The last few years, say over the last 10, the business revolving around the "skate culture" has exploded. A couple years ago I attended an ASR conference in San Diego and was blown away by the sheer volume of industry that has built itself up around the remains of the 80's skateboard revival. It's the third coming of the skate industry as the phoenix has indeed risen and there is no stopping this juggernaut. Hard goods, soft goods, you name it, there were hundreds of exhibitors, many with giant brand recognition all vying for a slice of this huge lucrative skate culture market.
The whole conference was just dripping with "hipness" I was beginning to get self-conscious that I wasn't cool enough as it was dawning on me the huge opportunity available to so many different segments. Lots of stash is definitely being made. Skateboarding is not just for kids, it's a major cultural movement with a huge periphery. It's not just about selling skateboard hardware; decks wheels etc. It's selling an entire culture now...and it's selling like hotcakes.
I was down at the conference with a good friend who owns a small skateboard manufacturing company and I was along to help a bit on the marketing and to try to raise the company's profile a bit. Like a lot of other industries, the skateboard business has evolved into a distribution pipeline that is rather strictly controlled by a few established companies that supply all the major product. If you're a retailer, you need these guys bad because they've got the gear the buying public wants. If you're an upstart retailer it can be almost impossible to get the key products because another more established retailer in your area has the deal with the distributor. So a good deal of smaller retailers languish trying to flog unknown product, and the sad thing is that in many cases, this unknown product may be just as good or exceed the quality of the name brands.
This is where my friend's dilemma comes in; he's a manufacturer trying to get distribution. Up until now, he's been flogging his own stuff the best he can by dealing direct with smaller retailers in his home territory. But with North American manufacturing costs being what they are and being forced to compete with cheaper made chinese product that the dominant distributors flood the market with he's seeing his profits dwindle. At this point now, in order for him to succeed he needs wider distribution. He needs to be in stores all over North America and most importantly, he needs Internet distribution.
When I look around at the retailers on the Internet, there are some very cool sites, some with brick and mortar realities, but more that are strictly online ventures. Nevertheless, they almost all fall prey to the distributors. Not every shop has every big name product. For example, if distributor A has big name X & Y, and he's your supplier, if your customer wants product Z, which just happens to be distributor B's major line, that customer is going to another shop and there's not much you as the retailer can do because you're never going to get product Z as long as you sell X & Y from your guy. In some industries this is not such a problem because one product can be just as good quality-wise as the next and the customer base is not so brand fixated. But in the skate biz brand and image are kings and they come a dime a dozen. With slews of competing products, highly geared for brand recognition, quality is almost a secondary concern with most of the kids consuming these products. The skateboard consumer wants the latest and the greatest and who lets them know what these products are? Enter the skateboard pro. The professionals in the sport today are truly amazing athletes, defying fear and gravity to perform sometimes unbelievably complex and technical maneuvers. Look for skateboarding coming to an Olympics near you very soon, no joke.
This sport has gained major credibility over the last decade. Read credibility as 'ka ching' factor. Flip through the pages of one of the many mainstream skateboard magazines and you'll have a hard time finding the articles hidden beneath all the advertising. And just like many other tournament based sports, these young pros are making their money with endorsements. Younguns like Ryan Sheckler, Paul Rodriguez, Terry Kennedy, and Rob Dyrdek are hoovering up large dollars wearing their sponsor's clothes, and riding their sponsor's equipment. These skateboard pros are living, breathing billboards for the clamoring skateboard consumer base, which is now almost a world wide market.
With so many "name" products out there and companies changing skate pros like underwear there seems to be a couple of interesting opportunities here. Enter Skateboarderpro.com, a new site I recently stumbled upon that features a rotating top ten of hot pro skaters. There's some YouTube links to some videos but there's also a complete list of the skateboard gear these guys are sponsors for with direct links to buy the stuff online at a claimed "researched" cheapest price. I've seen some online retailers who organize their inventory by pro skater but because they don't get all the big names due to their supplier deals some of the breakdowns of what they can get are pretty lame. Skateboarderpro has it all. Pick your favorite pro from the top ten and instantly see links to EVERYTHING that rider uses, from deck to trucks, wheels, bearings, even the shoes. Skateboarderpro researches a variety of online retailers and puts it all together on one site. If you want to buy the exact setup say, Danny Way is riding, you don't have to search around and order form 3 different sites. Skateboarderpro utilizes an Amazon aStore to combine the entire transaction into one shopping cart so it really is a skateboard enthusiast shopper's dream.
The second opportunity I eluded to earlier is, with the skate culture endlessly gaining momentum, and sponsor companies eagerly searching for the next "pro" to exploit, the career choice of "professional skateboarder" is quickly becoming a reality for every pimply faced kid down at the local skatepark. Skateboarderpro.com has an offering for this as well with a new book, "GO PRO, The Definitive Guide On How To Become A Professional Skateboarder". A quick check around the interweb and you'll see there's not much in-depth info available on the actual mechanics involved in becoming a pro skater, so I'd be eager to see what this book had to offer if I was dreaming of one day winning the X Games on a vert ramp. Unfortunately, I'm definitely over forty and my trips to the skatepark these days are fettered with fits of panic interspersed with fleeting moments of glee as I valiantly attempt to find some flow without eating some concrete. I think my dreams of going pro are long gone but I might check the book for my son, and hip my skateboard manufacturing friend to Skateboarderpro.com
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