Party pooper.
Four days ago, news broke that Firewire surfboards was slashing prices by 20% on all surfboards until the end of November. The move, while thrilling budget-conscious shoppers, roiled a domestic surfboard building industry already reeling due an economic slowdown. Firewire, as written at the time, produces its surfboards in Thailand and has built-in advantages in terms of labor costs etc.
U.S.-based shapers have grumblingly accepted that business is business but then a wild sale, tipping even more advantage Firewire’s way. A dumping of merchandise that might have been overloaded onto cargo ships forced to float offshore for many extra months.
Is it rude?
Smart?
Well, adding insult to injury, Kelly Slater dropped his hefty boot onto the heads of local craftsmen with a post doubling down on the sale. Now, of course Slater Designs are part of the Firewire offering, as the greatest surfer ever owns 70% of the company, but was it necessary to crow about the move?
To call it a “surprise” and adding gift emoji and a party popper emoji seems like much salt in the wound.
The gift emoji and party popper emoji, as you know, are generally reserved for the most important celebratory occasions. Not the wanton pursuit of cut-throat capitalism.
Does the move, anyhow, inspire you to buy a Cymatic at a reduced price or will you Pyzel in protest?
More as the story develops.
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Nah, i prefer to look at rocks down a microscope, not squiggly lines!
Should get 20% of anyway for buying crap boards.
Imagine being able to comment on the page you want to. Instead of not knowing where you’ll end up
I refuse to reload page and get to the comments of the most recent article and not the previous one, which isn’t a given by any means.
Wait. Are they strong arming surf shops to drop sales prices? How much of those 20% is covered by Firewire? Is this an indication where the post covid surfboard market is at? Are these boards any good*? Are there currently more questions than answers? And finally, will there be more as the story develops?
*okay, I know, I snug this one in. I had a go at a couple, but never felt any spark. But maybe I’m just judging them by their totally lame design. Like Teslas they just look like overpriced toys for menchildren.
So who was the shaper for slater designs?
Most brands everywhere are on sale with Black Friday shit in Australia. Go to Sideways on the Goldy and you can get a brand new board from Dahlberg for $600.
The white race is not still not happy with Zeke making baby john john cry cry
Roflmao – instead of making super normal profits they are making half supernormal profits ….
Bangkok Board Makers thanks you for your support.
Imagine being sponsored by FireWire, you would never ever get your photos run while Kelly runs the place!
There is only one Kelly on team Kelly
I think Dereck’s ‘lead-ins’ are getting even more bizarre, a mind in descend.
PS
Well, can’t seem to find the right comment page again…
It’ll be interesting if this forces a few of the others to follow suit …
What qualifies as a surf shop these days? Surely CostCo, purveyor of the world’s most popular surf craft and also discounted Hurley and QuikBongRip t-shirts.
That’s the best surf photo I have seen on BG.
ONLY AT SURF SHOPS!! GODDAMMIT
For high performance or big waves i think I’d choose something else, but ive got a seaside and for small gutless waves, it floats like a boat and is my go to board.
At risk of being ostracised, I’ve got a firewire and it’s one of my fave boards. Goes great in kinda shitty waves. Bought secondhand at bargain price years back, used loads, still good as new whilst PU boards come and go, all dinged, snapped and yellowed in the sun.
those wood rails werkin out ok?
Uh, they don’t give 20% discount if they are doing well. More like they are up the shit.
Everything is fine. This is like OPEC dropping price per barrel to put the local oil farmers out of business and maintain control of the market.
When opec increase production they do it with medium to long term goals to screw the competitors. They have low cost production and can take the hit (I work in the oil patch so have seen this fairly regularly).
If firewire were playing that game they’d increase production to flood the market with cheap boards and drive the competitors out of business. I don’t think a temporary 20% discount is anything other than clearing stock (I may be wrong of course).
Either firewire have a bunch of new models coming out and know their old models will tank, or they are in the shit and trying to get cashflow.
Hopefully this signals that FireWire is going out of business.