Board manufacturers' success over the years: the reasons?

yvanboniec · Joined: 08 Mar 2012 Posts: 55

I am trying to make an evaluation of competitors to understand why some win (e.g. Bic and Star boards stands out as having about 50 % of the market share and others lose). Is it due to differences in resources? company size? Innovation (if so which ones were criticall) ? manufacturing (computer-aided designs?)? What factors led one to be more successful than another? Is it one innovation in particular? Is it because of their distribution strategies? It would be interesting to know one or two recent manufacturers who failed in the windsurfing market and to understand why

braden · Joined: 12 Jun 1987 Posts: 57 Location: Providence RI

I don't think anyone knows the answer to your question, including the manufacturers themselves. Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer, if you are not one already. I do not know who uses computer designs or how big the company is (except that Bic is part of a big company), so those are not factors in my decision. I might buy a board because I liked the last board I bought from that company, or because a friend's board seemed impressive, or because of a good review, or because the retail salesman was enthusiastic. In other words, somebody thought the board was likely to do what it was supposed to do. This is more likely when the board actually does do what it is supposed to do.
Formula for success: start with a lot of money. Design a really good board, or preferably several. Promote the hell out of them. Hope for the best.

GURGLETROUSERS · Joined: 30 Dec 2009 Posts: 928

In Bics case I think a large part of their success is that they never lost sight of the 'core', non top-end of the market, by selling well performing shapes, and undercutting the others pricewise.

Their construction used to be flimsy (fell apart... weak plastic mast tracks, fin boxes etc) but they TOTALLY upped their game in the late 80's with 'proper' durable Ace Tec construction and the later derivatives.

I have rarely met a long standing windsurfer who doesn't have fond memories of one or other of their 'calssic' boards. (Electric Rocks, Technos, and several others.)

I still keep and sometimes use a Techno Medium 112, (retro posing!) tastefully decorated with my own version of a mermaid (she has a classy top half, but a long bushy tail sticking out of the bottom of her dress) and a squawking seagull. That board still brings as big a smile to my chops as the latest and greatest, when performing in its zone. (6 metre-force 4/5.. swelly sunny freeriding.)

Also, of course, Bic is a large plastics company with wind surfing just a branch, but I reckon they must still be making money out of it, and hopefully will survive.

isobars · Joined: 12 Dec 1999 Posts: 11471

It's like Coca-Cola: any competitor who cracks the formula shares the pie. Since I don't plan to compete with them, I just eat the pie after taste-testing it. A professional board Quality Control bud once asked me about the shape nuances and construction details of a board I was testing for a magazine. My answer: "Don't know, don't care, didn't ask or look. All I care about is how it sails and whether I can break it."

Maybe if you told us why you care, we might drum up some useful ideas for you.

Mike \m/

3-phase · Joined: 26 Jan 2007 Posts: 476

feuser · Joined: 29 Oct 2002 Posts: 1278

yvanboniec · Joined: 08 Mar 2012 Posts: 55

I used to have a techno board 283 cm. That was 15 years ago. Recently, i bought a Starboard. I believe the wood boards and fancy painting made me buy it I was looking for something a bit more fancy and edgy than a bic board, and Starboard just seemed to provide that. In my view, but it remains to be confirmed by other windsurfers, bic may need to rejuvenate the brand.

My understanding is that Bic provides the market with robust boards for newcomers to the sportswhile Starboard targets more experienced windsurfers.

cgoudie1

My opinion , there are 2 business models working today. 1st, boards that
ride well (like Starboard), in most of conditions, sell well no matter what they cost, due to the purchasing demographic (which is pretty old).

Second, boards which are marketed as durable and inexpensive (like BIC)sell to a younger demographic (though I would guess that BIC windsurfing
(which is probably down in the noise with regard to overall sales) is actually subsidized by the rest of BIC plastics, and not really a profit center in itself. It makes for pretty advertising though.

-Craig

Sailboarder · Joined: 10 Apr 2011 Posts: 167

Is BIC really similar in market size to Starboard? Maybe in France, but not here in Canada...

I guess however that Bic boards have much longer life than Starboard ones, due to their construction, so you see many on the water, but not in the shops.

To complement Craig view, I think there are 3 business models. Bic is probably the only one really involved in durable and inexpensive.

There is obviously a big market for boards that ride well. Image and marketing is probably the differenciator in that market.

But there is also a market for innovative stuff. Starboard markets itself as an innovator, but I wonder how true this is. In product development, success is usually not for the initiators of a great idea, but for the second company in the market, to implement the idea, benefitting from the errors of the first. I guess the true innovators are small companies, that are more or less copied by Starboard. AHD seems to be a real innovating company.

GURGLETROUSERS · Joined: 30 Dec 2009 Posts: 928

Bic may be bigger in Europe than in America.

Because their boards are cheaper, tougher, and a little heavier many assume they can only be of relevance to beginners and early intermediates, and must be of inferior performance. I would suggest this is not so.

Ease of use is built into the freeride range to cater for that market, but that doesn't automatically inhibit their performance. The current Techno 133 and 160 freerides are both fast and versatile in use, and both came out well in comparitive testing against more expensive boards of equivalent type. (Testers have to be careful of how they present their findings.) I can vouch for the 160 freeride. I bought one.

A friend in the trade stopped stocking Bics because he claimed they had taken their eye off the ball. With the state the industry is getting itself into I wonder if the opposite might be true? Time will tell!