Snowboarding E-Commerce Would You?
Who hasn’t had a bad shopping experience in a snowboard store? I have, you probably have, and chances are someone you know has. It’s something that we probably all have in common as both snowboarders and consumers. Whether it’s the too cool “core” shop kid attitude or the cluelessness of the staff at a big box store. On the other side how many of you have had great experiences in shops? Now think about that experience long and hard, did the individual really interact with you and genuinely care? That’s what snowboarding needs more of. This is why you as readers end up on blogs like this one and other snowboarding sites looking for advice and reviews.
Here we are in a state of online shopping between box warehouses and O.D.A.T sites dominating the landscape, local shops that haven’t joined the 21st century and rely on business models that are 20 plus years old, companies selling directly, and a time when consumers want instant information and gratification at their finger tips. It’s not anything new but some people like to play the part of the Ostrich and shove their head in the sand and not see what’s happening to our snowboarding scene.
It’s nothing new or something that I haven’t covered before. But it is something that I constantly have to give thought to because every day I hear about shops closing or friends losing their jobs. In the midst of these thoughts sits The Open Sky Project. A new look at E-Commerce.
As cliche as it sounds times are changing and perhaps their style of E-commerce is something that the snowboard world needs. With the influx of emails, questions, and advice I give I still never know where you guys end up getting your gear or if you’re getting that personalized touch that you’d get if you were dealing directly with me in the shop, but I do know that I’ve helped influence your purchasing. This is what they’re trying to do, with putting consumers in touch with bloggers that are passionate about what they write about and with the products they recommend.
Here’s there mission statement:
Our mission is to connect consumers to experts and the products they love and use.
We Believe …
One individuals expertise can create a more compelling consumer experience than any huge retailer.
A network of individuals can launch a revolution in retail.
Real people isn’t just nostalgic, it’s the future.
Everyone should live their passion.
There is someone who cares more than you do about what you care most about. Connecting to them is a joyful experience.
Shopping with them is fulfilling.
The computer should make my real life more enjoyable and shopping more human, not less.
Great products deserve expert distribution.
They reached out and contacted me as one of these “experts” that has a passion for what they’re doing. So here I sit contemplating this chance to be what they call a shop keeper and all I have to do is keep on doing what I’ve been doing. This morning I spent an hour on the phone with Josh from them and we talked about what they’re doing, how it came about, and their goals.
Yes, it is a chance for me to make some money doing what I’ve been doing for free. As you can plainly see there’s a lack of advertising on the site, which I know a lot of you guys like. Definitely I would advertise but I’m not about to slap up Pro Boardshop, Backcountry, and whatever other affiliate program advertising I can for the sake of maybe turning a profit. I tried it with the Ally video player and it didn’t do shit but give them some free advertising. Money is great don’t get me wrong and while I need it to survive it’s never been a driving force in my life and probably never will be.
In the phone call he went over my concerns of being edited, which as it seemed on the phone I would continue with my path of being honest and not giving a shit about who I offended. So for those of you thinking I’d be giving up that rest assured I won’t. Would there be other snowboarding experts and shop keepers? Yes that is something they want to venture further into down the road, but they are selective with who they choose.
So this is where you come in as the readers that influence this site daily. What do you think about this opportunity, is it something that would turn you off from reading the site and what I’m doing? Or would it give you a place to buy online and know that you’re dealing with someone that genuinely cares? What are your thoughts and concerns?
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“….John Caplan founded OpenSky in April 2009. John is the former CEO of Ford Models, and the former President of the About.com Network. OpenSky has been funded by leading venture capital firms: Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners, and Ron Conway. In addition to John, the OpenSky Board of Directors consists of Bob Davis, the Founder and former CEO of Lycos; Dan Ciporin, the former CEO of Shopping.com and Scott Kurnit, the Founder and former CEO of About.com….”
Venture capitalists, CEOs of already annoying sites, Board of Directors….blah-blah-blah….
Dont know man, but just the thought that these fuckers above would make mo’ money of me (and of your time and expertise) makes me wanna puke.
I am not saying that with what we are dealing now is great, but at least we dont rely on them (Backcountry etc.) to buy. We know some shit, we get some cool opinion by people like you or friends, and we go for it. Unless we try before we buy, there is no way we know if we like what we buy anyway.
