HELLO #92
Putting this issue together, two words have really resonated: fickle and hybrid. Fickle is a word we use a lot in boardsports; the weather, trading conditions, the consumer.
The weather can be an evil mistress - you’d have thought with the record snowfalls in the European Alps last winter that retailers would have been elated. But with no sunshine on weekends, many of our shops struggled to truly maximise their selling potential and astonishingly complained of too much snow. So how has the European boardsports industry kicked off its 2018 summer season? Surely with every weekend in May a public holiday in one part of Europe or another, we’d hear strong feedback in our Market Insight series after the multiple heat waves? But once again that word ‘fickle’ reared its troublesome head. Warm weather drew droves of people to the English coast on May Day weekend, but unseasonably warm weather combined with cold seawater drew a dense mist reducing visibility to squat – however, we
