforms, The North Face(R) and Vans(R) brands, which account for 75 percent of total coalition revenues, are targeting annual growth of 16 percent and 13 percent, respectively. By 2015, Outdoor & Action Sports should account for at least half of VF’s total revenues.
How are they going to do that? One of the ways is by serving more “consumers directly:”
Growing direct-to-consumer revenues to 22% of total revenues by adding branded retail stores and building stronger consumer relationships through brand websites and social media.
Ah, social media. The cure for all that ails. Follow the jump for the rest of VF’s plans for world domination.
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on March 10, 2011
Snowboarders are set to gather today (March 10, 2011) for a meeting at the US Open Snowboarding Championships to discuss forming a union to help snowboarders deal with event scheduling issues International Olympic Committee’s plans to add slopestyle to the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, according to a Matt Higgins story in the New York Times.
Such a union would be unusual: X Games competitors’ efforts to create a union have fizzled out, and riders say this is the first attempt to create a union in snowboarding. . . “We have no time to train, no time to recover from injuries,” said Chas Guldemond, 23, of Reno, who during the past three weeks has won slopestyle competitions in Europe, Asia and North America. After the United States Open, Guldemond will fly to France for Winter X Games Europe next week.
While the idea of athletes organizing to protect their best interests is a great one (and we hope they are successful for once), this entire issue seems more related to the owners of established snowboarding events (the TTR series for example) hoping to be included in the Olympic qualification process even though they have never been big fans the FIS.
Apparently, event owners like Terje Haakonsen have finally figured out that being a little more involved with the Olympic process just might be good for business.
[Link: New York Times]
by The Editors on March 10, 2011
When snowboard site Yobeat.com embeded a couple Youtube.com versions of Transworld Snowboarding’s Mark McMorris‘ 1440 Triple Cork clip they thought it was pretty funny. They said:
The nice thing about “exclusive” Internet content is after a day, it usually turns into an ad. So if you missed Mark McMorris’s acrobatics on some other site, now you can watch it on them all! Feel the excitement!
Interestingly enough the clips were pulled from Youtube a day later due to a “copyright claim” by Transworld’s parent company Bonnier Corp. Guess they didn’t want that clip going viral with all their branding on it. The same clip, however, is available for embedding on Transworld’s Vimeo account.
[Link: Yobeat]
by The Editors on March 9, 2011
Abercrombie & Fitch, whose entirely derivative faux-surf brand Hollister Co. has built a business out of appropriating surf iconography, is reportedly suing Florida-based retailer Surf Style because the company uses the image of a flying gull on several of its products, according to a story in Columbus Business First.
Abercrombie (NYSE:ANF), which declined to comment on the lawsuit, is seeking monetary relief and undisclosed damages and asking that Surf Style be barred from using the gull. . . This isn’t the first run-in between the two businesses over the gull design. Abercrombie said in the lawsuit it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Surf Style last May and that the chain agreed to quit selling the allegedly offending merchandise by September – but didn’t.
From now on designers will have to think twice before they put a bird on it.
[Link: Columbus Business First]
by The Editors on March 8, 2011
After seeing some of the most recent sale deals coming out of HUF is was no real surprise to learn today that Keith Hufnagel is closing the HUF San Francisco store next week according to N-SB.org.
The store brought a lot of previously unavailable brands to San Francisco and became the platform of many collabo’s and eventually a full clothing and footwear brand. The Huf skateshop was already closed but now the store will completely disappear from the streets of San Francisco. The Huf brand and the Huf store in LA will continue business.
Guess this is what can happen when a successful retailer attempts to launch their own brand in direct competition with some of their strongest suppliers.
Click here for Hufnagel’s official word on the closure.
[Link: N-SB.org]
by The Editors on March 7, 2011
Hola. It’s SIMA Surf Summit time again. This year the dates are May 11-14, 2011 at the Hola Grand Faro Resort (formerly the Crowne Plaza Resort & Spa) in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico. All SIMA and BRA members are invited to the 14th running of this industry surf fest (hard to believe). If you don’t know what any of this means, just skip the rest. If you do, follow the jump for all the details. [click to continue…]
Canadian retailer Below The Belt is apparently planning to open a 3,300 square foot Volcom retail store in the West Edmonton Mall in April, according to the Edmonton Journal.