If you have the need to fill up your pocket, by all means, go for it.
But if I buy, I prefer you making the cash instead of the above slimeballs.
Not to mention the fact that you will belong to a pantheon of Martha Stewart-ish experts. Dude, so gay!
i had a look at the opensky thing the other day after you mentioned it on facebook..
to be honest i thought it was crap, and not a site i would readily visit again, it comes across a bit 2.4 Kids housewife type online experience….I’m not sure how easily you’d sit alongside cooking, Knitting and arts & crafts..and some D&D geek.
even though it’s not selling out, (the site doesn’t take from the industry) i think you’d pick up that label… at the moment the interest in this site, seems to be growing, and i reckon you can make some sort of income without giving up the soul of the site, i don’t think anyone would think less of you for having some well placed ads from stores and/or products you believe in… no google ads though please..they are the work of Satan !!
this just seems to reek of someone else wanting to line their pockets from your hard work..you may as well hand over all your content to TWS
do up your pros and cons chart. if this lets you continue to do what you’re doing now without risking any future loss of control over your content and without diminishing your core values, i say go for it. one of the things i respect about you is that you’re not swayed by clever marketing or partial to any particular brand in an industry which is highly driven by hype and some dumbshit cool factor pervaded by overzealous, younger riders. advertising on your website would be akin to bias and this endeavour would let you stay clear of advertising. just so long as they don’t have control over which products or dealers you pitch in your rants. another thing, you may not have control over that advertising could go up on their main website one day down the road. i’m sure there are other things to consider, but i personally hope you keep this in mind. booyakasha!
Oh I know the whole VC thing turns me off, the fact it’s an internet store gives me a bad taste in my mouth, but I also agree with the fact that the idea of a main street shopping district has changed. But those names of people also pose the question of what have you done for snowboarding and why should we support you?
I like the idea of the fact I get to keep doing what I’m doing, they have no hand in the content I write or what I say (at least at this time, if that changed peace out bitches). I like the idea that I’d have control over the products on the shop page, pricing, and once again the content. I’d also be getting 50% of the total sales as profit, which if it was a snowboard is like 200 to 250 bucks typically.
But like I asked them I have an established entity, readership, and built this from the ground up with next to no help. So whose reputation is really at stake here? Cause once again it comes back to 1 man who is building something by himself vs. a group of venture capitalists playing with others money. Also is this the point where I just become a blow hard that people stop listening to?
They did a power point presentation and raised 5 million dollars to try this out. So here I sit with 0 budget and 0 income coming from this site and they’re basically saying we have money and want to support you. But I also know who my readers are and how fickle they are. I also know that I spent 8 months with no job and no unemployment scraping by and had offers from people I wouldn’t support thrown at me, while the offers were good it was the principles that I didn’t agree with. Money will never be a driving force in my life I use it to survive not to be happy, I would like to find a way that I could make a living off this site and keep on doing what I’m doing.
But here is what I ask you guys. If I did this and there was a product that I offered vs. another mega online store would you buy from me or them knowing that some of the money would help fund me in doing this site, or is the thought of some of that money going to these venture capitalists a turn off?
A co-worker told me you posted about us at OpenSky. Cool that you’re asking your community for comments. I’ll not overly intrude on the comment thread, but just wanted to comment on the following…
“If you have the need to fill up your pocket, by all means, go for it.
But if I buy, I prefer you making the cash instead of the above slimeballs.”
Yeah, that’s the point. A bunch of us that are at OpenSky founded or helped build About.com as well. The idea is find folks with passion and give them a better platform to shout from. And yes, of course, we make $$$ too. But it’s a fair split. It’s just that we thought it was wild that there’s all these passionate people out there giving it up for the ’cause and just helping others to sell stuff and getting either nothing or a dribble of some sort. We were thinking… “um… for stuff you like, just sell it.” (And for crap you don’t like… ummm… don’t. It’s really quite simple.)
“i reckon you can make some sort of income without giving up the soul of the site,”
If we kill anyone’s soul, (sites’ or personal), then a) we’re just going to suck and we won’t succeed anyway, b) we go to hell, (real for those of you believers and metaphorical for nons).
