The Skateboard Distribution Model- It Never Was Broken

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I just found out I’d volunteered to facilitate the panel on distribution at next week’s IASC and BRA sponsored Skateboard Industry Summit. I had to spend some time getting my thoughts about distribution in order, and I know of no better way than to write them down.

Distribution has always been a bit of a contentious issue in the skateboard industry. I’d regularly go to the IASC sponsored breakfasts at ASR and listen to the participants agree that the industry should “do something” about distribution. Then came the implied blame and pointing of fingers as the brands, retailers and distributors all looked at each other. Needless to say, nothing much was accomplished.

“The industry,” of course, is never going to “fix” distribution. Every company, if I can recite for the umpteenth time what seems to be becoming my mantra, is going to do what it perceives to be in its own best interest- as it should.  And, by the way, distribution isn’t and was never “broken” and doesn’t need fixing. As it does in every industry, it just evolved based on consumer requirements and competitive actions by companies. Distribution may be inconvenient and not the way we’d like it to be, but it’s not broken.
 
When concern about distribution is expressed, I usually translate it into “Where and how the other guy is selling his product is pushing my gross margins down and I need higher gross margins so they should change what they’re doing.” Another translation might be, “I need to run my business a little differently in the existing competitive environment, but I’d rather not.”
 
But of course eventually you will or you won’t be here. Let’s take a short look at how distribution evolved and what the drivers have been and are.
 
A Little History
 
Maybe ten years ago, skate hard goods distribution was pretty closely controlled. When it was still a smaller, underground activity the smaller number of skaters were content, or committed enough, to pay a high price for branded decks. Also, they had few options.  This gave the companies enough margin dollars to support their team and marketing programs.
 
Then a handful of things happened. The Chinese learned to make quality decks. The internet market place blossomed. Skateboarding went mainstream. The industry was slow to innovate. Big companies with way, way more money than a skate company could even imagine got interested in skating. Skaters figured out that what the skate companies had been telling them for years was true- a skate board was seven or eight plies of laminated Canadian maple and anything not made like that wasn’t a skateboard. But they took it a step further then we in the industry might have wanted them to. Many of them decided that since all the decks were the same (as they perceived it), it would be nice to have an extra $25 in their pocket for a product that was going to wear out anyway.
 
My belief is that the number of skaters grew dramatically for a while. But of course somebody who identifies themself as a skater isn’t necessarily skating every day, or even every week in our new broader market, so how much product they buy is unclear. As with any activity, you can identify closely with it, but not do it regularly yourself. Maybe you buy shoes and clothes instead of hard goods.
 
 In spite of the increase in the number of skaters, the market for branded, full price decks fell. There will always be a market for branded decks, but the overall number of skaters that feel it’s necessary to pay that price has fallen even as the number of skaters has increased. Please remember here I’m talking about the industry here- not specific brands.
 
We can’t talk about distribution without mentioning blanks and shop decks. Blanks are still out there, and those who want them can get them. But the shops, correctly I think, have decided that carrying blanks isn’t in their interest, and they’ve turned to shop decks. The margins are good, and those shop branded decks go a long way towards helping them connect with their customers and build the local skate community. And quite a few skaters, I gather, like belonging to the more tangible community revolving around their local shop than to the one represented by a pro skater they’ve only seen in videos. 
 
Cary Allington at Action Watch reports that in 2010 “shop deck” was the leading brand at the stores in his panel, accounting for something like 25% of short deck revenues. The second brand was about 6%. He further reports that the average price paid for a branded short deck (under 34 inches) was $47.34 in 2007 and $47.31 in 2010- essentially unchanged. Wonder what the cost of a deck did over that period. The average gross margin over the same period rose from 34.1% to 36. 2%.
 
The Distributors
 
Brands have two choices. They can sell in smaller quantities directly to retailers. They have to carry and manage the inventory to cover those orders, cover the associated overhead and, to the extent they extend terms, collect from the retailers. This ties up working capital. Or they can sell in larger quantities to distributors. If they take that approach they don’t have to collect, they get paid quickly, they don’t have to stock as much inventory and they save some operating expenses. It is, to put it succinctly, less balance sheet intensive.
 
In practice brands do both, selling to distributors and directly to retailers as well. I guess it’s pretty much up to the retailer to decide who they buy from. We could have a long and interesting conversation about the role of distributors in marketing brands. But let’s keep to the numbers part of things right now.
 
Distributors require discounts off the brand’s usual wholesale price- typically around 25% I’m told. At a time when margins for brands are already squeezed one wonders why brands haven’t stopped selling to distributors and gone direct. Nobody has shared their rationale for continuing to use distributors with me, but I suspect it’s at least partly a cash flow issue. Here’s why.
 
Let’s say a brand pulls out of a distributor. Immediately, the brand’s sales will fall to the extent of its sales to the distributor and assuming that all the distributor’s customers for that brand don’t turn right away to that brand to buy their product direct. And the distributor would continue to sell its existing stock of the brand’s product unless, maybe, the brand bought that stock back.
 
Over some amount of time, depending on the brands market strength, some of those sales would migrate from the distributor back to the brand giving the brand a higher overall margin. The question is how much and how fast? Once again, it depends on the brand. Would retailers that had been buying from a distributor just shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh well, I’ll buy a different brand” or would they say, “We’ve got to have that brand in our store.”
 
There would, then, be some initial decline in cash flow (hopefully temporary) and some permanent increase in expenses as a brand made the transition from the distributor to selling direct. My hypothesis is that business conditions have evolved for some brands to the point where they just don’t have the balance sheet to consider making that kind of change even if their analysis shows it would make business sense.
   
A Different Point of View
 
Snowsports Industries of America recently reported that February industry sales were down 1.5% for the month compared to the previous year. A bad thing? Nope, a great thing because gross margins had risen 8%. I wrote about it on my web site and basically said, “You made more money by selling less.” Now, a great snow year didn’t hurt, but basically most of the snow brands were scared shitless by the recession into ordering and producing less product and the consumer, finding shortages, was willing to pay more and valued the brands more. And if the snow guys are lucky and not too many brands and retailers get too greedy, and if it snows some, the industry can expect customers who won’t have any closeouts available to them this fall and who will be anxious to buy at full margin to get what they want.
 
