Well, it finally seems that even our industry has succumb to the effect of the global high street on the internet. It was inevitable but we have resisted as long as possible in terms of discounting everything we sell in a constant price war with our competitors. They undercut the RRP so we match them. They realise this, and drop their prices agian and so it goes on in this downward spiral until we can no longer afford to do so and shops/websites have to close.
After an e-mail conversation with the head of one of the larger ski suppliers to the UK market last week in which they concluded that "10% off was just the norm on-line these days", I realised that the battle to keep prices up at RRP was now lost. It is just so frustrating to see small and some medium sized retailers just being plain lazy and deciding the best business model to go for is to discount all their goods when, with a little bit more effort and imagination you could hold your pricing and offer a better level of service, more service, a better customer experience, a more informative environment etc etc
The main issue with this "lets just discount it attitude" is where it is going to take us eventually. Bricks and Mortar shops cost a lot of money to run and while websites not free to run they do allow for smaller overheads which in turn allows companys to slash margin and take sales away from the high street. Nowadays, a lot of consumers would just shrug thier shoulders to this and think "well so be it, if it is cheaper then I know where I am going to buy it from" and i have to admit that I would also think like this if I was making the purchase. The difference with the ski industry however is that, more than other retail industries such as electronics, homewares etc customers really need face to face service for ski boot fitting and the correct advice on products that they can not just go and test before they buy them on the mountain. We are in danger of it just becoming warehouse based websites selling skis to the public with no real knowledge of what they are seeling
I am not saying we should all stop shopping on-line and support our local shops, those days are gone. Just hold up our prices a little bit more, allow our high street stores to survive along side our websites, for the benefit of the consumer as much as ourselves
