ARMY NAVY half off snowboards again

[Robert2]

I bought TOTAL IMPACT SHORTS by R.E.D. today for my wife at the ARMY NAVY STORE.

I was looking for a hip hockey check guard but none of the sports stores in the Lehigh Valley

had anything for adults... just junior sizes for the hockey protection gear.

 

I noticed the ARMY NAVY store is having their half off marked prices sale on last year's

snowboards again.

They had piles of all brands of boards in the half price racks.

So you may want to buy a $500 burton or $600 ARBOR for 250 or 300 this year.

 

I'm done board shopping for a while. I got my boards in May last year.

[Dan-]

Robert, there are many online dealers that are selling last years stuff for much more then half off.

[Sensi]

i prefer shops over online stores, but army navy is terrible. ^this dan fellow is right, buy online

[Justo8484]

has she tried them on? i checked those out a few years ago and the crash pads brand pads i found to be much more comfortable and less restrictive.

[Robert2]

Robert, there are many online dealers that are selling last years stuff for much more then half off.

I always thought online stores will be cheaper than brick and mortar stores because they just don't have the same retail overhead.

But that doesn't change the fact that you can go board shopping now at the army navy store and walk out with a board for under $200 or $300 that you couldn't touch for those numbers last year.

I bought 4 boards last year , two in stores , and two online.

I always try to give some business to the local stores but there's no way I'll pay

my local store full retail pricing... $500 or more for snowboards.

Not when my online boards cost $160.

 

 

Justo said::::

has she tried them on? i checked those out a few years ago and the crash pads brand pads i found to be much more comfortable and less restrictive.

 

Can you post a link to a web page showing pads you like.

[method9455]

I always thought online stores will be cheaper than brick and mortar stores because they just don't have the same retail overhead.

 

Nope, the snowboarding industry does not work like that. Stores have all the leverage over the manufacturers, not the other way around. The average shop carries 3-8 brands of stuff. There are 15+ to choose from. So if one manufacturer starts undercutting the shops by selling direct to online stores, they will get dropped from brick & mortar stores. From the manufacturers perspective their customers are the snowboard shops, not you the snowboarder. It is a business to business relationship, which is a very different dynamic than a customer to a store relationship. So most of what you see online is liquidated from brick & mortar stores. Thats why a lot of it is last years stuff that a brick & mortar store had to sell off over the summer or even inventory a dying business bought and liquidated to a wholesaler. I would be shocked if you could get a better deal online for this year's stuff than you could walking into a store.

 

I wouldn't be shocked if you could get 50% off last years stuff online, but then again 75% off was normal for last-season sales at my ski shop. So not that great of a deal.

[Robert2]

didnt this topic start a shit show last year?

heh heh heh heh....

yep, and what a shit show it was back then...

a lot of laughs came out of that thread.

 

 

But that doesn't change the same message....

last year I stumbled on cheaper boards that I thought would benefit our forum readers.

Same sale happening this year and the pile of boards to choose from is more than ALL the boards

in stock at my local board shop in Jim Thorpe that won't sell me anything for less than the price

I paid for a used car in 1995.

[Justo8484]

heh heh heh heh....

yep, and what a shit show it was back then...

a lot of laughs came out of that thread.

 

 

But that doesn't change the same message....

last year I stumbled on cheaper boards that I thought would benefit our forum readers.

Same sale happening this year and the pile of boards to choose from is more than ALL the boards

in stock at my local board shop in Jim Thorpe that won't sell me anything for less than the price

I paid for a used car in 1995.

maybe your local board shop needs to step up their game?

[Robert2]

maybe your local board shop needs to step up their game?

YES

They order and stock snowboarding gear too late in the season for me to wait for them.

They do multiple sports... bike rentals, rock climbing , kayak sales and rentals.

They have a real swamped business all summer then things go real dead around here in the winter time.

