Flying Wheels FW19/20 Cruiser Preview

Retail Buyers Guide: Cruisers 2019

Brand: Flying Wheels
Interviewee: Brecq Benoit, Marketing Manager

MARKET: How is the situation with overstock and no-name competitors on the European market right now?
Situation is tense, lots of brands have big stock and there are more and more no-name competitors, but we keep our focus on quality product and help the retailers by offering the best quality product adapted to the demand!

What are your main price points for next season?
All our Street Series cruiser range is between 109 to 139€ public price. Our Chilling Series with Inverted King Pin are between 139 to 169€ and for our Surfing, Carving Series we are starting at 149€.

How can retailers generate growth and customer interest in cruisers?
Cruisers are pocketable boards; easy to stock for retailers and easy to ride for customers. Cruisers are really easy boards for customers and this tendency is now well installed to the mind of customers. Regarding retailers, the price, and the margin of cruisers are correct, so they can generate a good turnover in shops. The Surfing Series is growing in the market now, especially with special trucks to surf the street!

MARKETING: What is your collection theme and which stories are you telling to get customers stoked on cruisers with a true boardsports flavour?
We are working closely with artists and photographers; they work to offer us a wide collection of designs. Tattoos, photo collages, flowers, retro and type are the main stories in our designs collections.

Are you noticing an increase in female riders? Are you targeting this segment specifically?
Female riders are increasing every year. We also support female riders including some of them in our team and we try to offer designs that they might like such as clean & pastel colourways.

How are you helping retailers sell your cruisers and educate customers (POS displays, etc.)?
We develop a complete catalogue with all the specs to help the retailers and the customers to understand the differences between all our models. In this catalog, there is, for all models, a classification depending on the cruiser utility (street, carve, etc.). In shops, we also use dedicated displays to present the best possible our range to the public.

DESIGN: We are seeing a trend towards shorter longboards and cruisers with longboard constructions (drop-cruisers). Is that a trend you are serving?
At Flying Wheels we always offer a small longboard range. Since our beginning, the street range is in our global range. For sure this last season this range and our Chilling Series have taken more & more space in our catalogue. With more designs every season.

What are the most important shapes for 2018? Are shapes getting wider?
For 2018 our surfing shapes are the most important shapes in our range. We focus on this shape because more & more people are looking for easy to ride boards with a carving & surfing sensation.

Which technical features are you the most proud of?
For several years we have focused on surfing trucks. We started with our capitol truck on our retro series and we developed our cut back trucks for 2017. In 2018, we are working on a new technology on surfing trucks: the Lombard Truck Bas is our main technical features. We launch it this Christmas!

What are you doing with (eco) materials, colours and graphics?
Regarding eco, we are working closely with our factory to reduce the impact of our production. For example we work with our manufacturer to reduce the glue on our boards without impacting our quality. Our main focus is to produce quality products that will be durable in the time to reduce the waste!

Where are wheels and truck trends going?
For trucks IKP & Forged trucks are the trends for technical riders, but since last year the surfing trend allows for new trucks technologies to create new truck trends! In wheels it’s not as clear, it depends what people are looking for!

BEST SELLERS
In Street Series: the Fortune 29.25’’ – a tattoo style pocketable cruiser!

In Stewart Series: the HULL 28.25’’ – a beautiful collaboration with STEWART longboards in USA

In Lombard Series: The BELZA 31.5’’ – a surfing cruiser with a cool design!