I also wrote recently about Orange 21’s (Spy Optic) financial results for the year and recent management changes. I looked at their strategies, market position and competitive environment and suggested that maybe a $34 million company just didn’t have the resources to do all the things it needed to do to compete successfully in the sunglass and goggle market given the competitors and their resources.
 
I think both these ideas are worthy of consideration by the skate industry. Selling more doesn’t necessarily make you more money if everybody else is trying to do the same thing. And, like Orange 21, some of the industry companies may simply not have the resources to effectively pursue the skate team pro rider strategy that’s been the anointed foundation of this industry forever.
 
That’s not to say that isn’t a great strategy for certain brands, but I suspect that with the growth of skateboarding it’s become less important to more skaters. And that’s before we even talk about long boarding.
 
Shops are becoming brands. Quality decks are available from a variety of sources and can be found in a broader retail environment. Price matters more than it used to. Some brands have become dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on distributors who could easily become their competitors if they choose to. Large companies with massive resources want a piece of the pie.
 
As much as we might want to, we’re not going back to the skate brand and retailer friendly distribution and pricing scenario of some years ago. Let’s stop talking about “fixing” distribution and focus on competing in the environment we’ve been handed.
 
I’m hoping, by the way, that some of what I’ve written is just the slightest bit controversial and that some of you will take the opportunity at the conference next week to explain to me how it is that my head found its way into such a warm, dark place. The goal isn’t to be right or wrong but to exchange information and maybe get a new perspective that will help us run our businesses better and build the industry. I always learn a lot when people tell me why I’m wrong.   

 

 

The Lesson to be Learned from SIA’s Sales Report

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SIA recently reported that the snow sports market in February exceeded $3 billion. You probably get the same emails I get, but if not, you can see the announcement and analysis here. SIA expects the industry to set a record by the time the season ends. Through February, sales are up 13% in dollars and 8% in units. In February unit sales were down 2% and dollars sales 1.5% compared to February last year. But gross margins rose 8%.

With the usual cautionary note that we always do well when the snow gods favor us, let’s look briefly at the opportunities these results present us with.

I’m thrilled to see February sales down and margins up 8%. That happened because inventories were tight. For the whole season, sales are up more than units, also reflecting rising margins.
 
If dollar sales fell 1.5% in February but margins were up 8%, how did you do? I’d say you had more gross margin dollars than if sales had been a bit higher but margins lower. Those gross margin dollars, I may have argued a time or two, are what you use to pay your bills. But wait! There’s more!
 
You have less working capital tied up in inventory. You could have spent less money on advertising and promotion. Your customer is learning not to wait for a deal. Tons of closeout product isn’t showing up in places we really don’t want it (unless you’re one of those close out people, in which case you may not be too happy). There’s not a pile of left over product in your warehouse waiting to be cleared out before the start of the season next year.
 
Won’t it be fun when customers start coming in looking for cheap stuff and you can tell them that not only isn’t there any, but if they don’t get what they want now, they may not get it? You’ve already improved your gross margin by next year just by not having a bunch of inventory left and we’ve collectively improved our brands’ images.
 
As an industry, we go to conferences, hold trade shows, create learn to ski/ride programs, run all sorts of programs, do studies advertise and promote, and spend overall millions of dollars trying to get people to try riding/skiing and stick with it.
But I’d hypothesize that we could forgo a bunch of that if we just didn’t get so damned greedy and continued to control our inventories. Oh, and we- you, that is- could make more money with less risk.
 
Now, I’m the guy who’s always said every business is going to (and should) make the decisions that they perceive to be in their own best interest. That’s true. But it looks to me right now that what’s good for your business is probably good for the industry in at least this one instance. Everybody left standing in the ski/board industry has figured out, finally, that there’s no way to make money in winter sports if you’ve got a pile of left over inventory. And also you won’t be able to pay your bills.
 
I know we’re left with the not so simple issue of trying to match production and purchases with how much it’s going to snow and where. And I know that somebody, somewhere (probably more than one) is going to see the inventory shortage as an opportunity and crank up their factory and/or purchasing. But if most of us perceive that it’s in our interest to buy and sell a little less at higher margins, we can sleep better over the summer, have stronger balance sheets, make more money with less investment and help get more people on the mountain.
 
At least think about that before you say, “Shit, I could have sold more last year” and up your orders.                           

 

 

A Perspective on Zumiez Accounting Treatments as Reported by Forbes

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An article in Forbes called “Great Speculations” had the subtitle “Accounting Smells a Little Fishy Down at the Zumiez Surf Shop.” It calls into question Zumiez’s reported earnings and balance sheet strength due to a couple of their accounting practices. Boardistan called our attention to it and concluded, “Apparently, Zumiez is shifting over to the “whatever it takes” program.” I had a couple of people email it to me, though nobody expressed an opinion. Maybe they thought I’d jump on Zumiez or something or were just pointing out to me that I hadn’t covered either of the issues mentioned by Forbes in my recent analysis. We didn’t hear anything about this in either Transworld Business or Shop- Eat-Surf.

Forbes analysis and explanation was fine as far as it went, though I’d have trouble reaching the same conclusion they reached. I thought it might be useful if I looked in a bit more detail at the two issues they raise. My goal is not just to give you some perspective on the accounting issues, but to show you that the issues are not quite as clear cut as Forbes explained them and to make you leery of short, pithy, articles you read in the popular media. Hopefully, nobody thinks my stuff is pithy. Well, maybe from time to time I’m a little pithy.

I’m going to assume you clicked on the link above and read the article. Let’s start with a little perspective on accounting.
 
Over many, many years, many people have struggled to figure out what the “right” accounting procedure for certain transactions is. It’s typically obvious what’s just not acceptable. It’s sometimes not so easy to choose from a number of reasonable approaches. Eventually a consensus is reached by the accounting powers that be and they choose a way to do it. The goals are consistency, comparability, and accuracy. Reasonable people can reasonable believe that different approaches are correct.  If you think of accounting as being exact, get over it.
 
