Why Skateboarding and Nothing Else?

People keep asking if we at Sublimited think we can run a shop that doesn’t sell anything but skateboard stuff. “What about during the winter? How will you survive in Utah or anywhere else outside of California without selling snowboards?”

We’re making a few assumptions, to be sure, but they’re based in some research.

Yes, it’s true that sales of hard goods definitely go down during the winter months in states other than those with warm climates. And sales of snowboards do go up during the winter. Since snowboarding and skateboarding are cousins and there is a lot of crossover participation it seems logical to sell both types of product in a store.

It’s not that we have anything against snowboarding. In fact, most of the people involved with Sublimited snowboard as well as skateboard, although we’re all skaters first and snowboarders second. But we like snowboarding and have nothing against it whatsoever. For that matter we don’t really have anything against BMXers or bladers, as long as they’re not getting in our way at the skatepark.

The point isn’t that we’re against anything else, it’s just that we’re for skateboarding, and we think the market is big enough to support what we want to do with Sublimited, in that we want to have a chain of stores that are purely skateboarding and nothing else.

And think about it, what makes the most money in skateboarding? It’s not decks and wheels, it’s clothing, and especially shoes. And people buy shoes whether it’s snowing or not.

And you also have to remember who’s buying this stuff. When I was in 7th grade a few years ago, anyone who wore skate clothing but didn’t skate was called a poser. Today it’s practically the norm. Skate fashions are more popular than they’ve ever been, and they’ve been popular for a number of years and don’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. It’s kind of like how during the 80s and 90s everyone started wearing surf clothing even if they didn’t surf, and we still see this trend today. Does everyone who wears Quicksilver or Billabong surf? Hardly.

Although it means there’s a lot of posing going on, skateboard fashions are part of the mainstream and while we at Sublimited are targeting our store and our product mix towards the real skateboarder, we know that 90% of our sales are going to come from kids who don’t skate. This might seem a little depressing to the real skaters, but think of it this way–if it weren’t for all those people who aren’t skaters buying skate stuff you’d still be using shoes and skate equipment that is the same quality as what we had 15 years ago and you wouldn’t have all these public skateparks cropping up.

If it weren’t for the money that non-skaters are putting into skateboarding you wouldn’t have thousands of public parks (yes, I know the majority of them were built wrong, but it’s better than nothing), and you wouldn’t have skate companies like Sole Technologies doing this kind of research that helps make you a better shoe so that you get less sprained ankles or bruised heels.

And Sublimited is skateboarding and nothing else because that’s what we know. Sure, we snowboard a bit, but we don’t know that industry like we know skateboarding. All of us at Sublimited have been in the skateboarding world for 15-20 years, and it’s what we eat and drink every day. We’re all addicts. Snowboarding is fun, BMX is fun, wake is fun, but it’s not what we’re passionate about.

One last reason for doing just skate is because when you run a business you’ve got to have focus. If you’re a skater would you rather buy your stuff at a shop that is exclusively skateboarding or would you just as soon go to a bike shop that has a few boards? Would you just as soon go to a shop that is a youth fashion store in the mall but has a few decks hanging on the walls and is managed by some guy with spiked hair and a nose ring but who has never skated? When you come into a Sublimited shop it will be nothing but skateboard stuff, and you’ll only find skaters working there. Well, maybe some girls who don’t skate, but that’s it.