New Surfboard company. Survey, please help :)

[WoolleyShaping]

Hey everyone. My business partner and I are in the process of forming a surfboard shaping company. If you could please contribute by answering a couple, if not all of the questions, it would be really appreciated. This will help with our market research and help to ensure that we provide surfers with great gear that will continue to keep people stoked on the culture and sport of surfing.

1.Age:

2.Gender: M F

3.State or territory (if outside Australia just state country):

4.Three favourite surfing locations, including type of break:

5.How many boards do you own?

6.How often, on average, do you purchase a new surfboard?

7.By which method do you usually purchase your surfboards?

8.What is the most important aspect for you when purchasing a surfboard?

9.Are you most likely to purchase your surfboards from a brand that you have already used, or do you prefer to have a range of boards made by different shapers/companies?

12.Type of materials you prefer your boards to be made from eg, epoxy, wood, standard polyurethane with fiber glass?

13.Style of board you prefer to ride?

14.What is most important to you about the custom shaping process?

15.How much are you prepared to spend on a surfboard bought off the rack? (Based on previously purchased boards, or boards that you have been planning to purchase)

16.How much are you prepared to spend on a custom shaped board?

Comments?

Thanks alot for all contributions whether you were able to fill in the whole survey or even just a small part of it. It all helps and we appreciate it very much.

[AussieSurfeur]

Hey,

I'm too in the process of forming a surfboard shaping company! I already made the market study, maybe we can develop a big company together ?

[AussieSurfeur]

1.Age: 21

2.Gender: M

3.State or territory (if outside Australia just state country): NSW

5.How many boards do you own? 3

8.What is the most important aspect for you when purchasing a surfboard? (Tick top three) Quality, design, price

9.Are you most likely to purchase your surfboards from a brand that you have already used, or do you prefer to have a range of boards made by different shapers/companies? surfboards from a brand that i have already used

12.Type of materials you prefer your boards to be made from eg, epoxy, wood, foam? epoxy

14.What is most important to you about the custom shaping process? the shape and stratification

16.How much are you prepared to spend on a custom shaped board? approximately 700$ for a shortboard

I'm sorry i haven't time for all questions.

Good luck

Cheers,

David

Green Times

[WoolleyShaping]

Hey david. Thanks heaps for your responses. Definately appreciated.

[DaneAU]

1.Age: 24

2.Gender: M

3.State or territory (if outside Australia just state country): NSW

5.How many boards do you own? 2

8.What is the most important aspect for you when purchasing a surfboard? (Tick top three) Quality and price, design is important - i tend to go for no colours etc... oh and decent price - not too expensive

9.Are you most likely to purchase your surfboards from a brand that you have already used, or do you prefer to have a range of boards made by different shapers/companies? usually i do get Warner boards, however they have gone up soo much in price i think i would consider a custom. Not really sure though as my style has changed over the last few years, sorta experimenting with older style boards... ie twin fins etc...

12.Type of materials you prefer your boards to be made from eg, epoxy, wood, foam? epoxy ~ not really sure - definitely not wood.

14.What is most important to you about the custom shaping process? Getting what you asked for, i am rather heavy, so getting the floatation right and ails nice and thin is what i consider most important.

16.How much are you prepared to spend on a custom shaped board? no more than 550 - anything more and i would end up buying something i see and like rather than bothering with custom shapes.


Hope that helped

[WoolleyShaping]

From the answers I am getting it seems that what I had in mind was correct. A good balance between price and quality of a board. Thanks heaps.

[DaneAU]

You're welcome - hopefully some more people get involved to help you out

[WoolleyShaping]

I would love that. Been a pretty slow start, got a friend to fill one in and she will pass it on to some people. I guess alot of the information is pretty predictable in the way of how much people want to spend and everyone's surfing style is different. What I really want to know is how much people spend on surfing in australia, specifically adelaide to know how big the market would be. Ah well.

Starting a 6'8" mini mal, 22.5" wide, swallow tail, quad fin this week, should hopefully be interesting, trying to aim it to look like a nice fish but still be ample bouyancy and stability for a learner on relatively low powered waves. What you think? Any thing you would like to see made let me know, always good to try and experiment.

[DaneAU]

I am sure the beuro of statistics may have some information on that ? Perhaps even some retail groups or research organisations ?

[WoolleyShaping]

Yeah planning to have a search. Not really in too much of a hurry, we are just trying to hone our skills and stuff before we really get too far into it. Figure if we can make a few lower end boards and get some profit to buy more stuff to make more boards then we will just go from there. So in terms of market research it does not matter too much since it will be more on a build by demand rather than spending a tonne and making a bunch of products and having no one to sell them too.