Slash By GiGi Snowboards Preview 24/25

Retail Buyers Guide: Snowboards FW24/25 Retail Buyer’s Guide
Brand: Slash snowboards
Interviewee: Harry Mitchell Thompson - Marketing

How would you describe the current state of the snowboard market? What big developments, changes, challenges, and/or opportunities are you seeing and how is your brand navigating them?
As a small brand, we’re able to be nimble and for the 24/25 season we move into the 2nd season of our new strategy. Over Covid we heard lots of retailers asking for carry-over. It’s not in our DNA to be a pure carry-over brand. Gigi’s worked with and collaborated with too many artists, designers and brands over the years to move away from exciting new visual stories.

So the apARTment collection we dropped to retailers in autumn 2023 is being carried over to 24/25. But you’ll notice we keep seasonal numbering off our collections. This is to help retailers move away from the notion of something being old.

You’ll remember that in the 22/23 winter season we launched TopART. A DYI sticker set that allows consumers to update an old, loved board with a fresh and unique graphic. To be used for a cherished snowboard that they aren’t ready to send to the snowboard graveyard yet. We launched this purely on slashsnow.com, and have since worked on collaborations with artists, friends of the brand and retailers. TopART graphics to date include works from esteemed snowboard photographer Blotto, Slash team rider Manuel Diaz, industry legend Lance Violette, Spanish artist Marcel Llovera & Japanese artist Junyers. We also worked on a TopART collab to celebrate Spanish shop Crazy Shop’s 25-year anniversary.

To accompany the launch of TopART in Spring 2023 we created a blank Happy Place snowboard. The Happy Place is our number one selling board, an accessible model with hybrid camber that gives great bang for buck. We stripped this model back graphically, to present a clean board with minimal detailing (white, with black rails and handy info for shop staff: stiffness rating, camber profile, camber type and symbols to signify contact points, axis point and set back inserts) to allow customers a blank platform to apply their TopART sticker too. When purchasing a roll of TopART combined with a Happy Place Blank (the board formerly know as the Happy Place TopART) the customer receives 60% off the TopART sticker.

New for next winter we’ve extended this Blank notion to now include the ATV, the Vertical and we welcome the Floater back to the fold after a few years hiatus.

Slash ATV BLANK and apARTment Collection at Shops 1st Try

The idea being that these BLANK DROP boards will live in retailers’ lines as true carry-over pieces moving forward, allowing us to inject newness into the line every other season with a graphically striking line, such as the apARTment collection, which was received so well.

For newness, you’ll also see design drops such as our Slash x Thumbs collab, which launches primarily on SashSnow.com in February 2024 as a hyper limited edition board & Union binding before hitting select retailers next winter.

Our plan here is to work – once again – with celebrated illustrator, and former snowboard shop employee Thumbs on a limited number of boards to create hype and demand around a snowboard before we release the board to the wholesale channel the following autumn. More info below.

Following overall price increase, any positive developments with regards to manufacturing, sourcing, or logistics and the changes you’ve made? Are there any examples you can share of how your business pivoted effectively? What developments are you seeing with regards to product pricing?

Covid stung us pretty hard with pricing increases, as I’m sure it did for everyone. And then the outbreak of the war in Ukraine too. We all know we’re only a Suez Canal closure or a global pandemic away from huge production issues. We produce as close to home as possible – Nobile, Poland & Meditec, Tunisia – not just to cut the carbon footprint, but so we can control things as best as possible in the same time zone.

Are e-commerce sales still strong since most brands have been put a lot of effort in physical retail?
Ecommerce is of course part of our setup, but we never want it to harm our retail business with what we do there. So we’ll never be on sale during pre-agreed times (before mid-February) and where possible, our customer service directs consumers to their local Slash stockist.

With Ecomm we face the same challenges; expensive shipping costs to non-EU countries such as the UK & Switzerland. But new for this winter if you’re a customer buying from SlashSnow.com in the USA or Canada, you purchase through our new SlashSnow.us site setup by our new distributor there. This has been a big deal for us, as previously for us to ship a board from our Austrian warehouse to Northern America would cost customers $140 per board, which obviously was quite prohibitive.

