Contact   Imprint   Advertising   Guidelines

WTF is with the board prices these days???

Forum for kitesurfers
plummet
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 6819
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2009 11:25 pm
Local Beach: EE
Favorite Beaches: NZ
Style: Terrain riding
Gear: Old wornout ozone.
Plummet hydrofoil and mutant
Brand Affiliation: None
Has thanked: 11 times
Been thanked: 224 times

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby plummet » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:32 am

Bille wrote:
plummet wrote: ...

It costs me around $300 to make my own board using carbon excluding bindings/fins.

...
$300 , plus how many hours plummet ?

I build stuff because it's Fun ; more fun than TV . Economics is secondary ; but
I couldn't afford $1200 for a board , (so its DIY, or Nothing) !!

Bille
Since every single board I make is different. Fucken, fucken, fucken heaps of man hours per board!

Frank82
Frequent Poster
Posts: 496
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:19 pm
Local Beach: Wijk aan Zee, IJburg, Schellinkhout, Medemblik - Netherlands
Style: freestyle / wakestyle / big air / wave
Gear: Eleveight
Brand Affiliation: None
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 12 times

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby Frank82 » Mon Aug 03, 2015 1:56 pm

Just buy last years or the year before that board, not much change in them anyway.

Example:

The Brunotti Youri pro in Holland:
- 2014: 299 euro
- 2015: 399 euro
- 2016: 775 euro

Ofcourse there's the occasional board which really is different than last years board but usually you'll find the features of the new board in another brand's last year board.

IanNJ
Frequent Poster
Posts: 395
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2014 2:27 am
Local Beach: Brigantine NJ
Favorite Beaches: Brigantine, LBI, Kite Island NJ, Caberate, Hatteras
Style: Wave/freestyle
Gear: Currently rocking a 12/10/8 CORE GTS3 for waves and wake. Cabrinha Velocity 13/10/7 for Foil.
Boards: LF 139 Element with LFK boots and no fins, SlingShot/MHL NF2 Strapless Foil, CORE Ripper 2 5'10", Cabrinha Secrete weapon 5'10", Slingshot 5'6" Angry Swallow
Brand Affiliation: www.NewJerseyKiteboarding.com and www.GreenHatKiteboarding.com
Location: Jersey Shore!!
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0
Contact:

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby IanNJ » Mon Aug 03, 2015 2:48 pm

If you do not want to pay a lot for a board buy used, buy a full wood core with no channels in it or buy something on close out. I am sure I am pointing out the obvious but the more carbon and more channels that go into boards as well as other material the more expensive. Even the LF Element that is full carbon is $800 and LF tends to be cheaper then others.

Also lets face the facts. there are a lot of people that do not need $1000 boards and would never know the difference.

on the other hand performance is a big addition to these boards. I have used a lot of boards from F-One, CORE, Cabrinha, LF , North and other big brands. I would assure anyone that the more "performance" boards ride nicer for sure.

L0KI
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 2817
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:17 am
Gear: .
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby L0KI » Mon Aug 03, 2015 5:08 pm

plummet wrote:God you guys are so literal. It was just a theoretical calculation to show you how cost escalates. Even if you own the manufacturing facility it still costs more money per unit to make low volume product. Set up cost, r&d costs marketing costs.... all greater per unit on low volume stuff. Time to set up jigs etc...

Also and finally. The market dictates the price. If nobody purchased a $649 board then none would be for sale. Its basic business. Make it for as little as possible. Sell it for as much as possible
Please explain the Slingshot thing.
Same small facility in Washington State USA.
Same construction techniques and materials in their own little plant that has been doing it for three years or so.
Why are the kiteboard prices higher?
They made kiteboards before the made wakeboards and their production volumes are similar in both.
I believe the answer at Slingshot is that the expectation is that the wakeboard market is used to paying less and the kiteboard market is used to paying more.
Liquid Force should be paying a board manufacturing facility of their choice (in whatever country) the exact same price for wakeboards and kiteboards, negotiated at the same table in the same meetings.
A buddy of mine who has been kiting since a year after the original Maui crew, bought his first twintip picklefork from Jimmy Lewis about 18 years ago and it was an (too) expensive hand made board.
He bought a Mutant hand made from John Doyle that was $1200.
Those kinds of prices should have gone way down when we went to production twintips, made in a production facility, in some decent volume.
I really think this is about what the market will pay at retail.
We started out in the kite business, with kiters paying for Jimmy Lewis to build expensive twintips by hand and the price mentality has never changed.
But, it's just what I think and I could be wrong.

t3rse
Frequent Poster
Posts: 464
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2014 9:15 pm
Local Beach: Folly
Gear: RRD Obsession/Core XR/Cab FX
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: Charleston, SC
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby t3rse » Mon Aug 03, 2015 5:17 pm

If I have to spend 10k on tooling to build one board, you are paying 10k + markup +materials and labor for that one board.

