In spirit of the four-year anniversary of the Clark Foam collapse of o’five, I thought I would take a minute to address some material concerns. Every surf shop has to take an ethical stance on foreign dependence on parts. We may not care as much about where the rubber soles of our cold-water surf booties are made, but the country of origin of a surfboard, or blank, is a different story.
When the worlds largest polyurethane-foam blank producer, Gordon Clark, closed shop out of the blue on that fateful December day in 2005, the Asians went wild. Clark Foam was the only entity that was keeping the mass producing of pop-out boards at bay. The foam giant out of Laguna Niguel, California was helping to keep dollars in shaper's pockets and quality boards under our feet by way of the highest quality American-made foam blanks. But when the pressures of strict environmental standards started pushing Grubby, he decided not to push back; can you blame him? He felt that because his creations were so unique, that he was an industry “standard” which apparently also makes you a virtual limitless liability. This dethroned the foam king, and opened the flood gates for cheapo plastic Asian-made pancakes.
As much as I can appreciate the things Clark did for surfing, especially here in the states, I can’t help but be frustrated with how he handled his exit. Calling to his manufacturing facilities to destroy the concrete master blank molds and using powerful saws and torches to rip through the machines required to create the best foam blanks in the world; it just brings alligator tears. It wasn’t like there was some new technology here never before seen, it was just the way it was implemented. He was making things happen with regular techniques, but in a fashion that resulted in gold. I feel that he could have passed his trade and creations on to someone he trusted that would in-turn, find a more efficient and environmentally sound process of production. But alas, he is gone and the Surf Tech plastics are the rage.
Without a Delorean and Mr Fusion™, I can’t tell what Boyguna will value more, economically prudent pop-outs or individually glassed sticks? While we may sell more epoxy-glassed Surf Tech-style boards, I think we will want to push for the handcrafted past. My goal is to have a shaper (craftsman that refines a blank into a surfboard) on retainer for the shop. We will have to be sure the money is in the budget to afford to pay this person well enough to rightfully appreciate his or her creativity and skill. The business of being an independent shaper has declined significantly since the Clark Foam collapse and we want to thwart that AMAP (as much as possible, my own little thing). The shaping bay will be located either within the square footage of the shop, or as a detached building on the property. If it comes to pass that we are restricted in terms of shop space and/or property space/regulations, the shaping bay will be nearby and the rental fees for the studio will be covered by Boyguna. These fees will not be placed as a financial burden on our shaper.
The emotional connection involved in the purchase of a surfboard should never be overlooked. So much time and planning goes into this quick swipe of a credit card that, after things are all said and done, we will want feedback from our customers whenever possible. In many of the cases where our shaper will either be selling his/her wares, or building a custom spec board, we will want to follow-up with the customer regarding the boards’ performance. This information can be published as testament to the quality of our product and can help us make decisions down the road on what to stock as well as what to offer. What I mean by offer is: girl comes into the shop and is looking for an off-the-rack board. She doesn’t need a custom job, money is an issue, but she wants quality. She wants to rip on something that she can depend on and lists off a couple well known brands. CI, Rusty, Webber, Xanadu…you know them. I would think in this situation we want to go straight to our shapers quiver. Pushing these boards gets the shaper on the scene and promotes some brand loyalty with BSS. Depending on her reaction, we may then cruise over the glistening rack of performance short boards and pull off a KStep-Up and be good. Either way, we want to know what she thinks of the ride.
After the point of sale, we will give her a little coupon-looking deal. The coupon will have a link to our website where, when she enters the promotional code from her board purchase, she will be taken to a survey screen. Once the survey is completed, a printable in-store coupon will be displayed to her with a special number on it. We will keep track of that number to make sure the coup is only used once and not Xeroxed at Kinko’s and dumped out of a helicopter. Now we have valuable customer feedback as well as a repeat customer as she will want to redeem that coupon.
My hope is to be so close to the beach that riders of our shapers boards will stop by and let us know how the boards work for them. This will be the casual banter that goes around surf shops that provides fantastic information as to what is going on in the lineup and what is being deemed “kook status”. From a purely business standpoint, we will want to be up on both. While kooky gear may not appeal to the hardcore, localized surf crowd, it does pull in big dollars from tourists and weekend warriors. And we are in business to make money. But we want to keep a firm grasp on the soul aspect of surfing – that is where the kids come in. When I say kids, I mean hiring local high-school and college aged talent to work in the shop. This is crucial to developing that word-of-mouth advertising as well as getting some good surfing knowledge on staff. But that is talk for another blog.
Hopefully my next article will be put together a little more, I was just excited and wanted to get some text out there on my foamy thoughts.
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