So from this I get:CaptainCore wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:35 pm....Back in the Slingshot days for example, when we were not quite as focussed on it as our principle income stream we used to order multiple sizes in multiple quantities and shipped direct from China in containers, and there were large factory minimums to get the prices we wanted.......
Times have changed now, since the financial crash we no longer have lots of dealers who will carry stock or indeed would be capable of buying closeout in the sort of volume that would encourage us to risk that business model. Order cycles for kites were never 12 months, they were bi monthly, up to 6 shipments per annum with the option of airfreight which put a tenner on the cost of each kite and so reflected in the pricing, should we have to top up sizes or colours. That has also changed I imagine other than a few big european brands most folk are air freighting as close to just in time as they can, ever since the crash it's become a just in time world.
1. There are brands big enough to possibly do an annual build cycle, or at least a initial order than a mid year order before switching to next years model builds.
"Back in the day" when every single kite of a large brand make and model had the same defect (like delaming valves), those were part of a single production run. Now you can get the same make and model with no defects on one kite, then the same kite with different defects because the production lot/time was different. So......
If the cycle and rumor you speak of is true, Slingshot would have ordered 150 TT's 2 months before the close of the season? A longer "order to sale" cycle seems to fit here. However, COREporate kiteboarding lack of availability makes more sense to be related to a shorter cycle.CaptainCore wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:35 pmThe close out brands have already triggered, they do it in season, this year there were Norths for the first time in volume just as Duotone was also being pushed into the system there were Cabrinha as usual, nobody buys Cabrinha at RRP customers know to wait until May/June, it's a bit like Golden day in Japan. Slingshot are rumoured to be sitting on 150 twintips they are closing out and there are probably 30 off deals on their and F1's 2018 stock I'm not sure I haven't bothered to look. There's a big UK internet discount operation they're all on there, if you don't know them, I'm not going to advertise them, but that's where UK customers go for close out products.
The answer to your question is simple. $5 worth of labor + $195 materials for a total build price of $200 to make a kite in Srilanka. $1800 to buy that kite in the US. That makes for some pretty pissed off customers wondering where their $1600 went and why they should pay an 800% markup. They would be a bit more "ok" with giving $400 for the kite for a 100% markup.CaptainCore wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:35 pmI often wonder why this business with probably the tightest margins there are already, faces such a hostile consumer base, not wanting anyone to profit from their custom, I don't think there's anything quite like it in any other sport, windsurfing was exactly the same and seems to have passed down the same disease even though it eventually killed that sport.
I know CappyCore's particular point of view. His livelihood depends on being in the chain for just a portion of that markup. At the beginning of the chain you have the producer, then the kite brand, then the distributor(s), then the store. Things get marked up and consumers know that. And the customers want support for their brand as dealing direct with China is likely to not produce results.
But how many times can you buy a kite direct from China for $400 without customer service, vs how many times can you buy a kite at the end of a long supply chain for $1800 ALSO WITHOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE???
Still, there seems to be a barrier to China direct marketing as Pansh kites are still an extremely small portion of the market. If they had their act together and had just a bit of customer service, I think they could take a much larger portion of the market away from long supply chain/just in time brands.