In any case, I don’t understand why snowboarders would be angry. Y’all are always hitting us. (The ones on two sticks.) Still, I’ll occasionally take pity and throw a poll out to tow a newbie off the flats. (I consider it part of my charity work!)
Seriously, Do it. You know I’ve bugged you with a million questions about boards. Your site has been enormously valuable to me as I have learned (and bought and sold about 7 boards in the learning process). I haven’t always found your advice directly helpful – in other words, I didn’t always purchase exactly the product you recommended, but I have always found your advice useful and weighed it up against advice from others and that has helped me make, on the whole, better decisions than I could have, either on my own or at my local shop (sorry to say that because I know some of the people there try).
Here’s the thing: If you start censoring yourself, recommending, either crap, or making very limited recommendations – in other words, if you start to be in the control of whoever these people are, the vast majority of your readers will spot it and never visit your site or ask your advice again, so I don’t really see the “selling out” downside for those who visit your site. Most of us are smart enough to spot a sell-out. You have to be when you look at, or buy boards online, or when you seek advice online about anything.
If you have had the drive to do this without financial reward, I would guess that you will have the nuts to do it RIGHT in spite of financial reward or pressures. You feel financial pressure right now don’t you? Has it turned you into a scumbag? If not, what’s there to fear?
I would do this. Make a living at what you love if you’re getting the chance. What the hell is wrong with that? I’m an artist who has to make a living at teaching (I’m still trying to make art but it’s hard). If somebody gave me the chance to make a living as a painter (making what I want to make of course) I would jump at that. If I were you, I would do this and remember that many who would tell you not to do it are doing so out of envy/jealousy. Anyway, I will smear your name and website in every possible online venue if, in the process you do sell out (by which I mean start taking orders about what to say and what to sell from high-mucky corporate scumbags). Also, you need to clean up your writing a little bit. Good Luck. You deserve this.
Since you and I are both about the same age, I’m 29 and share a similar passion though you have been much more successful in melding your love with your career in snowboarding I thought I’d chime in on this thread. I work as a recruiter for my career with a focus in the tech space. Many of the people you are considering working with that have their hands in OpenSky are extremely successful entrepreneurs who got their by being smart enough to bring in the right peole to make things work. For the most part I would guess the VC’s will be hands off unless shit starts hitting the fan and the results don’t meet their investment expectations. That said there is nothing wrong with you finally making a living off of the advice and views that you have been freely sharing with the snowboarding community for at least the last 5 years. We all read this site and ask your opinion on various forums for a reason. That said will OpenSky be successful? Who knows… will people choose to buy from you over another e-commerce site? Maybe, maybe not. The thing is you won’t find out unless you take the risk and go for it. One thing my job has taught me is that the most successful people in this world usually aren’t the smartest, it’s the people who see an opportunity and go after it that get to the top of their games. Anyone who thinks you’re “Selling Out” by doing something like this is out of their minds or has never had the chance to take themselves to the next level in their career. The only way you will lose your credibility is if you change who you are. With regards to other comments from people talking about scum VC people making more money, I understand why people perceive things like that, but without people like them, none of the small companies that we all love to support would be around…
I think the big point of this is if by no censorship they mean NO censorship. Thats the reason I read this blog. For example, with your review of the Shaka bindings recently, you thought they sucked and did nothing so you said just that. If they give you a product and you hate it, are you going to be allowed to say “this board is a pile of shit” or are you going to have to sugarcoat it to appease the suppliers?
If you can pretty much do exactly what you do here but get paid for it and still update the blog freely I’d say go for it. If it starts to seem sketchy or just not what you thought it’d be drop it and you’ll just be back where you are now. If the products being sold on the OpenSky website were going to benefit these experts that care and (IMPORTANT!) not being sold at a ridiculous 500% markup, I would support it.
Hey now Scott…..no need for skiers vs. boarders!…..As long as your on the snow your good with me!
I think the people here that are really reading this blog for advice on purchasing something will be pretty stoked about it, the ones that are just here for entertainment, will be the little dickheads that give you a hard time…….
