Buy Your Gear Now: Alpine Stimulus Package

Raise your hand if your are nervously looking at your bank account these days? OK, not just me? Sweet. Yeah, this brutal pounding of the economy has even got world class blargers like me running scared for what may be hunkering down and deciding "do I really need that fourth pair of Burton AK pants?" Obviously that was a joke and in moderate bad taste. The reality is though while the economy has gone shooting down so has a chunk of the snowsports industry and if that isn't strange enough ... this is a good thing for you the consumer.

The rich kid pursuit of snowboarding continues to be as expensive as it always was: gear, lift tickets, and 411.50 bowls of reheated chili are always going to be exceeding the reasonable margins of your personal economic threshold. More than once I've looked at a piece of gear wondering "If I purchase this ... Yes, I will need a bailout." That's where companies like Brociety have come into play and are providing the shred community with deals galore on all things snowboarding. It's just absolutely nothing I care to buy with maybe only a handful of snowboarding days left. So who is goign to benefit the most?

Local shops, that's who but they need to have their heads focused on the right objective: close the loop. I could better describe this as "make it easy for the customer". Chris from Alpine here in VA hit me up with how he's serving the right customer at the right time. Apparently, he had his shop bombarded with package deals he set up through Northwave &Drake. With board boot and binding packages on this front ranging from $399 to $459 it's an interesting strategy to go after one of the biggest customer groups of his local audience: the entry to mid level rider.

Lest we forget this is Virginia as displayed by my own riding skills ... nobody is going to the X Games soon but we do need gear that works. If the option comes down to a $900 K2 or Burton set up or a $450 Northwave/drake set up .... in these harsh economic times where are you going to go? Alpine has provided a solid package that blends function and style vs. the popular name brand. I expect we'll be seeing more of this. Now if only resorts would get back to the $30 lift ticket I'd be happy.

For more info on the Alpine end of season package check out AlpineDrops.com or call 703.444.7845 and ask for Chris or Tyler.

Does your shop have a recession beater package? Let me know so we can call out your local efforts to keep riders on the hill.

Support your local skate and snowboard shops!