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Your Retailers Have Spoken. They Think You Need To Be Here. In these challenging economic times, it's more important than ever for manufacturers and retailers alike to get their business done in one place, in one weekend. Surf Expo's unique breadth of exhibitors and commitment to a business-first atmosphere makes choosing Surf Expo as the show to attend a no-brainer. 11/18/2008 Surf Expo Announces Lineup For January 2009 Educational Seminars Give your store every advantage through Surf Expo's full roster of educational seminars, happening January 15, 16, and 17 in Orlando, Florida. Bring your staff or brush up on your own skills as we discuss open-to-buy strategies, Web site management, understanding surfboard technology, and much more. 11/18/2008 Travels With Fish: Cocoa Beach On the final day of our Surf Expo North Florida tour, we stop off at the Ron Jon Surf Shop mega store, plus Quiet Flight and Cape Surf. 10/31/2008 Travels With Fish: Daytona Beach The off-season in a tourist mecca like Daytona Beach brings its own challenges as shops either struggle to maintain or simply shutter the doors and wait until spring. So how are retailers coping? 10/30/2008 Travels With Fish: Jacksonville Beach Surf Expo is back with another episodic adventure! This time reporting from Northeastern Florida as I travel from Jacksonville Beach to Cocoa Beach and hit the stops in between. 10/27/2008 Per Welinder Explains The Birdhouse Deal Tony Hawk and Per Welinder, business partners for the past 15 years, recently reached a definitive agreement whereby Tony Hawk has acquired all interest in the Birdhouse Skateboards brand from Blitz Distribution, Inc. So what's it all mean? Blitz President Per Welinder explains. 10/16/2008 Top Ten Tips for Successful Exhibiting Wondering how to plan your exhibit program to maximize your show results? Candy Adams, aka the "Booth Mom," lays it out in ten simple tips everyone can follow. 10/14/2008 The Secrets Of Visual Merchandising How your store looks is sometimes more important that what you are selling. We’ll explore the basics on merchandising your store from a visual perspective and also discuss how to build a formula to keep your store fresh and exciting to your frequent shoppers as well as your new guests. 10/06/2008 The Girls Of Surf Expo All the latest swimwear fashions, modeled at Surf Expo's Fashion Shows and at the swank Peabody Hotel. 09/25/2008
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In The SPoTlight
 | | (left to right) Steve Stratton, Troy Eckert, Eugene, Scotty, Remy (with camera on top), Brian Schaefer, Ryan Clements, Rob Meronek | Where does the heart of skateboarding reside? Is it in some converted Santa Cruz cannery? A dog-eared warehouse in Oceanside, California? A gleaming glass corporate edifice in Irvine? Who knows? But a good guess would be 70 miles west of Surf Expo in a scruffy warehouse once affectionately known as “the cave.”
Brian Schaefer’s Skatepark Of Tampa is not only home to two of the most influential skate contests in the nation—the Tampa Am and Tampa Pro—it’s a business hub that includes a growing retail operation, a successful event-management wing, and what very well could be the most popular skateboarding Web site in the world.
Ask Schaefer about it all and he’ll shrug, say he hasn’t really followed some set business plan. While that may be true, it belies the fact that the Skatepark Of Tampa has formed a very sharp, very savvy group of managers who understand what skaters are after and have been serving it up in heaping doses for the last ten years.
But it wasn’t always so. “We really didn’t have a direction,” says Schaefer of the early days of the Ditches Warehouse, a predecessor to SPoT were fellow Tampa pro skaters—friends—would gather to skate. “We started it in 1991, but by 1992 we realized that having a private park just for friends wasn’t doing it, we couldn’t pay rent,” he says. “We needed a real skatepark versus a buddy system.”
After looking at various locations, Schaefer settled on a warehouse a few miles east of downtown Tampa. “It was definitely slow at first,” he recalls of the first days, “more of a hangout than anything else.”
But word began to spread. “I don’t think there ever was a time when I sat back and said, ‘Hey, this is really working’ during the first five years,” says Schaefer. Instead, he says it wasn’t until he brought on Ryan Clements in 1998 that the business started to gel. “When he came aboard we were able to put a real management team in place. I was able to delegate—which was great. Soon I saw that there was a real business here.”
Part of that business realization came from the growing success of the Tampa Pro and Tampa Am contests. Launched in 1994, by 2000 they had become “can’t miss” dates, drawing many of the best skaters and loads of media and industry interest.
After the company launched the Damn Am series in 2001 at the Volcom warehouse, Schaefer, Clements, and Rob Meronek (Skatepark of Tampa’s software engineer), knew it was time for a new business wing: SPoTlight Productions. Today this event-management company handles more than a dozen skate events, including Surf Expo’s popular mini-ramp contest. No surprise, Schaefer and Clements are also the best skate announcers in the business.
“It’s huge man; we’re millionaires,” says Schaefer, deadpan. “I’m kidding. SPoTlight definitely wouldn’t pay our salaries, but it’s a great extension to our brand and one that makes us somewhat unique.”
The success of the Tampa Pro and Tampa Am also gave the Skatepark Of Tampa some unique sponsorship opportunities. Where else would brands clamor to became the official bathroom sponsor of a skatepark, but it happened in Tampa with Emerica’s all-black urinal décor.
