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| 223297 | 11440 | Molded, Reverse Engineered, Handshaped by One Only...WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU? | 74 | Bruce Fowler | Oct 13, 2021 | 2021-10-13T18:57:22-0400 | Ricksurfin said: Maybe $150 landed for Firewire, but the shop cost is much, much more then that when a board sells. The shops aren't killing it on the cost vs sales price with Firewire boards, but the business model that Firewire has by putting their boards in shops at no cost to the shop is awesome for the shop. That said, depending on the square footage of the shop, the space taken up with boards is much better used selling soft goods with their profit margin. So, definitely a juggle deciding how much space to take up with boards. Boards do bring people in the shop though, and your hope is that with a board sale, the customer walks out with a wetsuit, t shirts, leash, traction, or some other products that make the shop money. Click to expand... Completely true. This was always the case when I was @ Surf 'n Wear in Santa Barbara. The back room had the surfboards but it was full of O'neill wetsuits which back then was a 40% markup. It made for the needed profit during winter along with the clothing and other goods. Unbelievably, when the footwear market started to evolve, we went from Holo Holo Reed Matt Sandals & Flojos thongs to what is now known as Deckers. We had a friend around the corner from the SB shop, Bob Bennett making crepe rubber sandals and he called them Sandals Originals. They were before Beachcomber Bill & Driftwood Dan (who would become Deckers). We were selling them so fast he couldn't stock us and he didn't want to expand. We were also selling some leather top and strap sandals called "Styled Steer". So we took a pair of Sandals Originals to them and said "make these". They use the same dies that cut the outline of the SS sandals, but it didn't work because the all crepe rubber we wanted would sink from your weight making the straps too tight. Long story short, we worked with them to get it right and then they came out with "Driftwood Dan Sandals". They were based in Goleta. "Beachcomber Bill" sprang up shortly thereafter and were based in San Luis Obispo. Other brands started to emerge, like Rainbow Sandals who became pretty big. We sold soooo many of the sandals it PAID FOR OUR ENTIRE MONTHLY RENT just from sandals alone! We were paying these guys up front, Doug Otto and his partners or whatnot. Our sales basically grew the company allowing them to move to a big industrial building, still in Goleta. The 1st models just had one skinny strip of color between the black upper & lower layers. Then we asked for, and they gave us 2 color layers then triple colors. One of our employees started saying "oh, you want the Double Deckers in Orange & Yellow or the Triple Deckers in Red, Yellow & Orange" and so on....... they even made platform ones with a bunch of rainbow color layers..... But that is how Styled Steer became Driftwood Dan then morphed in Deckers. The company exploded and took over other companies like Sanuck, Teva, and Uggs. Now there is a country block of buildings in Goleta that is their Global Headquarters. One of our long term tenants was a higher up in the company and my wife was buffed out with super deals on every Ugg Boot & shoe imaginable for super cheap prices. Then one day, Otto & I suppose partners, canned all the upper management that had been there for years and put younger newbies in their positions for less money. True story. |