After last winter and the lack of snow in Europe, what’s your overall sales and production/inventory strategy for 24/25?
See carry-over mantra above.

What trends or developments are you seeing with regards to board construction, shapes, and general innovation? How is this shaping your 24/25 range?
We are a brand born out of freestyle, so all our boards – even our splitboards – are made to provide a solid freestyle base. Gigi’s been innovating backcountry freestyle since before Slash was even a glint in his eye. And there are industry shapes that are now bang on trend, that Gigi’s been producing for over a decade. Check out The Straight and hold that up against some of the most “Avant Garde” shapes of 2024… Gigi first made the Straight in 2013.

Anything new concerning sustainability and related product or construction you would like to highlight?
Unfortunately making snowboards with steel, rubber and resins just isn’t a clean business. We do our best to manufacture as close to home as possible, with suppliers and manufacturers we know are using best practices when selecting materials.

We also work on prolonging the use of our boards, working with local craftsmen like Happy Snag, we donate any old or broken boards for them to bring back to life as fun and playful snow surf tools. Our TopART stickers are also designed to help prolong the life of a board, perhaps if someone has become bored of a graphic, TopART puts a perfectly good snowboard back in the ring.

Any new design or pattern approaches in your 24/25 gear? Any collabs on the line?
More details on the Slash x Thumbs design drop. We previously worked with Thumbs in 2022 on the 686 x Slash x Looney Tunes board and it sold out within 24 hours. We applied to renew this official license the following winter with Warner Bros, but were told another sports brand had already secured it. But what this example showed us was the consumer appetite for Slash x Thumbs collaboration work, so we created a new camber edition of the Happy Place board for Thumbs’ graphic to live on and spoke with the guys at Union to make this killer board x binding combo.

And finally, we’re really stoked with the graphic on our kids board the Slash Splash. Friend of the brand Björn Hartweger filmed with the Pirate Crew and now runs a snowboard school in Kaprun. Björn created this amazing graphics for the kids board, and the twin shape means the rider can choose which colour character sits on the front.

Are you planning to focus on a special product range or type of customers? What’s your newest range?
We’re a small rider-owned, rider operated brand. Gigi’s mission is to make snowboarding as accessible as possible, which we do with the Spectrum and Happy Place both under 450 Euros. But, we truly believe people value small, independent, artisanal brands more than ever. So, we are ensuring our boards, made in Europe are received by retailers and consumers as true quality products. Engineered and designed by one of the best snowboarders of all time, Slash By Gigi not only makes quality products, we are out there supporting snowboarding. Gigi hosts countless kids shred days throughout the season, we hook up a really healthy crew of snowboarders – far more than any other brands our size do – and we are always stoked to talk to people at demos and events about snowboarding.

What is your top product marketing story for next season?
We’re getting into the groove of carry-over, so we’ll be stoked to see the apARTment collection live on another season. We think the BLANK DROP boards will make a loud statement at retail and we’ll be pushing big on the Slash x Thumbs design drop.

Best Sellers/Hero/Key products

The Vertical apARTment
Its 3D nose floats the Vertical through powder with ease and there are our Float Inserts to let you set back when it’s extra deep. A tapered tail eases powder steering and a fully cambered profile. Rally pistes and float when it’s extra deep.

Slash Vertical apARTment Collection

Slash x Thumbs Happy Place Camber Edition
The Slash By GiGi x Thumbs design drops on a limited number of Slash boards and Union Custom House bindings early in 2024.

Last time we worked with Thumbs, he brought our Looney Tunes x 686 collab design to life and it sold out within 24 hours, so we’ve got a good feeling on this.

Differing from our best selling hybrid camber Happy Place board, we present a cambered version for this collab.

Slash x Thumbs Design drop

Floater BLANK
After a three year hiatus we welcome the Floater back to the fold.

This fully directional, flat cambered freeride board boasts a lifted nose, tapered swallow tail and its larger width puts it in the volume shift category. Combine these elements and there is no doubt as to why we arrived at the name Floater.

Its low profile and singular sidecut make the Floater the board of choice for carving kings and off piste protagonists alike.

Welcome back, old friend.

Slash FLOATER BLANK