bluehouse skis - $250

**lemon boy** · 08-09-2007, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by altasnowbirdripper

How the hell can anyone go wrong for $250!!! What else can you buy new at that price?? There is an awful lot of shit talk from jongs who should really just SACK UP & throw down the $250 & see for your selves how they will ski. Worst case scenario, you don’t like them after a few days of skiing, they’d probably still be in good shape & you could easily sell them & get your meager $250 back out of them. For $250, I plan on keeping mine & skiing them A LOT. I’ll most likely buy 2 pairs as well.

Jesus Christ you're a dumbass.

**The Dad** · 08-09-2007, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by lemon boy

Jesus Christ you're a dumbass.

Hey -- don't say that about Our Savior, buttmunch!

(Okay, not my savior.)

But ASBR, that's still real money on an untested ski. Initial reports are good, but after the snow year we had in the west (other than the PNW), good deals continue to abound. A few weeks ago, you could pick up a pair of 8800s for $199 shipped, and you can still buy STLs for the same price.

Don't get me wrong -- if I didn't already have a quiver pressing double digits (including two pairs each of 188 Bros and 186 Big Stix 84s), I'd think seriously about this deal. But money is still money.

**Bluehouse** · 08-11-2007, 03:56 PM

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**BumbleBee** · 08-12-2007, 11:40 PM

I've just found this site, following links re: he BlueHouse skis. So, here I am at nearly 300 lbs loaded, sliding through the trees ... are these Blue House skis going to hold when I run across some ice made from tree drippings and I need the edge NOW. Or will I end up in the great Blue House in the sky????

Will they hold up, for me?

I find it hard to believe that the skis are of a quality that one finds from Rossignol, or other well established companies that create skis with exacting performance standards developed across years of experience. Instead, I'm inclined to think that BlueHouse skis while they may be made of popular materials, they're NOT made for performance desired by those who require it; sure they've got VAS, quality components, but are they just like a Cro-Moly Schwinn vs. a Fezzari? (bikes, see www.fezzari.com). Putting disc brakes on a '58 corvette doesn't make it any better at the racetrack ...

Let's give a pair to Two Buddha (biggest skier I can think of!), and see if he finds them very soft and, well, damned dangerous.

As for delamination; I've delaminated all my skis, the last being Rossignol GS-7s (purple ones) before I switched to capped tips (7XK, and on) way back in the early 90's. I've not delaminated a ski since; though I did pop some foam skis into a cloud of pulverized dust.

I'm still on the fence on this sale. I always buy my skis blem'd or two years' ago model for $200 reg. $950 at a ski swap.

Oh, and before I forget, us fat boys need longer skis to keep us on top, else we'll find ourselves automatically splinted! (try and picture it) 195's ought to be available.

As it was, I skied on 207 / 208 class skis for many years, and though I'm now on 194 skis for knee preservation, I miss the things I could once do that no-one else I've seen ever duplicate, and I cannot on the short ones however hard I try. For instance, using the skis to fire off a self-sustaining back and forth (asynchronously!) pattern that required only restraint lest they accelerate their motion into a blur!

Squatch · 08-12-2007, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by BumbleBee

quality that one finds from Rossignol, or other well established companies that create skis with exacting performance standards

HA!

I didn't read the rest.

**P_McPoser** · 08-13-2007, 12:11 AM

You're going to wreck any ski you try you fat piece of shit.

Originally Posted by BumbleBee

I've just found this site, following links re: he BlueHouse skis. So, here I am at nearly 300 lbs loaded, sliding through the trees ... are these Blue House skis going to hold when I run across some ice made from tree drippings and I need the edge NOW. Or will I end up in the great Blue House in the sky????

Will they hold up, for me?

I find it hard to believe that the skis are of a quality that one finds from Rossignol, or other well established companies that create skis with exacting performance standards developed across years of experience. Instead, I'm inclined to think that BlueHouse skis while they may be made of popular materials, they're NOT made for performance desired by those who require it; sure they've got VAS, quality components, but are they just like a Cro-Moly Schwinn vs. a Fezzari? (bikes, see www.fezzari.com). Putting disc brakes on a '58 corvette doesn't make it any better at the racetrack ...

Let's give a pair to Two Buddha (biggest skier I can think of!), and see if he finds them very soft and, well, damned dangerous.

As for delamination; I've delaminated all my skis, the last being Rossignol GS-7s (purple ones) before I switched to capped tips (7XK, and on) way back in the early 90's. I've not delaminated a ski since; though I did pop some foam skis into a cloud of pulverized dust.

I'm still on the fence on this sale. I always buy my skis blem'd or two years' ago model for $200 reg. $950 at a ski swap.

Oh, and before I forget, us fat boys need longer skis to keep us on top, else we'll find ourselves automatically splinted! (try and picture it) 195's ought to be available.

As it was, I skied on 207 / 208 class skis for many years, and though I'm now on 194 skis for knee preservation, I miss the things I could once do that no-one else I've seen ever duplicate, and I cannot on the short ones however hard I try. For instance, using the skis to fire off a self-sustaining back and forth (asynchronously!) pattern that required only restraint lest they accelerate their motion into a blur!

