Jones Snowboards strategy: Keep it simple

Jeremy Jones formed and launched Jones Snowboards in partnership with Nidecker in 2009. Since the company’s launch, it has grown to about 400 retail doors worldwide.

I talked with Global Brand Director Chad Perrin to ask him some questions about what’s new at Jones, how they are working with key retailers and where he thinks snow manufacturers need to focus their efforts.

Where is Jones Snowboards headquartered? How many employees do you have? 

Jeremy Jones on top of Space Needle. Photo by Figenshau.

The company has locations in Truckee, California; Bellingham, Washington; and Geneva, Switzerland. Jones has two full time employees – Jeremy and myself.

How much have you grown since you started? 

In terms of doors, we have grown triple digits each year, and easily doubled our units every year.

How did the company fare last year at retail, given that it was one of the worst snow seasons in history?

Everybody struggled. For some reason we still had solid sell-through even when there was no snow and that was a blessing for us. We got really lucky. We are still doing well, but we know it might not always be the land of milk and honey.

Last year it was especially hard to see friends lose their businesses. The upside now is that retail is back on the positive and we seem to be moving right along.

When Shop-Eat-Surf last interviewed Jeremy, Jones Snowboards was introducing women’s boards, backpacks and a series of carbon boards. How have they all been received?

Jones Global Brand Director Chad Perrin

The women’s line was received very well, and a lot of accounts have been sold out of women’s boards. We are expanding more into our women’s offering by adding more sizes of boards and a new women’s model for 2013-2014, which we are very excited about. It’s called the Hovercraft and it is an extension of our men’s version, which is a directional all-purpose board meant to handle all terrain. It’s a surf inspired shape.

The hot items have been the new Carbon Flagship, which is a performance board made for the best freeriders on the mountain. The Solution, which is the split version of The Flagship, has also been hot. Our new packs are also doing well. They have a good material story because we are using the same nylon materials that the America’s Cup sailing team uses on their sails. They are the first split board packs out there as well, and the packs are all chalked-full of features from tool pockets to insulated hydration sleeves and more.

See Page 2 for Jones special program for key customers

Who are your biggest dealers?

Obviously REI is a big customer of ours, but we also cater to a ton of local core shops like Snowboard Connection in Seattle, Salty Peaks in Salt Lake City, World Boards in Montana, US Outdoor in Portland, Jackson Treehouse in Jackson, the Boardroom in Boise and Wave Rave in Mammoth. We sell all over the world to every major market in all the best core pro shops.

We also sell internationally to every major country where you can ride. Our international business is all done though distributors.

What are EPICenters and who gets to have one? 

Jones 30L backpack. Photo by Carl Buchanan.

EPICenters are environments where we can showcase the entire Jones lineup as well as educate consumers about big mountain riding. We handpicked local accounts of ours who we feel have the most history, understand our products, and are passion players in snowboarding. They are the local freeride shops that have a lot of local knowledge and connection to their community and possess a technical knowledge of backcountry equipment.

They sell snowboarding equipment year-round and know how to properly outfit people with the right gear. These stores not only give an amazing customer experience, but an amazing Jones experience.

This year was the soft launch of the EPICenter program, and we did a lot more specific visual merchandising with these stores. We also picked an ambassador in each shop – a shop-kid that rides Jones products.

Having EPICenters gives us a “pointer,” so if someone needs a board of ours, we can just send them to that shop and know they can get a complete kit and be treated really well. We do our best to style out the shop as best as possible. The concept is simple, but we plan to grow the program each year.

Can you share some of your strategies that have allowed the brand to be successful at retail?

K.I.S.S – Keeping It Simply Simple. We have kept our brand simple in approach and in category spread. We know we aren’t a board for everyone. We understand who we are and aren’t afraid to just tell our story.

Jeremy Jones at SIA in 2012. Photo by Shop-eat-surf.

Our success stems from the fact Jeremy spent his entire career freeriding and there’s an entire experience that goes with that, and that’s all we focus on. The freeride customer was ignored forever and we are focusing our marketing mostly on people who want to freeride.

One thing we have learned is that you can’t be everything to everyone, and to focus only on what you are good at.

Going along with that, building loyalty through relationships with our consumers, retailers, reps and distributors has been a key factor to our success.

Jeremy is very good at connecting on the human level and our fans love that.

Any opinions on the snowboard hardgoods industry overall? What’s working? What’s not? What can manufactures and retailers do to improve snowboard sales?

Good brand stories seem to be working. I think the rider-owned brands are really taking off. There is definitely a shift towards supporting smaller brands overall. I look at the performance of these brands at retail, and they are providing faster sell-through, better margins and honestly a better consumer experience at the end of the day.

What retailers can do is to stay engaged on the brands that matter. It is the smaller brands that are willing to be flexible and help the retailer in succeeding at selling the brand’s products.

I think manufacturers can ensure their distribution is more balanced, and cater to the mom and pop shops as well as to the bigger outlets. They need to not tie up business with the account that buys the most.

A lot of companies could raise the bar by focusing back on the small retailers and keeping their products quality and prices premium rather than discounting everything. Everyone wins that way. As an industry overall, we are recovering, but we need a healthy winter.