! Swoard 2005-2006 Season !

[Neuffy]

Deadline: we set ourselves a deadline: October 1st will be the day when the website will say what shops are our partners, and also provide online order forms. You will be able to order your Swoard then

So.....[Oct 2, 2 AM North America]?

[nils]

Its still september here in europe

More seriously, Patrice is a bit late for finishing the ordering form on the webpage, he promised to finish it after the week end .
We will still be waiting for the shipping costs, but you will be able to send me the orders: I will process them, and as soon as shipping costs are known, I will send to all of you the Invoice with the shipping costs included so you can wire the money... US and Canada citizens will make a small economy when ordering with paypal, because the 4% paypal costs are less than the price of a money transfer...

Thnx for your patience

Nils

[nils]

See first post
If you have any questions regarding board choice, please use this topic !
Basic board choosing process is similar to the 3D, but the new chart is to be followed for the weight /flex.

N.

[Felix]

What about shops/democenters in Austria?

I would love to have a Democenter in Austria, wanna testride before buying and Switzerland is so far away. 20€ charge for one day testing would be no problem for me, if reduced from salesprice afterwards (just like normal).

Great job anyhow.

Felix

[nils]

We are looking for good partners in Austria, but haven't succeed yet. To be frank, we want to start working with shops slowly because we want to control everything like they sell the right board to the right rider etc... If you know a shop close to good slopes (ideally a glacier) that is alpine fan and willing to get interested, then we might get in contact with them. What we want first is secure the production / ordering / sales process before looking for more shops.

Sorry

Nils

[Felix]

Well the most dedicated alpine shops I know is, Blue-tomato (actually only on the internet - until 5 years ago they would let beginners start on alpine boards, sadly not anymore - but well you know everything about them anyhow - however they still sponsor lactat, a partly dedicated racing team) and in Summer there is the Dachstein Glacier, which is not great but enough for getting a feeling for a board.

Furthermore there is Hang-loose.at in Vienna, which has many alpine enthusiasts, for the moment they sell deluxe and burton (and on order as well most other hardbootbrands) and Hot as Well as F2 raceboards).

Sadly I don't know that much about the shops directly below the glaciers.
The best one should be Stubaigletscher, (as for the moment they have already 40km of open slopes, at a very decent level). The Stubaigletscher is always the first glacier to get good snow, normally from end of September. I know there is a shop that gives out race-department skis, so they might be interested in giving out really good snowboards too. On top of it there are allways loads of good raceboarders in the beginning of the autumn season. (now Stubai is the place to gather for raceboarders, not Kitzsteinhorn anymore, If you still haven't found any place in Austria in december, I could ask some good former alpine racers, i.e. Gittie Köck, as my sister is on a coaching sessino with them from 6.december till 14.december.

You could as well try to ask many alpine worldcup racers from Austria (except Sigie Grabner who is selling his own boards from Japan - they can't be to bad as he won the last two races - where was Philou?)

Well I wish you good luck, and remember that Austria is still one of the countries where about 1 of 30 people on the slopes rides a raceboard (at least in eastern Austria) and about 1 in 15 has a raceboard at home. (so for 9 softbooters you see 1 hardbooter - however only about every tenth raceboarder knows how to really drive a raceboard. Still I have no probs to find some good racers to enjoy my time with at any resort on the weekend - and many are interested in the Swoard, but wouldn't take up the hassle to go to Switzerland to test it there)

[schatten]

I would propose Soelden as an austrian base. Glaciers for testing, quite a lot of hardbooters and two shops (Sport Riml and Sport Glanzer) selling alpine equipment.

What about a german distributor to avoid the problems with VAT (maybe Virus).

[MennoB]

I second Sport Rimml in Soelden.
They already have Virus in their programme.
In addition to that, the shop personnel really know what they are talking about. At least the person who helped me...

[nils]

its not that simple: We want to continue to sell direct for obvious reasons:
each board sold in shop is not really profitable ( we're not talking getting rich, but earning more than cost of production). Blue tomato is totally excluded for the simple reason that they will not guarantee: price level to remain the same, and not to sell outside of certain areas. Not everyone knows this, but huge shops like blue tomato make it very hard for local shops: they go to F2 and buy directly from the factory hundreds of boards much cheaper than what the shops get. And then they sell at very low margins, making it impossible for shops to sell their gear. We prefer to have small amount of dedicated partners, that are passionnated about their stuff, and want to spend time explaining people how to set things up etc.. When shops begin to get suspicious about a brand price policy, things get wrong, and passion dies...

About Soelden we thought about this, we'll think about it more carefully

Germany: we decided with Virus that it was better if we sell directly there, maybe we can think of a shop somewhere in Bayern thu.
Thnx!

N.

[panama-joe]

Hi Nils !

Great news to hear that the new Swoards are finally shipping and the order page is online - congratulations on another fantastic job to all three of you !!

Now I still have a few questions left:

- can you give a rough estimate of the shipping & handling fees
(Switzerland / Germany) ?
- is it also possible to pick up the boards directly at the factory ?
(my current workplace is not far from there...)
- how do you calculate VAT etc. if billing and shipping address are in
different countries: by the billing address (I hope) or by the shipping
address - or some weird combination of both )
- how has the problem of collecting the german VAT been solved ?

Thanks & regards, Jochen

[nils]

VAT problem has not been solved yet for germany sorry: it means you will "maybe" be able to pick it up directly at the factory, but only when problem is solved
Otherwise for all other countries, VAT is very simple: we ship excluding VAT and the shipping company collects it and gives it back to the governement of each country

Nils

[Neuffy]

Shipping is scary overseas...

That, and I'd love to be able to rent one, for, say 20-40 euros/day.

Although I will be realistic....probably not a market for it here (just not enough hardbooters...)

[MarkN]

Hey Neuffy, I just ordered a Swoard so there will be at least two Canadians with the EC board (Rob Crobar in BC has one already). Shipping from Europe is actually not too bad for boards, I got one last year from Austria via DHL. Arrived safe and sound. Could be just my one experience, but don't let the shipping stop you if you want a Swoard.

Keep carving!

[Dave]

Ordered

And now all I have to do is wait

See ya, Dave

[kelvin o]

NILS,

What happened with ordering direct from Virus? Are the boards being shipped from Virus to you then on to the customer or are you just handling the administrative issues then Virus will be shipping direct from the factory? If the latter, is there a possibility of dealing with Virus direct (in case we want to get some other stuff from Virus)?

Thanks,
Kelvin

Still waiting IMPATIENTLY ! like a little kid waiting for Christmas