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]
by The Editors on August 21, 2008
Teen retailers and especially mall retailers have had a tough year this year and Zumiez has has not escaped, however in the second quarter conference call held at 2 PM PST on August 21, 2008 CEO Rick Brooks and CFO Trevor Lang believe the company is doing very well compared to competitors.
Total net sales for the second quarter (13 weeks) ended August 2, 2008 increased by 12.5% to $92.3 million from $82.0 million reported in the second quarter ended August 4, 2007 (13 weeks). The company posted net income for the quarter of $2.7 million or $0.09 per diluted share versus $3.1 million or $0.11 per diluted share in the second quarter of the prior fiscal year. Comparable store sales decreased 1.7% for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 compared to an 11.6% increase in the second quarter of fiscal 2007.
Rick Brooks, President and Chief Executive Officer of Zumiez Inc., stated: “We continue to make positive strides in our ongoing efforts to give our customers a unique specialty retail experience, while controlling costs and effectively managing inventories during this very difficult operating environment. Due to this focus, we exceeded our earnings projection for the first six months of this year. We have opened 39 stores this year and continue to make the investments necessary to build the Zumiez chain to our goal of 800 stores.”
And here are some of the notes we pulled from the call:
- The thing thing that surprised us most is not news to anyone who follows the Zumiez stock. The company has no debt. None.
- Zumiez is focused on remaining true to the brand. “Our business model has the strength of being a branded business model,” Rick Brooks said. “We work with our brands to leverage inventories. We work very closely with the brands . . . we have a very dynamic process of moving product to where it is selling strongest.”
- “This is a very promotional environment,” Rick continued. “This macro economic climate is tough. That is making it much more price point. While I’m not going to comment on specific brand performance, this is how we see it: Those brands that we are carrying that are focusing on distribution in core shop are doing very well.. . . On the other hand there are other brands that have wider distribution outside the core retailers, brands that we’re finding are being price promoted by our competitors in the mall outside the core, and on those we’re having to be price promotional. The places we have to be promotional are with the brands that are in our non-core competitors.”
- The company believes that opening more stores is still the best use of its cash. They are completely focused on the 800 stores target and will open 57 new stores in the fiscal year.
- Performance in the stores was broken up regionally. “California, Nevada, Arizona, was rough. Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin performed nicely for us.”
- “I just want to be clear with the investment community that we feel very good with the returns that we are getting on our stores,” CFO Trevor Lang said.
- eCommerce was up 75 percent in the second quarter and 65 percent year to date. “Our ecommerce business is very strong, yet it is still a very small part of our business,” Brooks said. “We believe that there is a big opportunity to build that business over the next five years. We’re starting to do a number of things along that front.”
- Snowboard business still plays a major roll in quarter four. In October it is about 11 percent of sales and goes to 18 percent by the end of the quarter: “We’ve been doing the snowboard business for a long time,” Brooks said. “Over the last number of years we have taken the strategy that we buy well below what we think we’re going to sell. We chase the weather. Where it snows is where we move the product. Based on the results last year. We are going after the technology driven products at the high end. And at the other end we have shipped more pricepoint driven packages as we get into the season were we can move on some in the price issue.”
- There are no plans to de-emphasize snowboarding.
- Zumiez sales percentages breakdown: footwear 18%, accessory 18%, hardgoods (skate and snow) 14%, men’s apparel 33%, junior 15%, boys 2% percent.
- Investing in information technology organization, is high on the list. Zumiez thinks there are some strategic investments we will make there.
- The company is working to get better deals on real estate on a landlord-by-landlord basis. “We are one of the few growing retailers,” Brooks said. “I think we are a very attractive tenant for the landlords and we try to look at our landlords are partners. We are doing deals with the landlords that value our position and ability to generate sales.
- Sales per square foot is currently running at about $470 versus $500 last year. “We look at total flow through on the business,” Lang said. “We’ll look at our high-volume stores that do more than 800 spsf and we expand them so the sales per square foot may go down but the profitability goes up.
- Regarding the tough economic retail climate: “What we need is for the consumer to feel better,” Brook said. “And when that happens we’ll be doing better.”
And just as Brooks and Lang were about to answer a question regarding employee retention and turnover the Internet broadcast crashed mid response. The operator apologized and we disconnected.
[Link: Zumiez]
by The Editors on August 21, 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.
