A reader sent me the article below that was published in the Australian on March 12th. I’d love to just provide you with a link, but The Australian would want you to sign up for an account and pay them money. I don’t blame them, but I doubt you’re going to do it and I […]
Zumiez ended its fiscal year on January 31st with 603 stores; 550 in the U.S., 35 in Canada and 18 in Europe. How many stores do they expect to ultimately have? In the past, they’ve opined that 600 to 700 might be about the limit in the U.S. Obviously, they’ve got some head room in […]
It figures. Over the weekend I finished up a long article for SAM (Ski Area Management) on winter resorts generating summer revenue. I think it included some interesting approaches to the issue, but apparently I missed one. Today Vail Resorts announced that it’s acquiring Perisher Ski Resort in New South Wales, Australia. Here’s the link […]
I’m assuming you’ve all seen the Quiksilver press release. Andy Mooney “…is no longer with the company.” President Pierre Agnes, the President has been promoted to CEO. Bob McKnight has returned as Chairman of the Board and APAC region president Greg Healy is now President of Quik. Former CFO Richard Shields has resigned, but will […]
At the risk of sounding like a broken record….oh, damn, do I need to explain that outdated cultural reference? You see, back in the day when there was something called a record…never mind. Anyway, I’ve said this a lot. It can be hard to do the right thing for the brand and still meet the […]
You recall that Skullcandy found itself in turnaround mode when it sold too much poor quality product in low priced distribution that wasn’t consistent with its preferred branding and market positioning. I suppose that happened when the newly public company tried to meet Wall Street growth expectations. CEO Hoby Darling came in and put a […]
Back in 2002, Globe bought Kubic Marketing, the holding company for World Industries and Dwindle. It turned out that their timing couldn’t have been worse in terms of the skateboarding industry cycle. Just about the time they dug their way out of that glitch, the Great Recession hit and had the same kind of impact […]
Some people up in Canada decided, for whatever reason, to start an action sports industry news magazine called The BoardPress. Their sanity in trying to do this can be questioned, but they sent me a copy of their first print magazine, which came out some months ago. Probably hoping I’d write something about them. It […]
As I’ve written before, I have a lot of respect for how SPY has restructured and repositioned itself. There seems to be an alignment of their corporate culture and market positioning that not only has the potential to differentiate the brand (in their market), but to save money and increase the efficiency of the organization. […]
Wow, this is going to be way shorter than most of my previous Billabong articles. Where’s the drama, the kind of hard to get your head around accounting, the recapitalizations and explanations thereof, the endless list of “significant items” I always complain about? Gone. Mostly. Well, not all the significant items. Billabong is implementing their […]