Jim Thorpe is 17 miles from Big Boulder and 19 miles away from Blue so

the real crowds getting off the major highways will usually skip right over Jim Thorpe.

 

There are a few big time well invested ski shops within a 10 minute ride from Jack Frost

and Big Boulder and Blue so my local ski shop really will never get the huge numbers

of customers that go through Mike and Matts or Alpina or Timberline just because those stores

are on the way to and from the turnpike and route 80.

I don't know the ski shop in Walnutport... but its right down the hill from Blue.

 

So my local shop in Jim Thorpe stocks only "the best" stuff.

My problem there is they want to sell me a $600 snowboard with skulls and dead shit on it.

Thats why I go to the Army Navy store in Whitehall... and its an easy bus ride for me.

I've spent thousands in my local shop over the last 15 years.

2 kayaks,paddles, life vests..... 2 mountain bikes, Burton boards, boots, bindings ,snow pants, snow jackets, dozens of capilene bases layers leggings and shirts , a dozen rock climbing harnesses, 3 dozen beeners, a dozen figure eights, ATCs,hundreds of feet of 1/2 inch static line for rapeling, cross country skis. You name it.... I bought it there for me and my wife and 3 kids for more than a decade.

No one can ever accuse me of not supporting my local businesses.

But I just draw the line on snowboards at $600 when the board I like to ride costs me $170

mail ordered from THE-HOUSE.com

[Glenn]

A good deal on a bad board isn't a good deal at all. Glad you're happy though. Also army navy is hardly the local store.

[method9455]

I think it is just your local store. Most ski shops struggle in the summer and thrive in the winter. We had almost 75% of our revenue in the winter. Our inventory was all snowboards and skis. Thats where the deals come from, inventory that needs to get dumped for the 200 snowboards and 300 pairs of skis coming in late october/early novemeber.

 

 

Any place that puts a blanket percentage when trying to liquidate last years stuff is not a shop that lives or dies on the sale of ski & snowboard gear, or is part of a chain and doesn't make purchasing decisions. You want a place that lives and dies on the sale of skiing & snowboarding gear. They will know so much more about the stuff than someone who works at a chain like Army/Navy and gets a shipment of gear determined by someone elsewhere based on bulk purchasing discounts. A little mom & pop shop lives or dies on the inventory they buy and the knowledge of their sales people. The shop I worked at is thriving while a bad local shop closed down and a ski shop chain went bankrupt in the same town. That is because we were nimble with our brands. When Soloman went off the deep end for 3 years, we dropped them. When they got better we picked them back up. Now Ride is fading a bit and every year the order gets smaller while GNU/Lib went from the brink of getting dropped to the hottest selling brand. The guys selling gear know why that is because they were involved in the decision and they have tried all the stuff. They will set the prices at the sales. We used to literally stand there with a roll of stickers and a sharpie putting prices on boards based on our experience, not some magic formula based on MSRP. You don't get that level of knowledge at a chain store where corporate sets a price for sale items.

 

Put yourself in the shoes of a shop selling gear and think about how they price stuff:

 

Most people that come into a shop are intermediate to advanced and want a medium stiffness board. Most people buying boards are in the 154-159cm range. Something like a Burton Custom, Ride Decade, Rome Anthem. That is your bread and butter sale. We would sell all of our boards under 156cm pretty much every year. 13 y/o buy up to 151/153 to grow into it. Older guys buy down to 154/156 for their park board. But nobody is buying 159/161/163 unless they are 170 lbs, good, and want to free ride.

 

So for a large board (>159cm) or an "expert" board, expect better than 50%. Generally 150-299 for a 500-800 MSRP board would be a good deal. If you are looking for this kind of board and go to a sale and the sticker says $250, offer $200 and they will usually take it. Those boards just sit around and never sell, so to the store owner the MSRP of the board doesn't matter since they can't sell it. And this year's shipment has more of these boards coming so he needs to get rid of them. If you come in and are actually looking for a board like this they will make a deal. Since this is about the right size/level/type board for me I never this year's model and always chase the sales and always have great selection.

