big internet snowboard buying internationally developments

[ippy 66]

Sorry to sound like a corporate stooge here, but i reckon this is genuinely good news for everyone here. Sierrasnowboard are doing free international shipping on orders over $500 now. They are also doing free international shipping for a limited time on their own brand snowboard products (the sierra crew/reverse crew - modeled on the custom, the bluebird - modeled on the guru, the stunt - modeled on the blunt, the v-spot, i have no idea... and the team). I figure that now would probably be a good time to try out a reverse camber deck if you havent already

Oh and to promote the whole thing, theyre giving away a free board every day this week for international users ONLY at 10am tokyo time. So lots of good news coming our way.

Ps. Even if you think this news sucks or sierra sucks, just think that this is a pretty big move and will force other US based companies into either giving up their international market, or competing. Shopping for snowboards just got one step closer to being border free and thats pretty much massive news!

 

 

[saucy 0]

"big internet developments" is a bit of an overly grand subject line don't you think?

[ippy 66]

i think its actually pretty huge news.

 

hows about that then

[saucy 0]

It'll totally own ipad, iphone and googles financial results in the internet news stakes, for sure.

[SKI 15]

How exciting.

[thursday 1]

do they sell skis?

[ippy 66]

har! you people are excellent. Truth is, if you want to buy a snowboard and live somewhere like, oh i dunno, japan, this is pretty huge. If you dont want to buy a snowboard this isnt huge. I dont care about ipads for instance, nor about the super new iphone, so that news is utterly irrelevant to me.

 

What's also interesting is that there will be a backlash from this and that backlash will define whether or not youll be paying almost double price for your deck because you live in japan/australia.

[ippy 66]

i believe they do, but i was also told their skis are way overpriced and you can buy them cheaper and better elsewhere

[SKI 15]

Why exactly are you getting so uppity about it?

 

Are you indeed a 'corporate stooge' as you apologised for?

 

[ippy 66]

uppity? Aside a moderate dose of mockery, i pointed out that 1) if you dont care about it, i can understand why you wouldnt think its a big deal, and 2) its not only about sierra, but about buying your board internationally in the future. I reckon its a really interesting development in truth.

[SKI 15]

I'm so happy for you.

[ippy 66]

well thats kind of the point, eh. If i though it was just something interesting for me, i wouldnt have really bothered. Its because i think its interesting for everyone else i passed on the info.

[SKI 15]

I think anyone reading this will have already GOT THE POINT.

[ippy 66]

that youre trolling my thread?

[big-will 7]

Will be good if others do this too.

[SnowJapan 178]

Oyuki-kigan, I have deleted your latest post (along with the predictable and tiresome comeback that followed).

 

I recall saying this to you before when you were basically pushing the same message. If you don't like these Forums and the people on them, which often seems to be the case, just simply don't post here anymore.

 

Leave it for people who do like it and save us our bandwidth.

 

Thanks.

 

 

[best skier in hakuba 5]

It's a good step, not that I'm really into those particular dudes.

Any chance, Mitch, of backcountry doing the same?

[ippy 66]

if its someone who lives in nagano (and probably a city just outside nagano), i reckon i know who it is anyway. The join date looks about right too. Hes harmless, and probably just playing wind up with me as usual

[iiyamadude 6]

Still have to pay tax of course, and that applies to wherever you buy from, but good to see that. It's a start.

Are their prices competitive anyway?

[BagOfCrisps 24]

How much is this worth? ie. how much would it normally have been?

[thursday 1]

well, free international shipping means the slow boat or about 4 weeks, whereas expedited air, something like 3 days. Probably.

[SKI 15]

Good point, it doesn't mention that on it's site.

Then again, it doesn't mention any "slow" methods - the slowest I can see is FedEx International Economy and it says 2-5 days.

Perhaps it might come that way?

I doubt though they'd be shipping in a way that would take forever.

[ippy 66]

id take it as read that its their usual fedex carrier. I think the saving is from 80 bucks for a board to around 160 or so if youre getting board and bindings. You have to probably also factor in (at least this is true in korea) that your import duty is calculated after shipping costs have been added. To give you a rough idea. I bought a sierrascope from them when it was 300. Shipping and import duty alone brought it up to 460. Now itll cost me 360. Thats just the board. I also bought union forces for full whack, and had to pay a pretty astronomical sum on those and a pair of boots - came to around 150 for shipping alone.

Indeed, i tried to order a jacket the other day they had on their 70% sale. The jacket was 70, and shipping cost 70. Kinda takes away from teh whole feel of a bargain when youre pretty much making up the difference in shipping and import.

Its a pretty nice deal at the end of the day. Most importantly though, its a pretty aggressive strategy thats going to seriously annoy a lot of retailers and the products they carry. Its not win win for everyone by a long way.

 

This is why im kind of interested in it, because its quite a bold step. When its a bit cheaper buying from US stores than buying from your local markets already (about 50-100 bucks cheaper), this adds another 80-100 bucks off australian/japanese/korean retail.

 

Sierra not only offer discount boards (compared to the international domestic market place), but now theyve taken off an extra 80 to 100 dollars off the end price point, youre seeing what might be an 800 dollar deck in japan (and 500 in the US) being priced around 600 dollars. This is without actually doing a price cut (illegal by most dealer agreements at the start of the season). The price of the board stays high, but sierra (in moving pretty aggressively into international markets through cutting shipping), are effectively offering sale price boards at the start of the season which is going to piss off a LOT of people.

 

Sure, we're still paying more than we would be if we were in the US (not to even mention they already get free shipping), but compared to the prices we should be paying here its a pretty gnarly move on their part. Obviously not everyone is going to be behind it though.

 

What will be interesting is if dealers start boycotting certain brands that refuse to terminate their contracts with sierra (as some have already threatened to do i beleive), which of course means companies like burton (who cut ties with sierra at the start of march) will now have even more shop floor saturation than they already have and will of course put even more pressure on retailers to carry burton and accept whatever the hell burton decide to send them (oversupply was the big point of contention on the whole sierra/burton fiasco) in order to keep people walking through the door. Big things are happening in retail, but also in international online retail.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

I thought the big brands didn't tolerate international sales?? I thought they had it written that dealers found exporting their goods from the US will find themselves on a black list, apparently to protect the local dealers of the country they are exporting to.

[ippy 66]

i think theres a few that have exclusivity agreements but its not all. Basically burton et al (analog, red etc), mervin as well i think. But lots of brands like yes, capita, nitro, bataleon, and neversummer dont seem to have international restrictions. Pop to any US board site - sierra, dogfunk, bc etc), and if theyll ship it internationally you know they wont have that type of agreement. Maybe a lot of them didnt have one though because the market was proportionately tiny. stuff may now be in a transition with this action. Its definitely going to be interesting to see what stock sierra have come august

 

ETA: theres a very strong rumour that sierra have already lost K2 (which includes ride) from the whole flouting of dealer agreements thing Theres some pretty ballsy moves going on right now and whether or not you hate sierra (and plenty do it seems from a quick glance at sbforums), theyre definitely shaking things up right now.