I just recently found this website. I’ve spent about two weeks reading up on all areas of the site, and I must say, the way you speak your mind was refreshing to me. You sure aren’t PC and I really like that. In the past I have bought from a local shop over any internet retailer because they have treated me right and always came through for me. Even when I could have got the goods for much less online. I would freakin love to see you be able to make a decent living off of this website. Even if the opensky project is pretty dang cheesy to me(home and garden, baby, knitting etc). I think it would be hard for me to continue to be open and honest about products if I was being asked to sell brands and products that I thought were shit(if I knew I could make money) So if you can control what you sell, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy from you, because even though I just recently found this site, I trust your opinion and wish that people like you could be found in every local shop. On a side note, it has been nice to read intelligent articles and responses on this site. I spend a lot of time on tw and the nonsense of the comment board there.
Opportunity can be seen in many ways.
Taking the above comments sincerely and without a hint of disrespect to the actual people that wrote them, I am seeing the following.
The VCs see someone who can do the work with %50 off his net profit.
The successful net guys see it as investing on manpower since they didnt really have to work for the past 15years. (the fact that you go to your business in the morning doesnt mean you HAVE to work).
The recruiters are giving speeches about “careers” since in their micro-cosmos deal only with white collar people that consider success a big fat business title.
The artists (at heart) will sell their art in a second for a few bucks.
Having been lucky going through a big range of experience career wise, and ending up telling all these careers to fuck off, I would go only one way with your expertise.
Do it yourself. Review the shit out of all , but offer them all.
Simple as that.
And if the starting money is the problem, i bet there is gonna be a line of VCs begging to give you hard cash for just being you.
As for the comment to refine your writing, you could go that way up to a point. If you pass that red thin line then you will become what we dread most. Not you.
I think it’s a good idea. Plus you’ve explained the Open Sky concept, so any loyal readers have no reason to be skeptical. Anyone who has read this site for a while knows you aren’t going to just throw crap to a wall to see if it sticks, what you put in your store will be products that stand out with a true purpose; and for bringing that all to one place you really should get a cut.
That said I’m still going to check to see if my local shop carries it before I purchase through you.
Tis very interesting reading all of the commentary about, particularly the vehemence with which each side defends a position to an argument that has no quantitative right answer.
You join Opensky and you lose x amount of your blogs independence
or
You don’t join and you lose y amount financially.
Personally, I can’t measure x or y nor can I evaluate x against y. I figure that you, Angry, are the only one with the expertise to do that. And I would recommend that you ignore everyones emotional option, as the little useful information drowned out in each persons personal emotional noise: i.e. “Selling Out” is a big point, but what does that even mean? Quid Pro Quo or the fair exchange of services and or goods is a fundamental part of all societies, obviously the definition of what is fair is up for debate.
For me personally, I think a better approach would be to tell you why I came to your site, hopefully others will too, and you can use this to evaluate whether OpenSky will be a positive gain to your blog and then you can evaluate x vs y.
1. The directness of your views and opinions on snowboards
2. Your advice was free
3. You were willing to expend effort to give advice specifically catered to my needs
4. You had ridden the boards I was interested in
5. You had a large breadth of experience across boards and provided consistent objective reviews.
6. Your individualism of style, thoughts and approach
That is it from me. Oh yeah before I forget, please note that humans are largely fickle even if you don’t go with OpenSky trends may move against you and people with move to another blogger.
Now that is it from me
F
Would it be good for you financially? obviously!, my main concern is your freedom of speech per se, being slowly taken away. The reason I’ve read your blog for so long is that you give it straight, you don’t nebulously write your reviews. If something sucks you let your readers know.
One thing I know is money speaks all languages and the greed of people love to listen to money talk, basically what I’m getting at is if eventually the money interferes with you’re straight forward reviews and not letting crap slip by as an okay product then I’m clearly going to find my information elsewhere. if history has taught me anything, sooner or later money is the last one talking metephorically speaking… no pun intended
Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, cause on a personal level I think it would be great for you to earn some money doing what you love. growing up that’s what you’re always told is to find something you love and try and make a decent living at it.
Hey I’ve got to respond to “someone” since a couple of his comments were obviously meant to stick me (Why bother? Did I make myself out to be that great?):
I never claimed to be more than an “artist at heart” since I do not make a living from art. I wish I did, but I don’t. Also, this might surprise you (asshole), but artists sell their work. They usually sell it in galleries. Selling your work isn’t the same as selling out (you fucking moron). Yes, I have and will still happily sell my work. Sadly for me I haven’t sold in a while, but since you seem to know shit about art, artists, how they make a living, etc. I assume you don’t buy art and I highly doubt you could afford mine even if you did (I only doubt you could afford it because you seem too shit for brains to make a decent living. If you have a trust fund or something then maybe you could – and, yes, I would sell to a complete shit for brains – even you, specifically, if he paid what I was asking – that’s how it works – shit for brains).
