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You might see radial slims again someday but the trend is big wide wheels.
The confusion with pricing can be summed up like this, wheel prices did go up, it’s a lot of work(meaning on our site I would have to update every product individually as our site is pretty basic) and frankly kind of dickish to go back to product you got for cheaper and raise the price. F4’s have gone up at wholesale $3-4 a set, I still feel guilty raising prices but I had to.
I work, and have worked, in some very different than skateshop industries (restaurants and construction mainly). In both of my main careers, most everyone had the money to sit on the bar stool, or commission the building of a custom home. It was difficult for me to drop some tabs in front of people at the bar, and it’s difficult for my bosses to do invoicing for their clients, particularly as those bosses have aged, gained wealth, and feel like their clients are peers.
Skateshop work would drive me nuts. Many skaters have championed a fairly shitty ethos where they’ll beg poor, and then spend their money in seemingly selfish ways. Trying to juggle that, and apply some type of sliding scale to the ‘homies’ would drive me towards some toxic thought. So as always, salute.
Raise those prices! Don’t feel bad. I’d rather there be a shop I can come to, and bother people, pick decks up and ramble about concave, sniff shoes, whatever my weird ass is up to that day. Please don’t feel bad. Capitalism is shitty
Long story short, these are the people who you can do without, or if they are unreasonable even when explaining some things to them like the last paragraph, I have found it better to say in the nicest possible way "I just can't help you. That's the price, take it or leave it."
"Our prices are competitive and aligned with the market, you're welcome to do your own market research to verify this"
Then add a passive aggressive smiling emoji at the end.
I guess the difference in overall attitude with some people is so obvious, but some of the most talented skateboarders are also the same people who can never afford rent on time, or even just budget for basics.
When it comes down to it, I have often said it and followed through, that I would rather give away skate product to kids or people who cannot afford it but are so clearly stoked on skateboarding, than have the usual stoner dropout come at me and haggle a few dollars discount for something that they often don't even need under the circumstances.
There was one guy who would get wasted and lose his skateboard on a regular basis, so his mates were always helping him out with things when he couldn't buy a new setup, then would suddenly have the bright shiny new everything if a "payment" came in for him or whatever and we wouldn't see him for a month or more until the cycle repeated again.
I am stoked on people who are stoked on skateboarding, as they are the ones who will still be around and still be rolling, so to me it is worth helping those people, just not some others, so I can pick and choose in that regard, even if it comes across as being a bit of an ass at times, as per my previous post on it.
Sorry for derailing the Spitfire thread, but yeah there are some good ones on the way, so I am told.