While a recession, a weakened economy, ongoing losses of projected revenue, and the threat of war remain, our industry continues to grapple to come to terms with it all.
What many people may not realize is that the most optimistic way to address these current issues is to embrace this "downtime," seeing it as a positive thing-as hard as that may seem.
In fact, this downtime should be regarded as a breathing period, in which companies can reevaluate what they're doing-in their manufacturing processes, in their products, in the development of their lines, and in their approach to marketing.
Marketing is the fundamental aspect of promoting and selling any product in every industry, and skateboarding's industry is a textbook example of this.
Marketing your product well is the trademark of any successful company, and it's more of a challenge in a market where advertising budgets continue to shrink and sales follow suit.
What's great is that this recession hit skateboarding much later than it did most other industries, and moreover, it hit skateboarding after a long period of accelerated growth. So, when our industry "hit the wall"-meaning when the recession caught up to it-it did so at a high point, not a low point, and consequently (sales, numbers, etc.) plateaued.
Let us not forget that fluctuations in economy, sales, and growth are normal, cyclical, and to be expected.
It's important to see that more companies are part of our industry today than ever before, and furthermore, our industry is richer now-both financially and culturally-than it's ever been.
We, as an industry, need to be positive and embrace the challenges of the current recession-its challenge can't be hurdled until it's confronted. And this can only be done by continuing to believe in what we do and offer credible product-the best product we can.
Many companies' main focus at the January 2003 ASR trade show in Long Beach, California seemed to be on taking someone else's market share in a market that "wasn't expanding" anymore. Well, markets are pretty elastic. If we place our emphasis solely on getting someone else's piece of the pie, whether or not that's going to enrich skateboarding in the long run is kind of debatable, isn't it?
Let's all take a step back and think about why we started skateboarding in the first place. -Saba Haider