 

For 151-157 park/freeride/all around boards, the pickings are a lot less. Usually no Burtons are left, so you are on the "lesser known" brands. That is not to say worse, I would prefer a GNU/Rome/Arbor/LibTech over a Burton/Ride. Those after the invention of Magne Traction, hard to find a GNU/Lib Tech board left over. These are about the same price, $250, but a lot of them originally sold for <500 so the deal isn't as good to the customer. To the store owner he knows a dozen more guys like you are going to come in after you and by the end of the sale he will be turning people away like you, so there won't be much negotiation or flexibility on price. There are deals, but some years it is tougher than others. I'm thinking of getting a park board in this size and I'll check the sales but I might end up just buying a 2010 if I don't find something good.

 

For bindings, large sizes are hard to find. Everyone thinks their kid is going to grow from a size 9 boot to a size 11, despite the fact that he probably won't in the 3 years the binding lasts. So everyone always buys large bindings and medium ones sit on the shelf. I would never ever bank on finding large sized snowboard bindings at left-over sales. We used to buy manufacturer left overs in april in large expressly to sell at the annual sale, just price point bindings to go into boot/binding/board packages. You aren't going to be finding Cartels or high end Ride bindings in size 10+ a year later, so just buy these new if you need them.

 

On the other hand, you can steal medium size bindings if you have a 7-9 sized foot.

 

Boots are all over the place. It is so random as to me saying I have no tips on it. Try the sale but don't settle on something you don't love.

 

For skis, a lot of the same things apply. Large/small sizes stick around for boots & skis. Bindings now are generally tied to the ski so not much to say there. Twin tips seem to be left over more than regular skis. I feel like we usually had fewer high end left over skis than snowboards, you have an older crowd with more money to buy stuff so it is a bigger mix of left over gear. For snowboards it is a lot of teenagers coming in begging mommy & daddy to buy them some gear so higher end stuff is likely to be left over. The ski buyers are getting what is right for them because $200-400 difference doesn't matter when you are flying out west or driving to Vermont every weekend.

 

Also realize that the margins are built in with this inventory reduction in mind. Nobody in the industry is new. The cost of making the snowboard and shipping it to you is one thing, but the price is based on all of the costs of being a ski shop. Overhead, capital depreciation, labor, taxes, inventory write offs. All of that has to be paid for with the sale of the gear. So the shop knows at some point it is going to have to market down 15% of its initial purchase to 50-75% off to get rid of it. Don't be impressed by 50% off. At some point these boards are going to sell for a lot less than that because the store has already written them off and closed the books for last year. Everything you pay is pure cash for this year. We're ordering in February, the boards are made in Feb-Sept, we are paying/getting it delivered in October, selling them to customers in December, writing off left overs in June and selling left overs finally the next September.

[Robert2]

I think it is just your local store. Most ski shops struggle in the summer and thrive in the winter. We had almost 75% of our revenue in the winter. Our inventory was all snowboards and skis. Thats where the deals come from, inventory that needs to get dumped for the 200 snowboards and 300 pairs of skis coming in late october/early novemeber.

 

 

WHAT is the NAME of YOUR store?

[method9455]

WHAT is the NAME of YOUR store?

 

1) Not important since it is not near you at all, from south east PA it is about 3+ hours north and east.

2) Not something I want to share. I don't work there much anymore except at big sales or holidays if they ask me for a favor, but in return they still hook me up with gear at the prices shop employees get and I don't want to burn that bridge. Talking specifically about brands and pricing is not something you want people outside the store to know whether they are customers who will have more leverage over the store or brands that are pissed you are talking about them in public.

 

I am sure there are mom & pop stores like mine in PA that are near you, I just don't know who they are. Someone else would be able to better inform you. I drive south/west to get to the PA mountains so I don't go through any of the towns most people on PASR live in or know that area well.