The first thing the Forbes article points out is that Zumiez increased the useful life of its leasehold improvements. That’s the cost of the stuff you do to stores after you lease the space to make them ready to open or to improve how they look. When you increase useful life, you decrease the annual depreciation and so have less reported expense. So your income goes up. Zumiez changed its useful life from the lesser of 7 years or the term of the least to the lesser of 10 years or the term of the lease.
 
“For the fiscal year ended January 29, 2011, the effect of this change in estimate was to reduce depreciation expense by $4.2 million, increase net income by $2.7 million and increase basic and diluted earnings per share by $0.09,” Zumiez states.
 
Forbes notes that “…ZUMZ is the only retail com­pany, and 1 of only 9 in the 3000+ com­pa­nies we cover, to increase the esti­mated use­ful life of any of its assets accord­ing to all 10-Ks filed since Jan­u­ary 2010.” There’s a kind of “Aha! We caught you!” sense to the article. But what we don’t know, either from the article or from Zumiez’s 10K is why this is, or is not, a reasonable thing to do.
 
The other thing that the Forbes article points to is that Zumiez “…car­ries over $310 million (nearly 50% of its mar­ket cap and over 120% of reported net assets) in off-balance sheet debt.” It’s all in footnote 9 in Zumiez 10K; Commitments and Contingencies. The number I see is actually $347 million which is more than Forbes reported. The number for Pacsun, by comparison, is $506 million (they have a lot more stores) and is disclosed in a similar footnote. And you’d find the same thing for other larger, multi-store retailers. In this case, then, we have good comparability.
 
Should that amount be on the balance sheet? Maybe. The Financial Accounting Standards Board came out with FAS 13 in 1976 to tell companies how to account for leases. It’s been amended quite a few times since then. A link in the Forbes article describes how they are considering requiring that these leases be included on the balance sheet as a liability starting in 2012. 
 
I should make it clear that the idea of a public company managing (some would say manipulating) their earnings to put their best foot forward is hardly new. There are lots and lots of ways to do that. You change your reserve for bad debts. You can decide to ship and invoice on the last day of the quarter or early in the new quarter to determine what quarter the sales go in. The list goes on. Did Zumiez do something wrong? All we can say, taking the Forbes article at face value, is that increasing the useful life of leasehold improvements is unusual. Is it justified? We don’t know. Does it meet generally accepted accounted principles? Yes.
 
Not including the lease liabilities on the balance sheet is normal practice. Is it the “best” way to do it?   Damned if I know. Let’s leave that to the Financial Accounting Standards Board.
 
And if they do change (again) the way leases are accounted for, it will be hard to compare the first year they do that with the previous year’s results. We’ll probably need a footnote to take care of that.  It will be hidden in the back of the report, and you’ll have to go find it and read it. And then there will be some other change, and some other accounting issue will rear its early head. But we still won’t know the “right” way to do the accounting.”
 
The moral of the story is that there’s a certain inevitable amount of complexity and ambiguity when it comes to evaluating the “quality” of a company’s earnings. We can and will move towards doing it better, but we’ll never get to end of that road. Evaluating a company’s financial statements and their reasonableness probably means you have to get a little dirty back in the footnotes to get a clear perspective. You shouldn’t rely on what Forbes says. Or on what I say for that matter.
 
But don’t get too dirty. Knowing that Zumiez increased their earnings per share by $0.09 for the year by increasing the useful life of its leasehold improvements doesn’t, by itself, change my evaluation of their market position and strategy. But I’m glad that Forbes highlighted the issues for us to think about.

 

 

What a Specialty Retailer Might Learn From Genesco

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I’m not really that interested in doing a full analysis of Genesco. Mostly because I doubt you’re that interested in reading it. But Journeys, owned by Genesco is 813 stores and the Journeys group of stores is over 1,000 in the U.S. and Canada so we can hardly not pay attention to what they’re up to.

 For the year ended January 29th, Genesco’s revenues were almost $1.8 billion. Of that, Journeys represented $804 million, or 45%.  Their hat retail business, Lids, is the second largest piece of their business. It has 985 stores. It and Journeys represent 80% of Genesco’s total revenue.

I did a more thorough analysis of Genesco a while ago. The approach to retail and the strategy I highlighted in that article is still very interesting to read about, and one of the reasons I don’t feel the need to go in depth here. If you want you can also view the press release on their fourth quarter and year end results. 
 
Genesco wants a brand leadership position for all their businesses. They want to be number one and have a reason to believe that their position is hard to duplicate. They believe they are number one in teen fashion footwear in Journeys, and number one in headwear through Lids.
 
In Lids, they believe that what makes their position hard to duplicate is that they will always been the competitor with the largest localized assortment. In a college town, to use their example, they will have every permutation and combination of logoed product that the college offers. 
 
They talked about teenagers migrating away from athletic footwear into “brown shoes” that still have an athletic base and construction. Their sense is that these kinds of cycles last years and that they are still very early in this one.
 
We’ve all heard about that trend before, but let’s consider the implications. First, Journeys, or other large retailers, don’t care whether the kids want skate shoes, or brown shoes, or ballet slippers as long as they can get the ones the kids want. Second, if you are in the skate shoe, or athletic shoe business you’d better be able to transition to the so called brown shoe market. That will depend on your existing market position (that is, how your customers perceive your brand) and whether you have the resources and manufacturing relationships to pull it off. I can imagine it is hard for some action sports brands to follow this brown shoe trend for either or both of those reasons.
 
Genesco goes right on to discuss that as Journeys is the biggest retailer in the space they have very strong relationships with vendors. One part of “very strong relationships,” of course, is that they can get better prices. Wonder if the vendors like that part of “very strong relationships.” Anything for volume I guess.
 