“I think that goes back to everyone wanting a unique way to be involved,” says Schaefer. “Everyone does stickers and banners; we wanted to offer something unique. The idea actually came to us from Surf Expo. We saw how you have sponsors for everything from napkins to beer cups, so we said, ‘Why not our bathroom?’”
But the greatest opportunity SPoT might have is its Web site and online mail-order business. Pull up a head-to-head comparison on compete.com and you’ll find that SPoT easily outdistances the sites of even the largest skate magazines. Want more proof? Skateparkoftampa.com claims more than 130 million clicks for Nike SB product alone (see sidebar).
“Woot! We’re number one! We’re number one!” goofs Schaefer. “No, I don’t know the figures, you’d have to ask our Web guy about that. He’s this Asian guy who’s way smarter than me and knows all these Google tricks to get us traffic we don’t pay for.”
Don’t let him fool you. Schaefer has a clear understanding of the opportunity and the Web team works its ass off to keep the site fresh. “As we get older and a little wiser, we’re trying to figure out what the next big thing for us will be. The park will always be home base. But maybe we could launch another park in another country—or figure out the whole online thing better. Maybe we could be an Active or CCS, but we’ll definitely stay as core and focused to skateboarding as possible.” By The Numbers
The top 20 companies with the most product clicks on skateparkoftampa.com.
Nike SB -- 137,981,891 Clicks
Emerica -- 14,670,833 Clicks
eS Footwear -- 9,353,907 Clicks
Vans -- 5,664,332 Clicks
Fallen -- 5,525,652 Clicks
KR3W -- 2,348,984 Clicks
Etnies Footwear -- 1,987,649 Clicks
Supra -- 1,493,372 Clicks
Skatepark of Tampa -- 1,211,927 Clicks
Vox Footwear -- 975,197 Clicks
Lakai -- 928,036 Clicks
DVS Footwear -- 599,793 Clicks
Globe Footwear -- 512,691 Clicks
Volcom -- 491,280 Clicks
Altamont -- 415,796 Clicks
Venture -- 336,775 Clicks
Independent -- 335,477 Clicks
Nike -- 274,895 Clicks
DC Shoe Co. -- 256,166 Clicks
Zero -- 241,769 Clicks  | | Chad Bartie. Frontside feeble at the Surf Expo ramp. |
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Billabong Signs Indonesia’s #1 Skateboarder Pevy Permana This true Indonesian talent will join the likes of Singapore’s Firdaus and Malaysia’s Usher as an ‘A Team’ rider for the Billabong family.
11/20/2008 Nike's "Made For Skate" Pop-up Store Exhibit Nike SB is sponsoring an exhibition in Amsterdam containing five decades of memorable skateboarding footwear.
11/20/2008 The Buckle, Inc. Reports 31 Percent Increase in Third Quarter Net Income The Buckle, Inc. (NYSE: BKE) announced todaythat net income for the fiscal quarter ended November 1, 2008 increased31.0 percent on a 25.7 percent net sales increase.
11/20/2008 Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation Announces Fiscal 2008 Third Quarter Results The Company achieved an 11 basis-point increase in product selling margins and lowered overall distribution center expenses versus the prior year despite operating 19 more stores and experiencing increased freight costs due to higher fuel prices
11/20/2008 Zumiez Inc. Reports October 2008 Sales Results Total net sales for the four-week period ended November 1, 2008 increased 1.2% to $25.0 million, compared to $24.7 million for the four-week period ended November 3, 2007.
11/20/2008 Pacific Sunwear Announces Third Quarter Earnings Results Total Company same-store sales decreased 7% during the third quarter of fiscal 2008.
11/20/2008 Dick's Sporting Goods Reports Third Quarter Results; In line With Expectations Net sales for the quarter increased 10.2% to $924.2 million due to the opening of new stores, the inclusion of Chick's Sporting Goods in this year's quarterly results and a 2.8% decrease in comparable store sales.
11/20/2008 ActionWatch Retail Panel Grows to 200 Stores “This is a significant milestone,” states Cary Allington, co-founder. “The panel is large enough to very accurately reflect the market in most of the product categories we track.”
11/19/2008 Sport Chalet Selects MarketLive eCommerce Suite for New eCommerce Website MarketLive, Inc., the leading global eCommerce software and service provider for retailers, announced today that Sport Chalet, a full-service specialty sporting goods store with locations in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, has selected the MarketLive eCommerce Suite for the company's new website.
11/19/2008 Billabong International Outlines Global Success During Chairman and CEO Speeches. A transcript of the speeches made by Billabong International Chairman Ted Kunkel and CEO Derek O'Neill during last month's '07/08 Annual General Meeting.
11/18/2008 Sole Technology Gets Invite To Secret Ryan Sheckler Skate Park Everything you see here isn't even the entire park. There's another level full of ledges, mannys, flatground and whatnot -- not to mention the entertainment room, offices and on and on.
11/18/2008 Consumers Anxiously Await Black Friday Deals According to NRF’s 2008 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, 72.0 percent of consumers have completed less than 10 percent of their shopping, compared with 2.2 percent of shoppers who say they have completely finished.
11/17/2008
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