Amazon.com has taken a huge market share out of the snowboard retail world. You might be as surprised to see Amazon.com selling snowboards from brands like Jones Snowboards, Lib Tech, Capita, Rome, GNU and more being sold through this online channel.
Amazon.com Snowboards for Sale
In the past, these brands would easily sell through their entire lines so why now dump this gear on Amazon and who is actually selling these boards?
Jones Snowboards
Jones Snowboards used to sell out early in the season. These boards were in high demand across the board. The board above is one of the more limited higher end splitboards. The Jones Ultracraft Splitboard ($1,600) is the sort of board you would expect to see hanging behind the counter at a ski shop.
The Jones Snowboards Line on Amazon is being sold directly from Jones Snowboards and Jones New York
Lib Tech Store on Amazon
Next up is Lib Tech, I still love Mervin but am sort of surprised to see a company that is hand-making snowboards in North America even allowing them to be dumped on Amazon.com, seems dirty at best, however, Lib’s not alone here. Lib Tech Banana Magic was another one of those boards you wanted to “buy early” those days seem long gone.
Never Summer Store on Amazon
In years past never Summer would routinely sell through their entire lines, to see some of the best hand build snowboards being dumped on Amazon sort of sucks and makes me wonder just how strong snowboard sales really are these days.
Not Sold Everywhere eh?
Let’s be fair, I have known the Never Summer crew going on 15+ years and fully have their back in almost everything they do. Except for this. Now it’s actually not Never Summer putting their Swift Snowboard on Amazon, it’s one of their “shops” Windward Boardshop that’s fulfilling orders.
Arbor Snowboards
Another brand that was using Amazon in the past that has pulled most of their snowboards is Arbor.
For a full list of every snowboard brand being sold on Amazon.com, you can visit Amazon.com/snowboards
Odds are you will start seeing Amazon.com snowboards ads being delivered, is this a good thing? Snowboards Amazon, really?
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Maybe I’m a grumpy old man… but one of the things that I’ve ALWAYS loved doing was going to the local shop in a ski-town or even in a big city and check out the gear in person. I personally still try to buy gear made by locals (North American manufactured) for locals through a shop. I might be a dying breed especially with the next generation not caring about the small shop, but I’m eternally hopeful that maybe just maybe there’s some other people like me out there.
you are not alone my friend. Odds are likely in the future this will get back to being more “core” we shall see and are very hopeful
While you bring to light some decent information, this isn’t news and is a bit naive in terms of how third party platforms, retailers, and manufacturers handle this issue.
As an employee of a major, outdoor industry company that manages sales on the Amazon platform, I’d be happy to explain why and how third party platforms matter.
KP,
Thanks for the comment, with your background in Amazon and the outdoor space please share what its been like to work with Amazon via your company. Truly appreciate continuing the great convo going on here…
Mike
The solution is simple and already in place by many. Manf’s create a separate and stiffer pricing policy for 3rd party and affiliate sales sites. Dealers must be authorized to sell on these sites and must be at MSRP. Also, the Manf could choose to limit offering to only select portion of their products or 2nd year-and-on products. If the specialty guys get noisy enough there could be change. But, a lot of them use Amazon as a 3rd party dumping ground for very low profits plus commissions to Amazon. That is indeed short sighted.
Amazon has allowed third parties to sell through their site for more than a decade. Of course there is an agreement about pricing, and it seems that what you are really complaining about is that you won’t be making your commission, however if you drive traffic to them as an Amazon affiliate you just might.
Manufacturers each have their own Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) Policies which lay out guidelines for retailers on a number of points including: minimum price that can be advertised in season, third party sites product can be sold (Amazon, eBay,etc.), when MAP policy applies.
Clearly the brands you list allow 3rd party sales (some don’t), but it does benefit many independent retailers. The real tragedy occurs when Amazon sees a brand selling well on it’s platform and then goes and buys directly from the vendor. Once Amazon owns products it sells them at whatever price it wants, it does not follow MAP policies, but independent shops still must. So Amazon plays by different rules, and that is the true injustice.
Just like the Jones line being sold from Backcountry, it looks like Arbor is being sold by The Gear Coop – not directly from Arbor.
Robin,
Indeed the Arbor Boards are being sold via The Gear Coop. I had to actually put the board in my cart before it showed who would be doing the shipping. Its weird as these are the most popular, sought after boards?
I try not to shop of Amazon ever since they took the publishing houses to court for fixing prices of e-books high enough for their authors to make a living. Amazon doesn’t care about suppliers. This mega-retailer is monopolizing retail and once it establishes itself as an outlet for snowboards, just wait and see how it bends over the snowboard manufacturers as to wholesale price. Manufacturers may feel encouraged by the ability to move product now; but when Amazon has enough power to make terms, get ready to slash marketing, rep positions and other “superfluous” corporate gigs and move all operations to the lowest-rent factories in China where they will start making bases out of the cheapest, most air-filled resins.
You should take one further step and see where these boards are shipping from. Arbor is not selling direct through Amazon. The hyperlink “by Arbor” connects you to all the products being sold under the “Arbor” heading. One more step and you could have figured this out, but instead you jumped to conclusions. Shame on you Mike Hardaker.
Shame on me? Really carry on. But thanks for the comment on this article. As foo Arbor, I love me the Abacus and am surprised as hell to see it being sold on Amazon. So I went and added the board to my cart for shits and giggles:
“Guaranteed delivery date: Mar. 10, 2016 If you order in the next 23 hours and 52 minutes (Details) Items shipped from Amazon.com”
Am I missing something?
Mike