**gonehuckin** · 08-13-2007, 12:25 AM

fuck you poser. us fat guys need skis too.

other than that, BB's post might be the dumbest thing I've read here yet.

**P_McPoser** · 08-13-2007, 12:30 AM

That's really where my hatred is directed, not necessarily at his weight.

**The Dad** · 08-13-2007, 07:32 AM

Not a model first post.

The upshot is that no one knows for sure how these are going to perform, for a 150 pounder, a 300 pounder, or a 450 pounder, much less what will happen when you "run across some ice made from tree drippings." You're taking a leap of faith. But on the positive side, you've got a company that's looking to make it, and is likely to take you and your issues more seriously than a megalith.

**StroupSkier** · 08-13-2007, 07:43 AM

I signed up, but I can't seem to use the account page once I am logged in. Every page gives me an 404 error.

**lax** · 08-13-2007, 08:06 AM

Originally Posted by StroupSkier

I signed up, but I can't seem to use the account page once I am logged in. Every page gives me an 404 error.

^

B==========D

**Bluehouse** · 08-13-2007, 08:23 AM

Originally Posted by StroupSkier

I signed up, but I can't seem to use the account page once I am logged in. Every page gives me an 404 error.

We're getting that fixed right now. There are just some broken links on the site. Its doesn't affect the actual preregistration process but it is pretty annoying so we apologize.

EDIT: They should be working now. Let me know if they are giving you trouble.

**Tri-Ungulate** · 08-13-2007, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by BumbleBee

Let's give a pair to Two Buddha (biggest skier I can think of!), and see if he finds them very soft and, well, damned dangerous.

Two Buddha skis on K2s, doesn't he? Very soft skis for a very fat, very angry dude.

**buckethead** · 08-13-2007, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by Bluehouse

EDIT: They should be working now. Let me know if they are giving you trouble.

it worked for me this am.

**lax** · 08-13-2007, 11:36 AM

worked for me today. whats this "secret time" madness?

**Bluehouse** · 08-13-2007, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by lax

whats this "secret time" madness?

It looks like we may sell out sooner than we thought (hours vs days) we still aren't sure but we wanted the people that have been following the different threads and our website to have a heads up on the sale before anyone else. We will email everyone that has pre-registered not only the exact time of the sale but our best guess on how fast they will sell out.

**Yossarian** · 08-13-2007, 02:14 PM

I was thinking about this at some point in the past few weeks.

I think maybe there is an economic "market" solution to your discount/overload conundrum. Of course, market solutions don't always have the intended consequences, but that's always the result of not understanding, accounting for, or having visibility into all of the system inputs.

For background/interest, read up on airwave/telecom spectrum auctions, emissions cap-and-trade ideas, and mostly recently, the London vs. NYC congestion pricing conversation.

Anyway, here's your/a problem, as I see it:

You want to do a special sale/hook up, to hard launch a new product and build goodwill and brand representation with a core customer segment. The problem/risk is handling the load/interest that your own PR has generated, and you're worried about front-loading the sale and crashing/failing to deliver, thereby having the opposite effect as intended.

Solution: make like an economist, and let the market reveal itself through pricing sensitivity. Take a cue from SAC , who have translated their understanding of their customers buying habits into a practicable policy.

Here's one idea, not completely thought out yet:

Instead of offering a special, one price/one time sale, offer a still-low, but price variable sale. Release in batches at lowering prices, or if you want go all the way, price each successive ski sold of the special release at $0.50 less than the prior pair. Add in a limited time offer, and you will get smoother ordering spacing than if you have a single price and a single time (leading to a run on the orders).

Example: At 8am on Sept 1, the sale begins. The price per pair is $375. The second pair sold costs $374.50. The third pair sold costs $374.00. Once you've sold 500, a final 501st pair will cost $375 - 500/2 = $125. The average cost per pair if you sell out is $250, just as you want. However, despite the same average cost, this sale has some better dynamics, I imagine (but can't guarantee, because, hey, maybe I'm missing some factors here).

1) $250-$375 is still ridiculously low for such sweet boards. Early adopters and people less sensitive to cost will be willing to pay regardless. They will buy while the price is still high in the sale. You will have gotten their orders "out of the way," at this point.
2) Many other people will want to "game" this sale, and will wait as long as they can. HOWEVER, your ace in the hole is that this will be a LIMITED time offer. You constrain the time window for ordering to be only 10 (or some smallish number) of hours. Each price-sensitive customer will want to wait as long as possible until they place their order, however, if nobody buys, the price never goes down, and if everyone waits, the rush comes at the end instead of the start. It doesn't sound any different, but it is.
3) First, you'll have had the change to pull some orders out before the build up to the peak (see point 1).
4) Second, you'll mitigate your own risk by selling at higher prices first and lower prices second. If for ANY reason, order processing failure OR lack of interest, you fail to sell out the 500 pairs, you'll have maintained some level of cost mitigation to have done the production run.
5) And third, the buyers who wait too long and get stiffed will have only their own greed to blame for not simply anteing up and buying for a bit more three hours earlier. This is actually a key behavioral point - you're giving the buyer the choice - and therefore the ownership of and responsibility for - their own price and happiness. It changes the focus to the buyer, and away from the seller. Good for both of you - the buyers get what they want, and pay only what they are willing to pay.
6) By offering a variable price sale, you'll get a better read on the level of interest, because you'll get better data on pricing and price elasticity to your product. If you offer a single price, you'll get a lot less information. Selling is about understanding your market and your customer - there's no reason you can't learn from this at the same time that you a) hook everyone up, and b) achieve your PR goals. Make sure you capture the time/frequency of each order, and you'll have some really interesting price/time/interest data to work with. 500 points is a nice sample set.

