You know what sucks? When a rad, local, rider-owned shop who supports the local scene and is down for the cause suddenly closes the doors for good. Half And Half was only around for a year and a half, but they left a mark on the Salt Lake skate community like so many before them, but in the end, it was that same skate community that killed ’em. We’ve been around for awhile {almost 30 years} and we’ve seen shops come and go, and I want to make it very clear to everyone why this happens to keep tragedy from striking other specialty shops.
It happens because of you. You want your shop to support the scene, host events, put on movie premiers, and hook up a ton of swag for everyone. You want your shop to sponsor a ton of riders and hook up regular customers with discounts and free goodies. But you know what? Every time we see an awesome shop that comes in hot and does all of that for their customers, we see them eat dirt a couple of years later. Most recently half and half, union, broken, hobbits, and a bunch of shops in west valley, and others and it’s because those local riders they support don’t support them back. Going in and hanging out for 4 hours while you chill with the dude behind the counter, preventing him from doing his job and turning him into something more like a babysitter at times, and then leave with a free tee and some stickers is not “supporting” the shop, it’s costing them money and in some cases putting them out of business. Walking into your local shop and always asking for discounts, hookups, and online price matches can kill a shop, not support them.
The skate industry is a cutthroat, low margin industry with as many manufactures or brands going out of business as shops in the last 20 years, even asking for 20% off on a skate deck is basically telling the shop that they don’t deserve to even cover their costs to be open while you made that purchase. If you’ve ever received a free anything from a shop, either in-store or at an event, and you didn’t go spend money at the shop afterwards, you’re part of the problem. If you’re a team rider for a shop and you don’t attempt to convince other skaters to buy local or go buy stuff at your shop , you’re part of the problem. If you come to your local shop for info, advice, and to try it on before you go to your car and buy it online, you’re part of the problem. If all you do is get free stickers and stuff from them and never spend a dime there, you are part of the problem. If the only time you go to a local shop is when you just “need it now” or want them to fix it for you, you’re part of the problem. If you only go there to get a part you can’t find any place else or only buy stuff that’s on sale, you are part of the problem. If you only go there to get the gear you bought at a yard sale warrantied, you’re part of the problem. The list goes on, but it’s basically this; if the shop supports a community that you are a part of, and you benefit from that support, but you do not spend money regularly at that shop…
YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Here’s our side of the story for a bit of perspective; we helped pioneer the shop team concept back in ’87 before anyone else had ever considered having a “shop team”, we have put on countless events over the years with a lot of time, sweat, passion, and money out of pocket, all without a lot of thanks or reciprocation from the respective communities, it’s been mostly taken for granted. Salty Peaks was built around the team and was started to be able to support the team, which at one point grew to over 80 riders between the snow and skate teams. But infighting, ungrateful attitudes, and jealousy among team riders helped greatly reduce this shop’s effort to support those same gimme-gimme team riders, with complaints of “you don’t do enough” or “why did he get more than I did” kind of complaints, it became harder to justify pouring passion and money into entitled riders who, quite often, would turn around and talk trash because they are not getting the hook up anymore.
Today in Salt Lake, there are 3 shops that are still standing and have been for between 10 and 30 plus years. Milo and Salty Peaks continue to put on events, but even that effort is less than even 5 years ago largely due to the lack of local support from the community that would rather use the shops to get the info they need and then buy it online from someone else.
Salt Lake is very fortunate to have Blindside, Milo, and Salty Peaks. 3 great shops in one town, and 2 of them on the same block!
Salt Lake is the only city left that can still say that they have 3 great shops to choose from, most cities, big and small, don’t have any left.
So you don’t want your awesome local shop to shut down and go away, but how do you do it?
If you really love your local shop, you really should buy something every time you stop by and hang out. Snag a pair of socks, get a new a tee or their shop deck, whatever it is, you should spend a bit of dough if you’re spending time there. It costs the shop money to have the lights on and the doors open and someone there to say hi and help you, so if you’re spending time there getting info, advice, or just checking out the new gear, you’re costing them money. So help ’em out when you decide to make a purchase, don’t go online just because it might be a few bucks cheaper and you’re willing to wait for it, buy it local and get it today and you will be supporting experts in the field, local taxes, and your shop at the same time.