Genesco notes that these strong relationships give them access to exclusive product “on a preferred basis” and to special make up product as well. It seemed like they were talking about two different things there, but I’m not sure I understand the distinction between exclusive product and special make up.
 
Saying it as bluntly as anybody I’ve studied has, they note that “The economics improve with national scale.” Part of the reason that’s true is because you have to be big to afford the management and inventory systems that make local assortment management possible with a couple of thousand stores.
 
Genesco is refreshingly honest about rolling up the little guys in fragmented industries and using their size to compete. It was probably eight years at the Surf Summit in Cabo when I stood up and asked a panel of specialty retailers what they would do when there were 5,000 branded stores competing with them. Boy was I wrong. There are way more than 5,000. But the specialty retailers who are still standing can’t compete on price or national scale.
 
They can take a cue from Genesco and compete on localization by digging deep into their customers’ preferences. Resist the temptation to select product according to terms, margin, discount or because the rep’s an old friend (this is where having a strong balance sheet comes in). Buy what you know you can sell to your customer based on solid information. That’s what Genesco strives to do.       

 

 

Billabong Purchase of West 49 and Implications for the Industry- Questions, Questions, Questions

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Billabong’s acquisition of West 49 was the biggest retail expansion by a brand so far. We’ll see more brands buying more retailers and opening more stores. This article is about why. What are the motivations and the industry impacts? And what are some of the conflicts and contradictions companies will face as they pursue this strategy? Some of this is a bit repetitive of stuff I’ve written before, but we’re really talking strategy and industry evolution at the highest level. I want to tie it all together.

A Little History

Years ago we all knew, and I and lots of others wrote, that we didn’t need any more retailers (not just in action sports). Especially as the internet came into its own, consumers had more choices of product and place to buy than could possibly be useful. That didn’t mean a new store by brand x couldn’t succeed- we were all giddy with rising income and asset values after all- but if it wasn’t opened, no consumer was likely to care.
 
Then came the recession. If things are improving, we’re hardly out of the woods yet. U.S. Unemployment is 9.6% (a lot higher if you count people who have given up looking). The creation of 150,000 jobs in October was hailed as a big success, but that’s not much more than the number we need to keep up with population growth. Foreclosures and housing prices are still a major burden. Banks are cautious about their lending (we want them to be, I think- isn’t not being cautious part of what got us into this mess in the first place?), and consumers are still paying down debt and saving (again, hard to say that’s a bad thing).
 
Wish we were doing as well in the U.S. as in Canada. Well, this is for a Canadian publication after all and there’s nothing like a little ass kissing directed at the editor to minimize requests for rewrites.
 
Anyway, retailers across the whole economy closed when the recession hit, and the process is still continuing. We are all intimately familiar with the impact on action sports core stores. I’m sure everybody reading this knows a favorite store that’s gone away or is struggling. West 49’s public financials made it very clear it had some issues before it was acquired, and I expect its problems were part of the motivation for the deal.
 
Point one, then, is that if the economy is improving, we’re still struggling, at least south of the border.
 
Point two is that the role and numbers of “core” retailers is changing. Use to be that we thought anybody who was an independent retailer and carried hard goods was a “core” shop. Turns out we were wrong. A real core shop caters to participants and serious lifestylers who are not so price sensitive, carries the newest and best product, and is owned and staffed by people who are part of the culture and are participants themselves.
 
What does a core shop have to do to be successful?   My list is below.
 
Attributes of a Successful Core Retailer
 
By the way, I first created this list (slightly modified here) so long ago that I can’t even find it on my web site.
 
·         Good management accounting systems that they actually maintain and use
·         A quality internet presence
·         Active participant in its community
·         Sales volume high enough to make their shop financially viable (duh!)
·         A career path that helps them keep good employees for at least a while
·         Willingness to carry and promote new brands
·         They excel at selling and servicing hard goods.
 
The Rationale for More Stores
 
Things are better in Canada, so maybe it’s easier to justify new retailers there than in the U.S. Still, looking at the overall economic picture, and what I’d characterize as the apparent lack of consistent, real, growth in skate/snow/surf participation, one has to wonder why more stores make sense.
 
Answer? They probably don’t overall. But of course each company does what it perceives to be in its own best interest at the time. Especially as a public company, you’ve got to find ways to grow and become more profitable. Your choices of how you might grow haven’t changed in a long, long time.
 
You can sell more to existing independent retailers. Well, the action sports market doesn’t quite offer the organic growth potential it used to. There are fewer of those retailers, and the growth you can expect from them becomes less and less significant as a company gets bigger and bigger.
 
You can expand your distribution. I think at this point we all understand that there are limits to that unless you’re fundamentally changing your brand’s positioning- not an easy thing to do.
 
You can make acquisitions, and we’ve seen a lot of that from Billabong and others. I expect we’ll see more.
 
You can try and expand your brand franchise into other product areas. Quiksilver’s women’s brand comes to mind. You can add product under an existing brand like Electric (owned by Volcom) is doing with apparel. You can start a new brand. All of these have costs and risks as well as potential that aren’t the subject of this article.
 
You can run your business better, trying to improve your inventory management and controlling expenses in hopes of improving the bottom line even with limited sales increases. Pretty much everybody who’s made it through the recession has done and is doing this.
 
And finally, you can go vertical and, as part of that, open or acquire retail stores. Why does that appear to be so attractive right now? That question brings us to the list below. The points on the list are not of my creation. They are taken from conference calls, publications, and conversations.
 
Why Retail Locations?
·         Capture the middleman’s margin dollars.
·         Better control of our brand and image. Improving the consumer experience with the brand.
·         As a response to fast fashion; we can get new product into retail faster and we don’t have to convince some buyer to order it.
·         Collection issues and uncertainty as to the future of small, independent retailers.
·         We don’t see better growth opportunities (okay, nobody exactly said it quite that directly).
·         Ability to merchandise their offerings better across the complete product line.
·         Leverage with landlords, infrastructure and vendors.
·         As a competitive response.
 
