Environmental Impact Rating

The Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) is creating a new program that will allow brands to use a consistent system to rate the environmental impact of their products and hundreds of companies are betting they can use this tool to make their businesses better by making their products better.

The Outdoor Industry Eco Index, which was announced to the outdoor industry at this summer’s OutDoor show in Friedrichshafen, Germany and the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City, Utah, is an environmental assessment  tool that examines and quantifies the environmental impacts of specific products to allow manufacturers to benchmark current levels and set standards for improvement. The index looks at products from cradle to grave, focusing on six key stages of their life cycles: Materials; Packaging; Product Manufacturing and Assembly; Transport and Distribution; Use and Service; and End of Life.

While the Index, which has been in the works since 2007, is still in the “stakeholder review period” and not scheduled to be officially released until early 2011, over 80 companies including Patagonia, The North Face, Timberland, REI, and Quiksilver have signed up to test a “Beta Phase 1” version and help fine tune the final system before its official release.

-SkiingBusiness.com

Social Media & Networking, Is There an R.O.I.?

It’s been an argument since businesses starting venturing into the area called social media/networking. How, if at all, does a business measure social media’s return on investment?

Some say it’s not important to measure because social media usage is invaluable-and mandatory-to build your brand, and is a cost of doing business in today’s modern marketplace. Others say calculating ROI is important in every aspect of a well-run business. Others say it’s less about return on investment and more about return on customer engagement.

Retailers across the country vary in social media use-whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or any other site-but most agree that it’s red hot.

Amaya Chalker, whose family owns Alpine Sports, a ski retailer in Santa Fe, N.M., says she doesn’t utilize the store’s Facebook account to its fullest.

“I don’t have enough time in the day to sit down and do it,” Chalker says.

With between five and 10 employees depending on the season, Alpine Sports’ staff is focused elsewhere-but Chalker says she plans to use the seldom-updated page more often when Alpine Sports launches a redesigned website in October.

“We’re just trying to keep up-to-date with the whole Internet (phenom),” she says.

But social media sites are still among the cheapest ways to market a business, and the “return on engagement” potential is huge.

Social media is a way to leverage small staffs and limited resources. Seth Haber, owner of Trek Light Gear, a company that sells lightweight hammocks primarily online from its headquarters in Boulder, Colo., has a small staff. He’s it. Harber says a good portion of his business comes from social media use.

“The more you get the name out there the more things come to you,” Haber says.

For Haber, social media use takes time and dedication. Followers and fans won’t come overnight. Interactions may be few-and-far between in the beginning. And it won’t necessarily entice customers to walk through the door or click on a link to buy products.

“It took a little time to grow,” says Mike Tracy, Seattle Ski and Snowboard’s store manager.

- SkiingBusiness.com

Even though Seattle Ski and Snowboard didn’t start using Facebook until a year ago because of the time involved, he says setting up the page and consistently posting to it is worth the effort.

“Putting anything on Facebook is a reminder about Seattle Ski,” he says.

Like Tracy, Sepp Kober, co-owner of Freestyle, a ski retailer in Charlottesville, Va., wants people to think of his shop when they think of Virginia ski retailers. And social media is a way to keep the shop visible.

“It is by far, in my opinion, one of the best ways to reach a certain segment of your consumer base,” Kober says.

If it gets someone in the door-even if the customer doesn’t initially buy anything-Kober views it as a success because hopefully the customer will return to make a purchase.

But many social media gurus say the customer engagement is crucial when developing an online reputation. People want to interact.

“The most important aspect of the whole medium itself is that it has to be a two-way conversation,” Haber says.

-SkiingBusiness.com

When is Enough, Enough?

The number of available models is going up, ski shops are struggling to make ends meet, and not just because of the economy. Hardgoods and softgoods prices, as well as the cost of lift tickets, continue to climb. This begs the question of whether of not the ski industry is in a downward spiral, following the same path as the windsurfing industry not too long ago.

Karen Marriott, president of the Florida-based US Windsurfing Association, says the windsurfing industry focused too much on high-end consumers, which priced recreational enthusiasts out of the sport.

And Marriott, who recently ran her family’s ski shop in Wheat Ridge, Colo., thinks it’s happening in the ski industry.

Much as windsurfing manufacturers did, ski makers often primarily market gear for hardcore skiers, which can push costs too high for recreational skiers who can be confused or discouraged by too many technical features and jargon. (Ski technology and marketing also play a role in increasing costs.) 

- SkiingBusiness.com

Some companies in the windsurfing industry, in an attempt to save itself from dying all together, adopted a two year production life cycle to reduce the number of products that companies were putting out compared to the amount that were actually being sold. The attempt to focus on the recreational wind surfer seems to be too little, too late, and the industry is still now trying to get back on its feet.

The skiing industry is doing much the same thing that got the windsurfing in its current situation.

Geoff Curtis, Marker-Völkl USA’s marketing vice president, says technologies typically don’t change drastically year-to-year, but colors and graphics do. Völkl, for instance, often keeps a line of skis, like its Unlimited series, available for a few years, while changing graphics and colors.

Updating aesthetics, Curtis says, helps the consumer know whether the ski is a current or past model-something skiers expect. And with ever-changing trends, a graphic and color can often determine a ski’s success in the market. Even for established models, new graphics tend to indicate that the model has been upgraded, which is better received by consumers than no change at all.

As for changing ski model names, Curtis says there’s an interesting dichotomy there. Some ski names, such as Völkl’s Mantra, enjoy a strong reputation, so it would be detrimental for a company to change it. Others don’t have that status, so there is less risk involved.

- SkiingBusiness.com

It seems that the skiing industry does something similar to what the windsurfing industry has with its two year production cycle, but the skiing companies simply change graphics to make the products appear to have been upgraded from year-to-year. Many skiers, myself included, have caught on to this trend and buy models from previous years when it comes time to upgrade our personal equipment.

Another suggestion to retain skiers and attract new ones made by Ken Jacques, co-owner of Ski Depot in Jay, Maine says, “We need to stop promoting ourselves to ourselves, we [skiers] already know it's fun."


What Jacques is suggesting here is that companies in the ski industry need to focus their marketing spending on kids and people who have just started skiing. Advertising to someone who has been skiing for 20+ years is pretty pointless. By that point most people have certain brands that they like, know what they are looking for in a ski/boot/binding, and will not be swayed to change their mind based on advertising. If the money spent on promoting skiing to the already hardcore skier was instead used to promote to children or people who are just starting the sport, companies could get much more out of their advertising than they currently are.

The Start of it All

Well this is the first post of my blog about the ski industry. In future posts in this blog I will be exploring and researching the ski industry and jobs that it has to offer to those of us who love the sport, want to be around it all or our lives, but will never be going pro. Whether it be working for a company that actaully makes the product or for the mountain where the skiing goes on, there are lots of ways you can make a career while still being surrounded by skiing culture.

While writing this blog I will also be posting it on NewSchoolers.com; a site where the ski community can come together, post threads in forums, share videos and pictures, as well as catch up on what their favorite pros are up to. I will also be consulting people on NewSchoolers for ideas as to what the members of that site want to learn about the ski industry as well (search SkiBumBusinessman on the forums and you will see my post). The site is great for networking and making good contacts as well, and later down the road I plan to set up interviews with some of the members on the site that are members of companies in the ski industry, or who run some of the smaller companies themselves.

For this first post I am not going to talk about the ski industry as I will in future posts but instead I just wanted to let you all (Bruce and NewSchoolers) know what I'll be doing in posts to come. Tomorrow I will write about how the costs of skiing and the effects that it might have in the future.