If I spend 10k on tooling to build a million boards, you pay a penny for tooling for each board.

L0KI
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 2817
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:17 am
Gear: .
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby L0KI » Mon Aug 03, 2015 5:25 pm

I think everybody here understands economy of scale.
But kiteboards and wakeboards are made in the same places, with the same equipment, and the same materials, and tooling that is the same or almost exactly the same.
They go from production run Obrien for a batch of wakeboards to production run for Liquid Force kiteboards to production run for Byerly wakeboards with nothing but lunch and the time to swap out a rocker shape fixture and the graphics.
Should Skiis and Snowboards be priced completely differently from each other?
There are two skiis in each sale and one snowboard, how much different is a pair of skiis from a snowboard?
Manufacturing is done in the same places with the same equipment and the same tools, obviously only the shapes change a little, so prices should be somewhat the same.
So are snowboarders willing to pay twice or more than the price of skiis?

t3rse
Frequent Poster
Posts: 464
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2014 9:15 pm
Local Beach: Folly
Gear: RRD Obsession/Core XR/Cab FX
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: Charleston, SC
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby t3rse » Mon Aug 03, 2015 5:39 pm

http://www.slingshotsports.com/Wakeboard-Tech

I honestly thought the process would be a little more automated.

L0KI
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 2817
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:17 am
Gear: .
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby L0KI » Mon Aug 03, 2015 6:03 pm

Which is part of my point.
It is not like wakeboard and kiteboard manufacturing has gotten to a level anywhere near the relatively automated levels that manufacturing for many things are made.
Economy of scale is a much bigger factor when you pay for a mold to make a plastic part and the mold is kicking out 200 pieces every time it ejects, and that happens every twenty seconds and you are making automobile parts or an appliance part.
They are using the same equipment that has been used to make skiis and snowboards for a pretty long time and that whole process is not really very similar to a volume process that spits parts out all day long while an operator babysits a machine.
I've stood in front of a press punching out metal parts all day and the economy of scale there does play a big role in cost at retail.
Not sure that is a driving reason for the prices we pay compared to a wakeboard.
We are a niche, and even if the board is almost the same as a wakeboard, we are willing to pay up the bum because we are crazy for the sport and willing to do it.
It's what I think, but I could certainly be wrong.

User avatar
jats2k9
Frequent Poster
Posts: 242
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 11:39 pm
Local Beach: Ft Lauderdale
Miami beach
Style: Wakestyle, Freestyle
Gear: Best
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby jats2k9 » Mon Aug 03, 2015 6:25 pm

The high prices are pure BS. It's that simple. Superb inflated.

flipper231
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 547
Joined: Fri Mar 16, 2007 5:01 pm
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: WTF is with the board prices these days???

Postby flipper231 » Mon Aug 03, 2015 7:03 pm

Companies maxed out the price of the kites, the boards were fairly cheap, you could get a new board for less than 400$... Boards only companies remain fairly cheap, Tona are not that expensive. Those making kites saw their numbers go up and then stagnate, the boards was where they could make some dough.

The used kite market is not ready for $1000+ one year old used kite but if you sell your used gear with a 50-60% it does not worth changing every year, the second year will see almost no loss so you can keep it one more year and sell it for the same $850-$950, saving one year of new gear. Normally I would lose 25-30% after a year and the same the second year, every 4-5years I would loose the equivalent of one quiver, just like changing the whole quiver every 4-5 years but with new smelling kites every spring.

Many people do the same so less folks will be buying new kites, so the boards is where you can keep milking the cow,


Return to “Kitesurfing”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: 20kts, arjas, Bing [Bot], bshmng, DanielorDani, i_love_storm, jannik, jyka, marinjo77, mati, mede, Nak, The line smith, Yahoo [Bot] and 136 guests