I am not saying these points are all valid for any brand that opens retail stores- only that they have the potential to be. Or that brands going into retail believe they are. One of the things I wrote when the Billabong/West 49 deal was announced was that I thought Billabong might find integrating a 130 or so chain with some apparent financial difficulties more challenging than integrating a brand (like their previous acquisitions) that was growing, profitable, and well managed. As far as I can tell, Billabong really has left their acquired brands more or less alone. I wonder if they can do that with West 49.
 
The Strategic Conundrum
 
I’ll get to the tactical issues for brands building its retail base below. Right now, I want to take a few paragraphs to talk about how this retail focus might fit into the industry’s general evolution. It’s possible I’ve got more questions than answers, but it’s clearly something anybody running a brand or a retailer needs to be thinking about.
 
And maybe the distinction between brand and retailer is a good place to start.  Action sports began as brands selling to core retailers. Those sales expanded into broader distribution. Now brands are also selling their own (and other) brands direct to consumer through both the internet and their own stores. I expect this to continue to grow.  Brands becoming retailers, retailers becoming brands. The impact?
 
If you’re a small independent retailer, go back and read the box with attributes of a successful core retailer. If you read between the lines, you have figured out that you have to be a brand too- but a local brand in your community, not a national one.
 
But maybe I’ve spoken too quickly. There’s the internet after all. Think of a shop like Evo in Seattle. It’s got a successful retail store, but just one. Where it seems to be growing is with its internet presence. And it’s not the only one. As a brick and mortar retailer, it’s a local brand. With its internet sales exceeding its store sales is it a national brand? Can it be? Will it start selling Evo branded product to other retailers?
 
Next, it seems clear that the brand retail explosion is pretty much ending any stigma there was to being in a mall. This is working particularly well for Zumiez which, with its hard goods and action sports lifestyle committed employees, looks and tries to act an awful lot like a core shop. It’s almost like brands open retail locations in malls are validating Zumiez’s business model, but can’t match Zumiez’s history and focus. Maybe Billabong thinks West 49 can have a similar positioning and advantages in Canada.   It will be interesting to watch Zumiez does in Canada now that West 49 is part of Billabong.
 
Now, let’s talk about the action sports business. What is that exactly? For one thing, it’s a term that’s been thrown around out of habit even as the industry has evolved almost beyond recognition. Try this: The action sports industry is that group of brands and retailers who develop and sell product to participants in the sports of snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, and wakeboarding, (arguments can be made to add others) and to a close circle of non-participants actively involved in the sports and lifestyles.
 
If you accept my definition, it becomes pretty clear that retail building brands aren’t just after the action sports market. It’s just not a big enough market given their existing size and objectives. I came up with the “lifestyle sports fashion business,” as a description of the market they are focused on growing in, but I’m not sure that captures it either. Maybe that’s why we keep using terms like “action sports” and “core.” We have no idea what to replace them with. Maybe youth culture is the correct term.
 
It’s no secret that this growth and industry evolution means we’re more fashion and non-participant oriented in our sales. I don’t say that critically- it’s kind of inevitable. The retail blossoming we’re experiencing puts companies like Billabong into a whole new market. I’ll say it again- it’s where they have to go to grow, and they face a whole new set of competitors as they go there.
 
What Will Billabong Do?
 
There are a number of issues Billabong will have to address as they integrate West 49. But I hasten to mention that any company with multiple brands and a retail presence will face similar issues.
 
How much of their owned brands will they sell in West 49 stores? Billabong’s Paul Naude suggested it might get up to 60% eventually. West 49, of course, was already a customer of Billabong’s. But given the higher margins and the leverage they get, Billabong would like to increase it. Go back and review my “Why Retail Locations” list.   In a perfect world, where it wouldn’t cost them any sales, they’d probably love to make West 49 stores all Billabong and its owned brands. With brands including Nixon, Element, Sector 9, Dakine, Von Zipper. Xcel and others, they certainly have the product to increase the proportion sold in West 49.
 
Assuming for a minute that Billabong wants to keep essentially the same levels of total inventory in West 49 stores (subject to any changes in sales levels), do they bring in more Dakine backpacks and reduce or eliminate Hurley, just to pick a brand? There are also Element backpacks. And Billabong backpacks. And Vans. Etc.
 
Billabong’s strict financial and operational bias will be to replace Vans, Hurley and other backpacks with its own brands. They can’t, however, make that decision without reference to West 49s customers and its market position. Do customers come in asking for Hurley backpacks and will they care if they end up with an Element one instead?
 
Would Billabong be okay with selling a bit less at West 49 stores if they got higher margins because of their owner brands?
If Billabong sells more of its owned brands in these stores, it will have to carry and sell less of somebody’s brand. Who’s? How much less? Will the customers care?
 
Billabong believes it can better merchandise it product and position its brands through its own retail because it can present the whole line the way it wants. Doesn’t Hurley, to continue with the same example, feel the same way?
 
When Billabong, or another brand, begins to control how much of which product is carried in a retail store, what happens to the manager/owner’s ability to change product/brands in response to changing local conditions?
 
So, if you’re Hurley and Billabong is cutting back its purchases of backpacks for the West 49 stores, how far do they have to cut it back before you begin to feel like your product is an afterthought and that there’s not enough product and selection of product to represent the brand well?
 
Might not Hurley (owned by Nike) take a look at the situation not just in terms of backpacks, but strategically in terms of the overall impact of brand owned retailers on its brand? One conclusion they could reach is that the distinction between brands and retail is disappearing and that competitive conditions require them to control more of their own retail. Go look at the list of reasons a brand might want to be in retail again. Given the advantages listed there, how can a big brand not do some of its own retail?
 
How about the implications for retail chains? If you’re going to have to compete with vertical brands with the advantages I’ve outlined. You’d better have a hell of a market position. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some more chains up for sale as this all evolves. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see some competition for buying them. The economics are very compelling. They might be equally compelling when it comes to buying a brand that would fit into your retail.
 