Right about now, or probably multiple sentences ago when I was pointing my finger at you, you are/were probably thinking “well it’s definitely not ALL MY FAULT for this great shop going out of business”, and you’d be right. Core shops have some responsibility here too. Creating division and competition between local shops just hurts everyone. I think we can all agree that everyone has a favorite shop, but that doesn’t mean you should talk shit on another local shop for any reason, and local shops shouldn’t be perpetuating hatred towards other local, core shops. What you SHOULD be doing, and what local, core shops should be doing, is perpetuating hatred towards big box retailers that create unsustainable policies and only want to make money off of our passion, but couldn’t care less about the core scene they’re trying to profit off of.
Stores like REI, Zumiez, BC Surf and Sport, Amazon, and more are the enemies, not other local, core shops. Core shops should band together and support each other by not carrying identical brands and products as one another, and local riders should shop at all of the nearby core shops, buying stuff from each shop. The other thing that unrealistically conditions consumers is when a new local shop or manufacture over-zealously supports their local scene, like immediately throwing huge events, creating a big team, and hooking up loads of locals. Shops do this in hopes to win over the hearts and minds of their local riders, but it often creates a sense of entitlement in those riders; they keep expecting the shop to throw big events, sponsor a ton of riders, and hook up loads of locals. Maybe we shouldn’t be so harsh on the local riders, it’s the shops that have conditioned you to be this way. (Much like the “no questions asked” return policies and selling stuff below cost just to get customer support have conditioned consumers to expect to buy a snow or skateboard, ride it until it breaks, and take it back for a new one. You cant do that with a car! (yet) but were does all this lead to?)
How did Amazon afford to lose money for nearly 20 years before showing a profit ? how does Zappos operate on a 1% profit margin?
The big business model to get around anti trust laws in America is to bribe the customer to buy from them until the competition goes out of business, and once the competition is gone, they raise prices and gather more market share in the name of shareholder profits, this is done by selling at or below cost, offering “no questions asked” return policies, and bending over backwards for customers even if it means losing money. This not only conditions consumers to expect the same treatment everywhere, but it garners support for the big businesses, they know the smaller competition can’t afford to lose money for years on end and the big box retailers will eventually win out as the competition goes away and there are less and less choices for consumers.
This is why there are anti trust laws to prevent unfair competition or the “spend them out of business”mind set.
Half and Half is just the drop in the bucket, it’s happening across the country to huge retailers like 100+ year old Sears, Kmart, Barns and Noble, Auto supply stores and so many more. There is not an industry or product category in America that is not being affected in the same way. For example, do you buy tools at USA based Home Depot or Harbor Freight (direct from china)?
This has worked well for Walmart for years as they put competitors in cities, big and small, out of business by losing more money than the competition can afford, selling volume over margin. This is great for the short term gain and lower prices, but bad for the long term stability and choices consumers have in the future. Now with other deep-pocketed, wall-street-supported retailers like Amazon becoming an even bigger threat to the retail landscape in America and around the world, the pace in which competitors are going away is astonishing. There have been more than 300 specialty retailers go out of business in the last 18 years! Every time a specialty retailer goes out of business, a community loses a reliable source for expert advice,quality products and a passion for the industry and it’s replaced with cheap, mass produced, slave labor garbage, pedaled by the wall-street super power retailers.
Let’s bring this back to the point shall we? We’re all at fault here, Half And Half didn’t have to die so soon, and if we don’t want this to keep happening, we all need to change the way we think about retail and the way we support local shops (and local economies for that matter). So please take this to heart… support, and I mean REALLY support your local skate shop. (All of them, if you’re lucky enough to have a handful of core shops in your area like we do.) Don’t take it for granted, otherwise it won’t be around forever. And once they’ve all suffered similar fates, all we’ll have is Amazon and Walmart, and nobody wants that.
To Milhouse and Half And Half, thank you for everything you did for our skate community, and we wish you the best of luck on your next endeavor! -The Salty Crew
PS: If this article made you angry at us, you probably don’t want to accept the fact that you’re part of the problem.
