by The Editors on September 15, 2008
Analysts at Piper Jaffray & Co. downgraded Zumiez today saying that the companies shares have “surpassed our target objective” and are “trading essentially in line with the long-term earnings growth rate” and they’re giving Zumez a “neutral.”
We expect shares to trade in range into the 1H of 2009 and would recommend adding to positions on sector pullbacks – longer-term, ZUMZ offers a superior investment profile. Our 2-3 year outlook remains positive, tied to square footage growth, solid category trends, and the company’s ability to orient its merchandise to evolutions in lifestyle cycles. We’ve re-set our 12-month price target to $18/share based on 20x FTME EPS (FQ4-FQ3), in line with the company’s LT earnings growth rate.
Sure, fine.
[Link: Street Insider]
by The Editors on September 9, 2008
When we look back at our time at the fall ASR Show we think of all the great things we missed: the people we didn’t talk to (like Hurley’s Bar Rafaeli, the skateboarding we didn’t see, and the amazing product that we missed. But then we realize that at least we have these photos to remember the show a by.
Follow the link for more photos and captions.
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by The Editors on September 8, 2008
John Morgan, 51, the manager of surf shop Maddog Byron Bay was towed “like a jet ski” yesterday at Clarkes Beach when an 8 to 10-foot shark got caught up in his leash.
I had just come off a wave when I saw a large swirl of water,” he said. “I was then suddenly hauled backwards. . . . “It felt like I was riding behind a powerful jet ski. . . .The water was dirty so I couldn’t make out what type of shark it was but I knew from the splashing white water that it was roughly eight to ten foot (3m),” Mr Morgan said. . . . All I could think about was holding on and hoping the shark would untangle itself,” he said.
Eventually that is what happened and Morgan paddle directly back into shore.
[Link: The Sunshine Coast Daily]
by The Editors on September 8, 2008
Some pretty large brands were missing from the ASR show floor this September. While a few disappeared from the San Diego trade show scene completely (Analog, Podium), others like WESC, Nikita, Sole Technology, Gravis, Supra, and 686 all opted for little stalls at the Agenda Trade Show.
Located less than a mile away from the San Diego Convention Center in the San Diego Concourse, Agenda is five and half years old and has shadowed ASR’s dates eleven times. But this is the first time we’ve ever made it over to see the much talked about show in person.
This year Agenda featured 107 brands (The Hundreds, Cre8tive Recreation, Crooks & Castles, Obey, etc. . . ) which cater to the T-shirts and sneakers boutique crowd.
Agenda likes getting people from ASR to come over for a visit. They like it so much that they have 12 limos running all day to shuttle “guests” back and forth between the shows. The limos were hot and stinky and the “10 minute ride” seemed much longer.
More story and photos after the jump. . .
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by The Editors on September 7, 2008
SIMA, the undisputed champion of trade show scheduling seems immovable. The wiley IASC is tired of living in its older surf bro’s shadow and wants to move the dates. Some hardgoods skate manufacturers (looking for anyone to blame for lagging sales) even say they want skateboarding to have its own trade show.
Retailers claim they’re going to enough shows already. Stuck right in the middle is ASR’s Andy Tompkins.
The talk of the show: who will win when titans clash at Brutal Schedule 09? One thing is sure: if ASR breaks up, retailers will be the losers. And they’re having a tough enough time already. Then again, we’re not sure many of the major labels care all that much about them anyway.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments.
by The Editors on September 6, 2008
Foam Magazine, Neff Headwear, and The Skateboard Magazine are helping Active President Shane Wallace welcome the world into Active Ride Shop’s newest retail location. It’s Thursday night September 4, 2008 and the place is packed.
Located at 319 7th Avenue in the heart of San Diego’s Gaslamp District the high ceilinged, 7,000 square foot, brick building sits literally on Petco Park’s left field line directly next the gate that 15,000 people walk through each time there is an event. And Shane Wallace is pretty happy about it. “We have the best retail location at the best ballpark in the nation,” Wallace says.
A DJ is spinning to the side of the woodgrain-and-mirrors eyewear display and skateboarder Terry Kennedy and his crew are making some noise. It’s hard to see much of the detail of the store thanks to the sea of people filling ever bit of floor space. One thing that is visible is the bark-covered trunk of an evergreen tree reaching for the roof. “That’s where the snowboards will go,” Shane says. “We had to wait until after this party to get that set up.”