What would I do if I were Billabong? I’ve be crunching my numbers, looking at margins and sell through for various brands in West 49. I’d be talking about Billabong owned brands and what are possible substitutes for other brands. I think I’d probably conclude that I don’t want to carry brands that I can’t merchandise correctly. My bias would be to eliminate some brands rather than to inefficiently cut back on a lot of them.
 
Conclusion
 
Billabong’s purchase of West 49 feels like it might be the formal announcement of a new industry consolidation based on vertical integration. The competitive dynamics associated with this out in the larger world of sports fashion lifestyle product are driving it. As I said, I don’t like that term. But I don’t have a better one and I have to draw a distinction between the action sports market as I defined it above and this much, much larger market that the big, public, multi-brand companies are focused on.
 
The break between the two seems so fundamental that I can almost see a big gap between them. Maybe that’s where the “youth culture market” fits in. If you are in what I’ve defined as the action sports market, forget about what vertical brands are doing. If you are one of those vertical brands, you aren’t going to ignore the “core” market, but you are going to get a declining piece of your revenue and profitability from it and you will focus accordingly.

 

 

Thoughts on a Longboard Trade Show

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Concrete Wave sent out a press release February 21 announcing the first longboard tradeshow in New York City on March 11. I didn’t think about it much at first, but as some time passed, a few questions occurred to me.

The first was, “Why does longboarding need its own trade show?” Maybe it doesn’t need it, but apparently the longboarding part of the skateboard industry wants it. Given the growth of longboarding, I can’t see any reason why they shouldn’t have it. I’ve heard estimates that longboarding represents up to 50% of the skateboard hard goods market (personally, I think that’s a little high).   It also seems logical to me that these longboarding companies, many of which are pretty small, can’t really afford, and maybe don’t need (yet?) a big, longer show like Surf Expo.

The second question was, “What, exactly, is a trade show?” This one will last only from noon to 8PM on March 11, will be streamed live over the internet (at www.pushculture.com), and is being held at the new and second location of The Longboard Loft, a retailer in New York City. The reason they are doing it there, I gather, is because the place isn’t quite completely open yet and there’s room. The show will be followed by the presentation of the Second Annual Concrete Wave/AXS Gear Reader’s Choice Awards.
 
Following the demise of ASR, there was a lot of ringing of hands, meetings and phone calls as organizations dependent on ASR scurried around to figure out how to replace their lost revenue. There was talk that those organizations might decide to combine forces and put on their own trade show. Honestly, I don’t expect it to happen if only because of the significant cash that would have to be committed and the fact that putting on an ASR type trade show is a complicated management undertaking- a fact that may not be appreciated until you start to think about doing it yourself. Done on a large scale it requires a long lead time and experienced trade show management.
 
This longboard show is called a trade show, but I think another term might be appropriate. How about “organic industry gathering?” All I know is that about 32 longboard brands decided to get together for day, show product, talk to their customers (consumers as well as retailers), exchange information, and probably have a good time.
 
Actually, there’s a waiting list of another 13 brands. They’ve been invited to come anyway, hang out with their product and, if necessary, display it at the bar next door. Brands that are attending include Sector 9, Globe, Earthwing, Triple 8, and Bustin.0   I’m guessing the people putting this on aren’t even certain how it will all work out.
 
If there was still an ASR, would this show even be happening? Yes. Longboard brands aren’t participating in this show instead of going to ASR. They needed something that met their needs, and they needed it on the East coast. Longboard is a distinct and growing industry segment. That’s not my opinion- it’s what the consumer has decided.   Action sports is no longer quite so distinctive and is not growing very quickly unless you include new sports in it, and then one wonders if it’s still action sports.
 
Organic industry gatherings work when there are common interests and rationales for participating. Part of ASR’s problem was that it lost that as the definition of action sports changed.
 
My third and last question was, “How come long and short skateboard companies aren’t in this together putting on a single skate industry show?” Different cultures and customers? Partly. Because they are competitors? That’s an interesting question I don’t know
the answer to. 

I expect to watch this show on the internet for at least a little while. Maybe what makes an organic industry gathering successful isn’t the location, the size, how long it lasts, how many people come or how much business is done there, but the common interests of the participants. Just a thought.        

 

Thoughts on the SIA Show in Denver- It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This

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Before my friends at SIA get too cocky over the title, they should know I’m referring to our industry’s current business environment as well as the show. Granted, I was a bit of a slow convert to the move from Vegas to Denver, and I still miss playing blackjack with friends, but overall I’m glad they made the move.

There were the usual opportunities to see friends I don’t see often enough, get some new perspective,  and see some great new product (and be mildly amused at some other new products that I’m guessing won’t be back next year). If the snowboard section continued to lead the way in sheer noise and excitement, the ski section wasn’t as far behind as it has been in the past. That ski/snowboard distinction ought to start (is starting, I think) going away.

I want to remind you all that no matter how good a job SIA does, it wouldn’t have been nearly as successful a show if, as an industry, we weren’t firing on all four cylinders. I’m saying four because there are four things that went right for us this season that I want to review.
 
The first, of course, is snow. Pretty much great in North America (with the exception being here in the Northwest where, unfortunately, I live). Europe got good early snow I’m told, though it tailed off after that. We all know that when it snows, we’re great managers.
The second thing was a consumer who, if still cautious, isn’t quite as scared to death as they have been the last year or two. The purse strings were a bit more open.
 
With apologies to some of the marketing types who want to believe they can influence consumer behavior more than I think they can, I would point out that those two factors are pretty much out of our control.
 
The next factor, which we can control to some extent as long as we invent something, is new technology. This season has seen the ascendance of all sorts of new rocker and camber technology, which aside from giving us something new to sell, makes it easier and more enjoyable to slide on snow. I don’t think we’ve had this kind of breakthrough in a while. It gives our customers a reason to buy, and may encourage them to replace existing equipment.
 
But I suppose we can’t expect, and perhaps wouldn’t even want, a big breakthrough every year. We need a couple of years to take advantage of those breakthroughs when they come along. So let’s characterize this cylinder as sort of controllable, but not reliably present every season.
 