Also the comment I made to Angry about cleaning up his writing was kindly meant. Sometimes when he writes especially passionately, or maybe very quickly, intelligibility suffers (only slightly) because grammar gets left behind a little. I wasn’t suggesting he clean up his content, and, for the record, his writing is perfectly intelligible 99% of the time.
Finally (to “someone”) I just want to mention in closing that you are, unequivocally, a dimwitted pile of shit.
Cheers.
Artist wannabe (since you answered to me, you accepted the title), you obviously did not get that my comments are not for you personally.
)
Its fine, I am not expecting someone to have an intelligent brain that nature has not given him.
But nonetheless, grammatically you are correct
Back to the actual topic, Angry what do you think after all the comments?
I’ve been reading this for a while and agree with your reasons for doing it. Why the fuck not dude. As has been said you deserve to make money off this, and this is a great way of doing so.
I work in a shop. This makes me think of yesterday when someone came in and bought a board because she’d decided to buy it. Nothing to do with us; we’d never seen her before. You, or someone like you, had sold it to her. But we got the margin.
I say do it.
I actually accepted the title, “Artist at Heart”, but “Artist Wannabe” is equally true. You see, I never made any pretense to being anything beyond that, so your comment fails to sting (and again you prove yourself shitwitted). I hope your day off from data entry has been fun.
Happy Thanksgiving
aha, ok dude .
I will stick with data entry, but since these postings are not for us lets hear what Angry got out of them.
I believe he has some major feedback that others would need to have 100 friends from all walks of life in order to get it.
Not bad at all.
Actually I’m too concerned with my day job and Black Friday to respond right now, but I was tempted to edit your posts back and forth so you looked like gay lovers.
Angry…..DO IT!!!!! Purely for the entertainment value……it can wait till you can give it your all…..
Who says we’re not gay lovers?
Hey, the only thing I know for sure is that I found a tiger in my bathroom!
Do it. But like most others have stated, only sign on if you can keep 100% of your bluntness. The only “censoring” that wouldnt bother me would be language, as I could see them asking for that incase this becomes a major deal and you start to gain a lot of parental traffic. But if they even give you a breathe about “sugarcoating” what you say about certain products, drop ‘em like a cheating girlfriend.
If you sign on, anything I have to pay full price for that you offer, I would buy from you. I respect someone that can put their personal opions of a company aside and recommend a product. You have a level of objectivity that most can’t touch. It reminds me of what the Goodwood test was originally designed to be. A completely objetive view of how a board performed. Now, they have virtually failed with this initial goal due to various reasons (many out of their control), but this is something that you have managed to capture. This makes your opinion immensley valuable. I welcome more distibution of your opinion. Who knows, maybe it could give the industy a kick in the nuts, letting them know that the market for selling a product on hype and gimmicks is getting smaller….
From reading your post, it seems that you like the challenge and that you can get paid for your knowledge. But you don’t want to loose your core/credibility image.
So I think it is important to define the word “core” properly (which could be a post on its own). I would define by a core snowboarder, a person that live the lifestyle and do things to improve snowboarding. In your case you are what marketing people call a Maven (someone full of knowledge that regular snowboarder seek advice from).
Then you have others that at first we could call core. they live the lifestyle and are always up to the latest trend and buy equipments from new start-ups from pros.
But then once the gear is too popular, they ditch the brand. From a closer look, they are not so core anymore…they just like to be different.
So in your case, you can’t be bothered by those guys cuz your site has became popular so it’s just a matter of time before they think you sold out anyway.
Doesn’t matter if you help people decide on gears on some lame website. Your knowledge can help beginners (and even advanced riders) find what is best for them, in that sense you stay true to yourself anyway, paid or not.
[...] the world go round so there is potential for that. The next big thing was being approached by the Open Sky Project about becoming a shop keeper, the responses from you guys were amazing on how encouraging you were [...]