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Nike should be embarrassed posting this after closing 100's of amazing shop doors across the states in the last few months. They don't give two fucks about local shops, they just know skateboarding is a nice way to cash in on some easy $$$.
Name 2 shops
Yea, hard to name two...
I'm in Canada so:
1)-Green Apple Skateshop (RIP) one of the best Skateshop's from Canada, let out some of the best shop videos ever, owned by McD, one of the best Canadian skaters of all time.
2) -Anti Social Skateshop (one of the best shops in the world hands down), owned by McCrank and Michelle, pretty much planted the seeds for the Vancouver skate scene over the last couple decades.
3)-Plush Edmonton (RIP) **Not sure if Plush ever had Nike, but I think they used to have it.
4)-Sk8 Skates (one of Canada's oldest Skateshop's, started in the 80's, always been skater owned)
5)-Empire (biggest shop in Canada and not very "core" but still deserve Nike over the big shitty chains that get it, they give back put on massive Canadian events and contests, Im sure you've heard of AM getting paid, etc).
6)-Outlaw Boutique, cool little skater owned shop in Montreal.
7)-The Drive Skateshop (owned by Kevin Harris former Bones Brigade member)
-Primary Shop
10)-Industry Shop
11)-Rumour Skateshop
12)-Rude Boys Shop
13)-NBS Skateshop (RIP)
14)-First & First Skateshop (RIP)
Every one of these shops is/was rad and have accounts with other great brands like FA, Vans, Dime etc.. Does cool stuff in their community and are owned by skaters (maybe Empire is not skater owned*, but if you're putting on massive contests and skate events, you're doing it right). Some are thriving right now, either way, Im sure they'd still enjoy to make $3000/month easily off of chunky dunks and all that other shit, and it would level the playing field between them and some massive shoe store like Footlocker.
Not to mention Converse
closed 376 stores in Canada a few years back, lots of these were mom and pop shoe stores, but loads of these were skateshops, it's really hard to find Cons in Canada. It was their plans to close all these stores and put the value of their orders on Amazon.ca instead of pumping it through local stores, they can fire allllllll the sales reps and just deal with one store.
If you don't think losing these brands is a big deal to these shops, you're a fool. Sure, the good shops survive, but they're still crippled by not having these brands that Zumiez in their city is selling.