And that leaves us with inventory levels, which are absolutely, positively, completely, and irrevocably under our control. Not so much as an industry. Let’s be realistic- a company’s management will control its inventory and distribution because they believe it’s the best thing for the company; not due to some altruistic concern for “the industry.”
 
A company can control its inventory. And apparently most of them did last year to the benefit of all of us. I wrote about the benefit of inventory control as it relates to conversion and participation at the show after SIA’s breakfast on that subject.
 
In the recent past, we haven’t always done quite so well at inventory control. Greed, misplaced competitive zeal, entrepreneurial ego, a misreading of market conditions and prospects or some combination of all of these has caused some companies to produce too much and try to sell it in the wrong places. This has had a negative impact, in some cases, on the whole industry.
 
Now, having been beat up by the recession, we all seem to have come to the conclusion that it’s really, really bad to have left over inventory in a one season business. Maybe we’ve even figured out that losing a few sales and creating a little product scarcity is way better than having to dump a bunch of stuff at the end of the season or carry it over to the next. The best companies have even crunched the numbers around some lost sales, leaner inventories and better, higher margin sell through and have figured out that, depending on company specifics, they are better off on the bottom line and on their balance sheet in spite of leaving some sales on the table.
 
But fear fades and greed is eternal. I don’t expect anybody to “take one for the industry,” in planning their growth and managing their inventory. But I do think it will be in all of our interests if, as individual companies, we recognize there are both short and long term benefits to constraining growth and product supply just a bit in the interest of the bottom line.
 
That way, the next time we aren’t firing on all four cylinders, we’ll just have to change the spark plug wires, not rebuild the engine.   

 

 

Inventory Management and Customer Conversion/Retention in the Snow Sliding Business

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SIA was kind enough to feed me a nice breakfast this (Friday) morning before the show opened. While I ate and drank coffee, people from the various industry organizations that are and have been involved in the industry’s programs to convert first time snow sliders talked to us about what they’ve accomplished and what more needs to happen.

I guess the headline number was that conversion of first timers has increased 2% over ten years to 18%. There was a sense of “that’s not so good and we can do better” in how it was presented. I am sure we can do better, but I’m not quite sure that’s such a bad result. When you talk about trying to change people’s fundamental behavior, ten years isn’t very long and I’m not quite sure that 2% is so bad. We’ve learned a lot over the last ten years (both about what to do and what not to do) and I expect more progress over the next ten.

One thing that didn’t come up was how our inventory management can contribute to conversion. One of the stories in the Snow Show Daily for Friday is called Sold Out and Stoked. It’s about how hard goods inventories have reached equilibrium.
 
If there’s one thing every retailer, resort, and brand has learned over the last couple of years it’s that having leftover snowsliding inventory at the end of the season sucks. When you’ve got to carry over or close out a bunch of inventory, it can easily mean you make no money on your snow business for the year. Not to mention the impact on your cash flow and balance sheet.
 
I’ve been arguing for years that you might be better off focusing on your inventory management and gross margin dollar generation than on getting every last sale you could. Now, in the midst of our little ongoing economic inconvenience, I feel even more strongly about that and I want to discuss how it ties into the conversion issue.
 
Every brand I talked to yesterday told me they were managing their inventories tightly and had next to nothing left. I’ve heard a couple of stories about retailers exchanging product with each other to meet customer requests because they couldn’t get any product from suppliers. This morning at breakfast one long time industry participant I chatted with bemoaned not being able to get a pair of boots he needed for himself.
 
I’m in favor of tight inventory management, but I sure hope it doesn’t come to us all having to pay retail for product.
 
So what does this have to do with conversion and retention? Suddenly, the harder to find product looks special to the consumer and finding whatever they need at a discount isn’t something they can take for granted. Under conditions of uncertain supply, price can’t always be the driving factor in a purchase. Retailers are making a good margin, which means they are better positioned to service their customers. Price increases are more likely to stick. The money the retailer would like to have to pay his suppliers isn’t tied up in inventory. There won’t be excess inventory that will keep him from ordering for next season and he won’t go out of business.
 
Brands will have happy, solvent retailers. I’d even suggest they might be in a position to spend a bit less on advertising and promotion because there’s no better marketing than customers and retailers who want more of a product and can’t always get it.
 
Want more people to go snowsliding? Or to do almost anything for that matter? Make the product just a bit hard to find and require that the consumer make a conscious, active decision to seek it out because if they don’t, it won’t be there. I think that’s an important step in creating commitment.
 
And now what’s happened? We go and have all this great snow (unless you’re from the Northwest like me where we have floods instead of powder) and I know that somewhere out there some management team at some brand is planning for next year. And they’re going, “Wow! We had a great year! We’re great managers [We always are when it snows]. We could have sold more if we’d had it!”
 
And some retailer is thinking, “Damn! I have got to make sure I don’t run out of product next year! I’m boosting the hell out of my preseason orders.”
 
Well, you can see where this is going. Not for a minute am I suggesting that “the industry” should control inventory levels. It won’t happen and isn’t legal. Every business will and should do what they perceive to be in their own best interest.
 
I know.   If you’re a retailer that it just felt awful when you didn’t have the product your customer wanted, though hopefully you sold them something else. But forget that bad feeling. Think of the good feeling when you had great margins and less discounting and closing out to manage. And look at your bottom line and balance sheet. What I’m suggesting is that it’s not in your best interest to boost those orders too much. Clean inventory and high margins may well give you a better bottom line result than a boost in sales. I talked about that a while ago in an article you can see here.
 
As a brand, when that wild eyed retailer comes to you with a greedy look in their eye and wants to books their order for next season 58%, try and calm them down. And you calm down too. Talk about how much it sucked when they couldn’t pay their bill, and you had to either take product back or they had to sell it for cost or through some ugly distribution channels you’d rather have stayed away from.
 
Both of you try to remember how nice it feels when inventory is clean, margins are high, and customers are clamoring for product they see as special. You just don’t want to return to the days of overbuilding and overstocking for hoped for incremental sales.
 
 If we can maintain the mentality that has led to just a bit of product scarcity we just might contribute to getting more people snowsliding. And we could make some more money besides.