The interior, which was designed by JPS Designs, The Goodwins, and Shane Wallace, is expansive yet retains a boutique feel. Doors open both onto the street and into the ballpark grounds, so in theory people could walk out of an event and through the store on their way home.
With 27 stores in the heart of what Wall Street is calling the worst “housing state” in the nation, Wallace knows that it hasn’t been all parties and DJ’s in action sports retail lately. “I won’t lie to you,” he says. “It’s been really tough year. But it’s going to turn around.”
He smiles proudly as he gazes across the packed store on opening night. “We have a few more adjustments to make, but this is our future,” he says. “This is Active.”
[Update 09.06.08: Just got word that sales in the store’s first two days of operation have been “stronger than expected.”]
Follow the jump for all the photos (click to see them full size).
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by The Editors on September 4, 2008
From the size of the audience it would seem that specialty retailers have sales data on lock. Only about 14 people attended ActionWatch’s Cary Allington’s seminar at 1:30 PM today. And that is strange because he is offering a completely free way to know exactly what is checking in specialty retail shops across the country. More importantly, his data can be used to compare what retailers are doing in their own stores to the aggregate.
The catch? Retailers simply supply a monthly sales report that gets aggregated, given back to the member retailers free of charge, and then sold to suppliers. Currently, Allington has approximately 180 specialty retailers signed up but he’s hoping to get to 300.
There are great reasons for retailers to share data. One of our favorites is using the data to negotiate with suppliers to get better deals. If a retailer knows that brand “X” skate shoe is selling at margins that are below average, it would be nice to share that information with the supplier as leverage.
This really is about empowering retailers. “Retailers think they have much less power than they actually have,” Allington said.
And after all, data is power. Might as well have some of it on your side. But then again, these are specialty retailers. . . good luck, huh?
[Link: Action Watch Reports]
by The Editors on August 25, 2008
According to the Australian newspaper The Age, Billabong plans to open up shop in the heart of Russia.
Billabong plans to set up a flagship store in one of Moscow’s trendy shopping districts as a way to assert its dominance in the international youth-wear market. . . . Billabong is sold in over 100 countries including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Estonia, which makes up about 1% of global sales.
Which reminds us: “Every Russian, looking at Moscow, feels that she is a mother; every foreigner, looking at her and not knowing her maternal significance, must feel the feminine character of this city, and Napoleon felt it.”
[Link: The Age]
by The Editors on August 22, 2008
Jamie Meiselman, the founder and CEO of Surfparks, LLC has been planning to build the world’s best artificial wave park for nearly a decade. But now his best hope for realizing that dream, the Ron Jon Surfpark at the Festival Bay Mall in Orlando, Florida, has run up on a dry reef according to a story in the Orlando Sentinel.
Thanks to repeated delays (the project was announced four years ago) “the Cocoa-based Ron Jon Surf Shop has pulled its name from the project.”
“We had some flaws in the technology and invested quite a bit of money in fixing that,” said Jamie Meiselman, founder and chief executive officer of the company behind the project, which calls itself Surfparks LLC. “The good news is we were able to solve the problems; the bad news is it came at a cost.”
According to the story, the $9 million that Surfparks, LLC raised to build the project has already spent on “unexpected research and development.” Wow. That’s a lot of research.
[Link: Orlando Sentinel]
by The Editors on August 22, 2008
PacSun shares opened down this morning after the company announced yesterday a “weak outlook that resulted in a series of investment downgrades,” according to Forbes.com. Not surprising, it also pulled down shares of Volcom down more than $2 by mid-morning.
Pacific Sunwear reported after the regular markets closed Thursday that it swung to a fiscal second-quarter loss from discontinued operations but offered downbeat profit projections for the third and fourth quarters amid a weakening economy. . . “The retail environment is extremely difficult and the primary root of (Pacific Sunwear’s) poor performance,” Mitch Kummetz, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co., wrote in a note released early Friday. “However, given the company’s revised back-half outlook, its strategy of refreshing stores and refining its merchandise mix isn’t making enough of a difference to warrant an Outperform rating anymore.”
We thinking we prefer the Zumiez strategy.
[Link: Forbes.com]
