Mountain Weekly News ~
Welcome to 2016, the year that sees Amazon.com takes a huge market share out of the snowboard retail world. You might be as surprised as I am to see brands like Jones Snowboards, Never Summer, Lib Tech, GNU and more being sold through this channel.
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?
Recent Amazon add that was delivered to me via re-targeting on TGR
Let us backtrack a little bit here, wondering why I am writing this article? Well, my snowboard reviews are starting to receive a ton of traffic from Amazon.com so I followed the funnel and to my surprise found some of the best and most sought-after boards being dumped on Amazon.
Amazon Snowboard – Jones Snowboards
Take for instance the Jones Mountain Surfer shown above. Be sure to note what I highlighted in the add. Amazon shows the snowboard is by Jones Snowboards so that leads us to believe its a legit Jones Board. However look who’s actually doing the selling, Backcountry.com
I have been told these boards were uber limited and were designed and shaped by Jeremy and Chris Christenson. So to see these works of art being sold on Amazon was a surprise but let’s move on.
Amazon Snowboard – Lib Tech Snowboards
Next up is Lib Tech, and it looks like another third party, skis.com is selling one of my favorite snowboards the Lib Tech Banana Magic. Now the irony of a company called skis.com selling Lib products is not lost on me as the companies new CEO is actually a skier.
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.
Amazon Snowboard – Never Summer Snowboards
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 most 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. The price of the board is the exact same as what is being sold for on Backcountry.com as well. So that sort of makes me wonder if there is an agreement on how much or how little boards can be sold for?
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.
Amazon Snowboard – Arbor Snowboards
Need a splitboard? Arbor is actually the ones selling their Abacus Split (our editors choice award winner) direct through Amazon.com. Where it gets sticky and sort of shitty on my end is to see this board being sold for even less then it is being sold for over at Backcountry.com
So why am I talking about this and why does it affect you and me? Well for starters we can actually make a commission when people read our reviews and then make purchases through Backcountry.com or REI.com.
Keep in mind this website is a business too. I DO NOT CHARGE BRANDS FOR REVIEWS Instead we hope they see value in the content my team and I produce and hopefully are enticed to share this content. When a potential buyer finds a review and clicks through our links, not only are we helping the brands to sell and promote their products but we too actually earn a little piece of the pie.
With Amazon.com at play that is not the case, we do not get paid commissions from them. And in fact, I worked with Amazon.com for over 6 years without ever earning $100USD in total earnings.
Amazon.com is known to put small companies out of business by simply making the products themselves and selling them at a lower price.
It’s doubtful Amazon.com will invest in presses to make their own line of snowboards so we’re safe here for now. However, as I keep seeing traffic come to my site from Amazon and then return back where they came I feel used. Come read my reviews and then buy on Amazon.com, if this trend continues please don’t ask why your boards are not being reviewed.
Notice how much real estate Google is giving Amazon to Sell Snowboard Gear…
For a full list of every snowboard brand being sold on Amazon.com, you can visit this link.
Odds are you will start seeing Amazon.com snowboards ads being delivered, is this a good thing? Snowboards Amazon, really?
The post How Amazon Plans to Put Your Local Snowboard Shop Out of Business appeared first on Mountain Weekly News by Mike Hardaker.