Finally, if the sale isn't a success, that is, if only 100 pairs sell, you do it again at a different price point. If you want to be really careful, announce in advance the prospect of additional auctions until all 500 pair are sold, and announce that the starting price will go UP $100 for each additional round required. Space the rounds out enough (once a month?) so that the prior round will have received their BADASS product before the next round begins. This will pretty much guarantee that you will either get your orders placed in the earliest/earlier rounds (behavioral modification effect), and if you don't sell out in a round, that you'll have generated additional interest to get people to buy at a slightly higher price in the successive rounds (risk mitigation effect).

Hell, if you want to have some real fun, do that once a month until you hit full retail price, and watch the lemmings - I mean, customers - act and react.

Of course, I could be missing some behavioral factor that would make this a total distaster, but you get the basic idea. Experimenting on real people is FUN!

**wi3dzmin** · 08-13-2007, 02:28 PM

^ <shrug>. Or you can also just say "Act fast cause once they are gone you are SOL".

**Yossarian** · 08-13-2007, 02:34 PM

C'mon, who doesn't like social experimentation with positive side effects?
Massive inside hookup on potentially sweet skis, still there.
Average price, still $250.
Order frequency, smoother.
Data collection and customer ordering profiling, richer.
Cost mitigation, better.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something terrible about this idea, but I don't know what it is right now. You don't even have to make it fancy from the back end. Just track and report the number of orders placed or stock available at any time, and everyone can figure out what the price is at that time. Think of it as advanced SAC tactics.

**gonehuckin** · 08-13-2007, 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by Yossarian

I'm sure I'm forgetting something terrible about this idea, but I don't know what it is right now. .

maybe that noone will buy at the top price point causing a stall. or maybe that the software to have such an ordering system would be expensive, or possibly that multiple people will be tryingto buy at one price to find out that they don't know the price of the item they purchased.

**Yossarian** · 08-13-2007, 02:46 PM

So, narrow the band. There's obviously interest around the $250 mark. Let's assume there's equal or higher interest at $250 and below. The question is, how much above the $250 mark? Answer, probably some. So, if you're worried about not getting started, Make it $.25 down per pair, and start at $325.

The DB shouldn't be much different than what you'd do anyway, I don't think. Price = Start Price - (Pairs Sold)*(Price Reduce Per Pair). There's only one variable there at the time of the sale: the Number Sold. That's pretty easy to report back and track. How many sold tells you about what your price would be. So what. Tell the customer that their final price is calculated when the order actually goes through, and report an estimate of confirmed orders at any time. Warn them that there will be some error due to lag. Multiple orders at the same time = error of $10 maybe? $20? At .25 per pair, that's 80 pairs to get a $20 surprise. Let them preregister and enter CC info, so that all they have to do is click "BUY" once they've logged in. That'll reduce the lag and subsequent price difference.

**mwthomsen** · 08-13-2007, 02:52 PM

On paper I am sure Yossarian theory works very well especially with a product that already has been proven and is very desireable. In this interest the desire is two fold and the first in cost. The second an attempt to be first to ride a new ski made by a small group of skiers. The second is only of interest if the price is very appealing. I am going to buy a new pair of boards this year and it might very well be a pair of Districts, however at $375 I would probably just buck up and place an order for Bro's.

**The Dad** · 08-13-2007, 02:52 PM

Or run it as a massive Dutch auction to maximize information gathering about market price.

**Yossarian** · 08-13-2007, 02:56 PM

goooooogling dutch auction now.

in the meantime, mwthomson, how about $350? $325? $300? $275?
In this sale, you don't have to buy at $375, at least long as you're pretty sure someone else will.

And like I said, they can start it at $325 if they want (or wherever). That's still a KILLER price for a Gotama-sized/shaped/styled competitor (DISTRICTS).
If I didn't have like 9 pairs of skis scattered around, I'd buy at $325 in a heartbeat. As it is, I am trying to rationalize a purchase - maybe I can get my brother to buy some.

EDIT: thanks LAX!

(below)

**lax** · 08-13-2007, 02:58 PM

^ i d/led it

public void awesomeBuyerSoftware(){

int numPairs = 500;
string [] buyerName = new String[499];
double price = 325;

if (skis = bought){
for (int i = 0; i=500; i++){
buyerName[i] = nameOfCurrentBuyer;
numPairs--;
price = price - i*.25;

}
}

}

}

sorry i was bored. and fed off yoss' nerdiness.

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