The economy is in the dumper right now, but even before this crash it seems like a lot of companies and some of our favorite community members are having a hard go at trying to make products and sell them, in an industry where it seems like it’d be a slam dunk to sell a few dozen units per week- web or locally.
This isn’t a shade thread, and I don’t want to rehash specific companies with customer service, quality, business model issues. This seems like a common problem where making products and selling them at enough profit to pay for good engineering, manufacturing QA, and good customer service is nigh impossible.
Small market, and many lack the capital it takes to really get going. Esk8 is niche, diy esk8 is niche niche.
In my opinion, there is a surplus of vendors and a shortage of demand for most parts. Combine that with the fact most vendors (myself included) have little to no real business experience and well,
Maybe because those companies are run by skateboarders?
Joke aside, successful companies are more likely to be run by accountants or properly trained business people. And have the initial inventor as CTO, Head of engineering, or Product Manager… But the small sizes of the esk8 companies don’t make it easy to adopt that structure. And the skater/inventor will end up as sole captain of his ship. Something he doesn’t necessarily have the skills for, despite having deep passion for his project. And instead of calling for outside help from partners, he’ll use the good old skater attitude of learning new tricks, getting up after each fall and doing it again.
In terms of the global perspective, US started the 1st few scooters and were expensive but well made beasts. China then flooded the market with decent quality ones… leading to to mass over adoption resulting in regulatory chaos and general annoyance or hate… Esk8s followed the same trajectory but at a very much smaller scale, but without the mass adoption and hate at the end… there wasnt any regulation against a china made scooter vs a china made car bring sold globally. If china ever sold cars around the world, all car makers would simply fold and go bankrupt. There had to be protectonist laws in place to prevent that from happening
But the Germans and Japanese continue to sell really expensive goods all over the place: Motors, bearings, cars, machines, steel. I have trouble seeing this as only a “Chinese” problem, though that could be part of it for sure.
I do wonder if America as a community has lost our ability to manufacture commodity component goods (bearings, steel, rubber, plastic, motors, batteries, electronics), and therefore is not as able to produce finished goods the way Chinese, Germans, and Japanese can.
Not through the main dealerships… there are gangs, clubs, prevention measures, state and federal lobbies that prevent this in many developed countries. China’s strong desire to compete with the world by selling at the lowest possible price (meaning a race to the bottom), do not understand that putting other countries in trouble economically by doing this will cause many people to lose their jobs / livelihood and potentially come back to hurt China. Not an easy thing to solve
the skateboard companies in China are not failing. Jeff, we dont blame China, i’m just stating that this is what happened… if you let China compete in the world scene, everyone else will lose eventually… China is too good!
Most of the parts are in China, and it is difficult for Westerners to make a profit.
And now it’s cheaper than a few years ago.
No country can beat China in price competition.
ESK8 users are probably few. Many people avoid it because it is a dangerous vehicle.
However, ESK8 users are convinced that it is a great vehicle. Mismatch with the majority.
USA and China trade war.
US Evolve prices are crazy high.
Could be the hype’s dying down too. Seemed like it got a lot more press about 2-3 years ago, now all I see is articles about people getting injuries on their boards. Stay safe boys
Yeah I heard about that too from an evolve loyal fan in my group of rider mates
to be honest I’ve never been a huge fan of their products mainly due to the price the distributors are charging, the bamboo GTR is AUD 1629 on Australia site but it is USD 1899 on the Asia distributor site…
Converted to my currency it’s 2x, meaning ppl are paying price of 2 GTR just to get 1 from the local distributor…
Users on this forum may be dissatisfied with the expensive Evolve.
But it could be a good business to make a profit.
And the only way to establish an ESK8 business outside of Chinese companies is to sell at a high price.
As an industrial structure, this may be inevitable.
It seems to me that without barrier to entry, either technological or cultural (a strong brand or position on niche/segment), competition will bring down prices/margin to a level where it cannot finance market/company development.
Because most startups fail. In every product line. Even if you develop a great product and there is a market for it that does not mean you have a business plan. The problems come when the business starts to grow. You have to be in a position to continuously feed in cash to keep delivering on time for the first several years. Successful startups eat cash until orders level off. Most people don’t start businesses expecting to have to keep putting money into it.
Owners do the simple math. I have to pay this much for parts, this much for labor, this much for advertising. Add on profit and there is the price. I’ll make money on every unit. You will, except you still have to put cash into the business because you have to pay for the parts, labor, and advertising long before you get paid in return. If you sell 50 units this month and 100 units next month you are 150 units into expenses and 50 units into sales. Next month when you sell 250 units the same thing happens.