 

 

Another New Retail Concept. Just What We Need.

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Back in early December, I bookmarked an article I wanted to write about then promptly forgot about it with the holidays and other intriguing stuff going on. It was a short article in Stores News about Sports Authority starting to open stores called S. A. Elite.

Like the story said (read it here), Sports Authority has 450 stores of the 40,000 to 50,000 square foot size. S. A. Elite stores are supposed to be “high performance lifestyle shops.” They will be from 12,000 to 15,000 square feet in size. There are only two of them now (both in Colorado), but they expect to open another dozen in 2011. They will tend to be in city centers and high end malls.

The S. A. Elite web site says the following:
 
“S.A. Elite by Sports Authority carries top-of-the-line assortments and premium collections from elite global vendors. Our stores house performance and fashion-focused athletic apparel, footwear and accessories. If you are the athlete who requires specialized apparel and accessories to reach your goals, we’ve got you covered. If you are an individual who rocks an athletic aesthetic, we’ll outfit you in style.”
 
Sports Authority EVP Jeff Schumacher said in the article, “We’re not looking to create fashion statements. We’re looking to create performance statements…[with] products that consumers can’t find elsewhere.”
 
When you go to the web site and see featured brands that include Nike, Burton, Ray-Ban, Columbia and Adidas (there are only 15 brands listed in total) you kind of wonder what “can’t find elsewhere” means.
 
Still, I’d have a hard time disputing that the concept might be valid. Regular readers will have seen me suggest that a true “core” store is one that caters to participants in the sports and the first level of nonparticipants that closely associate themselves with the sports. That appears to be the group S. A. Elite is targeting.
 
There are, however, some differences. From the pictures on the web site, I’m guessing the stores will be a bit more boutique like and fashion focused than what we think of as core shops. I also expect that the target demographic is a bit older. Finally, it sounds like there will be a focus on performance and improving it; not just on participation like in a core store.
 
As our market gets sliced and diced by more and more people in the endless and inevitable hunt for a meaningful competitive advantage among products that mostly don’t offer one based on performance (because it’s all good stuff), the space left in the market for the traditional core shop gets smaller and smaller. I guess that’s why there are fewer of them.
 
On the other hand, that space seems to get more and more clearly defined all the time. Those who are left who feature new and lesser known brands, are part of their community, manage their inventory cautiously and have a solid balance sheet, have a quality internet presence (whether they sell or not), manage to keep at least a handful of committed employees, and are of size both in terms of revenue and square feet that make them viable, can still succeed.
 
I have to try and see this store when I’m in Denver for SIA.

 

 

Accidental Encounters with Two Magazines and Market Evolution

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The other day I was reading Vanity Fair. That’s a little weird. But my wife gets it, and one of the highlighted cover stories was “Surfing the World’s Giant Waves.” I enjoyed it and learned a little more about surfing history. Still, I was a bit surprised to find the story there. The mag was full of high end fashion ads. Those ads weren’t a surprise.

Then, on another other day, I picked up Complex magazine while getting my oil changed. Actually, it was my car’s oil. Mine should be okay through trade show season.

There were five pages of Vans ads and Volcom had a two page spread. They were right there with the Smirnoff’s ad, the Puma ad, the video game ad, and the various car ads.   DC had an ad for the Rob Dyrdek collection.
None of the ads I notice in either of these magazines (I might have missed one) mentioned skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, or any of the other sports that might be considered to be “action sports.” Not even the Vans, Volcom or DC ads.
Vanity Fair obviously believes that big wave surfing is of interest to its readers. That’s good news for surf companies. I’m guessing that most of Vanity Fair’s readers don’t surf. But all but the smallest surf companies sell a chunk to most of their product to non-surfers, and they are certainly pleased to see upper income non-surfers be exposed to surfing.
Complex represents a culture, attitude, lifestyle that I’d characterize as young, urban, sarcastic, and a bit in your face. It suggests a certain level of indifference to convention and norms and implies that if you adopt its standards you’ll somehow be self-confident and respected. Cool, if you will.
It is what and how the cores of skate, snow and surf began. Except that you actually had to skate, snowboard or surf to achieve this differentiation back then, and that was a simple distinction.
If our industry was all about, and only about, supporting people who surf, skate or snowboard, I doubt there would be any successful public companies. The participant market and its growth prospects are not large enough to interest Wall Street.
Vans, Volcom, and DC, public or owned by public companies, know this. So we find them running what I think I can fairly characterize as fashion ads (hell, maybe all ads in our industry are fashion ads) making no mention of their roots and the sports they are/were closely associated with. You and I, of course, know what those associations are and our perception of those three brands are influenced by that knowledge. And the people who read Complex? Some of them know, but I imagine a lot don’t. And apparently that’s fine or these brands would feature that association in their ads.
No ads in Vanity Fair yet, and maybe we’ll never see that day. The Vanity Fair sensibility (high style?) is a lot different from Complex (urban/trendy?). Still, though I don’t expect to see it, wouldn’t it be interesting if some brand decided to take a flier just for fun? I can see the Mervin Manufacturing ad now. “Some fool in the marketing department put an ad in Vanity Fair.  They’ve been fired but you can buy our snowboards anyway if you want to. They work good and besides, the ad’s already paid for.”
Yes, it’s easy for me to be cavalier with somebody else’s money.
But you can see a divide happening in the industry, whatever industry we’re in. On the one side are companies that service participants. On the other side are the ones who are more and more fashion based and have to decide how to position themselves with respect to their roots. Is it about trendy, stylish, comfortable product or about making the trick? Can it be both? Depends on your market and how you segment it.
It isn’t that black and white, and the discussion would be different for every brand. But if you make the fashion decision, then you are choosing to compete in a market that dwarfs the traditional action sports industry in resources and sophistication. And you probably need help. This is, and will continue to be, the rationale (a valid rationale) for consolidation and the acquisition of brands that want to “take it to the next level.” In fact, I think it will be the unusual company that gets to that next level without being acquired.