HI All,
Caution is still alive and well!
Although we have been designing kites since the early days, second only to Bruno/Wipika, we are still beginners in the media side of things. Obviously, we do not participate much in forums, as you can tell by this threads topic
This is mainly because we tend to have the same view as "Dr Makani", "it's 'industry standard' having these semi-honest-user posts..." But I will be 100% honest, S.A. does sell Caution at his shop (but one of his smaller brands). But he is also our harshest critic! His review is 100% honest, trust me.
It's a catch 22;
- If we post, you have "Dr Makani" calling us out for pimping and being "semi-honest".
- If we don't post you have "Thor SFBay" saying we're going under.
We do not like to pimp our own product. Instead, we would like the riders to do that for us. But we also realize we need to let people know what is going on at Caution, and help out our domestic beach ambassadors and international distributor as well.
Worse yet, we do not want to bag on others brands to get ahead... Like a number of other brands team riders do. I.e., "screwfootsc" used to be a rep for Caution, until he found a better deal from another company... We had no bad feelings, actually were good friends, and thought we had parted on good terms. But reading his posts, obviously there is more to selling kites then just making a good product.
We did go to a more direct sales approach, but still have a margin in there for a shop to sell to someone off the street, and still make a descent cut, without having to carry the product and or have any risk.
We have basically extended our "Friends and Family" pricing for the entire USA... as there is no middle man at all.
We are also not "anti-shops" by any means, but when other brands are dumping kites at ridicules pricing, we can't compete. And we can't blame a shop for buying the lower price (higher margin) product either. And it is only natural, that when a shop is getting smaller margins on a product, they will not push it as hard as the "higher margin" product. And in the end, they will buy fewer units of the lower margin unit.. then end up sitting on the product for the season.
At this point a brand becomes hand cuffed, because they can not sell in that area either, due to the fact that they will be undercutting the shop that is sitting on that particular brands, "bought" product.
We have always been a "grass roots" company, for lack of better words. We are not trying to take over the world, but just make a good living doing something we have a passion for. However, we do see the need for more visibility, not only for our current resellers, but also our new domestic and international sellers. We will be putting out a more conscious effort in 2013, to let people know what is going on at Caution... for good or bad,
I can tell you right now, kites are better then ever, the new 2013 bar is great (will have 2013 bar up on website soon). Pre-orders for the next batch of kites (mid Feb) are being taken now.
We do trust 100% in our product, and are sure you will be stoked when you ride it. As ThorSFBay so kindly pointed out, we need more demo's as well... We will be putting a Cali Demo tour together, closer to April, but are also constantly looking for local beach ambassadors.. Please get a hold of me at
poul@cautionkites.com, if you have any questions at all.
Thanks,
Poul