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If you're a barefooter that's been in the sport
for a while, registered your email address with the ABC and found
yourself on Brian Heeney's spam database, or a footer using the ever
popular Facebook, and are friends with Keith St. Onge or David Small,
you most likely got word from KSO that he's decided to launch his own
barefoot suit line. But do you know anything beyond that?
Keith & David are asking you to pony up about $320 for a suit that
you've only seen an artist rendition of. Do you know anything
about where they're being made, how they're made, how long they'll last,
or how well they'll perform.
Keith does state
that he's a 2 x World Champion and that he has over 22 years experience
designing suits etc.. He goes as far as to claim his new
"untested" suit has "Performance on the water like no other suit".
Being that I'm not only the owner of
BarefootCentral.com, but also the owner of Eagle Sports, I feel I can
say I know a little bit about designing and manufacturing barefoot
suits, wetsuits, etc... The one thing that I know is that I'll
never claim my suits will out perform all others, especially before
being tested by the real testers, that being the customers that pay for
the suits. Plus, performance statements are too subjective and can
never really be proven. The #1 measurable test is warranty &
returns issues and what those cost you as company either making or
selling the suits.
I can tell you that we at Eagle Sports
are constantly looking for ways to improve our products, and are never
satisfied with the status quo. But making a good suit goes far
beyond drawing some lines on a paper mock-up and claiming it'll
outperform all others. It involves making sure you have the right
equipment, the right neoprene, the right thread, the right type of
padding, etc., etc, and most importantly the right seamstresses with the
experience to know how to adjust their machines to sew a suit that'll
wear properly, stand up to the beating, and allow the user to
out-perform his expectations of himself or herself. Having
employees that know where the extra back stitches, extra glue, and extra
nip and tucks need to go to assure each suit fits properly.
I've been barefooting for over 25
years and have skied with nearly every top footer on the planet. I
listen to advice from top footers clear down to beginners. What
they need is very different. I bought Eagle after building BFC up
to being Eagle's No. 1 retailer. What I bought was a company with
a great reputation for unparalleled quality, but one that had fallen
down on customer service. In the last 4 years, we've turned the
company's customer service issues around, re-established clients like
Ron Scarpa, and are now making strides in new markets and introducing
new products almost every quarter. We did it all by first
answering one simple question: Produce in the USA or go to China
like the rest? We knew staying in the US would cost us 4 times as
much, but were not willing to risk quality. We knew from
experience that if we turned our suits over to an outside vendor, we
would loose control of quality, increase turn times, have much larger
warranty issues & returns from our retail channels, and eliminate our
ability to offer custom made to order suits.
When you buy an Eagle Sports barefoot
suit, you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it is Made in
the USA. You know the warranty on the suits because it's
published on our website. You know that if you have an issue with
your suit, you can call your retailer and they'll put you in direct
contact with the factory located in Houston, Texas. You have
people on the other end of the phone that can give you the answers
you're seeking and know the questions to ask you. You know you're
buying a suit from a company that stands behind it's products. You
know you can get exactly what you're looking for, even if you want a
custom size and color.
So when Keith announced that overnight
he was becoming the best barefoot designer and manufacturer, it got my
attention as it did a lot of other people. But it also stirred up
a lot of unanswered questions. Questions such as:
1. Is Vortex making his new suit?
If so, why would Vortex be making a KSO brand instead of Vortex brand?
2. Does that mean Vortex is not going
to make barefoot suits anymore? Are they going out of business?
Is that why they're blowing out Vortex suits on their website?
3. Is Keith actually manufacturing his
suits, or is he just designing it on paper and having someone else do
the manufacturing for him?
4. Is Keith manufacturing the suits in
the US or abroad in China, India or some other country?
5. What's the warranty on the new suit
going to be like? Will it go through Keith or through the company
manufacturing the suits for Keith? Most companies that produce
private-label product will not warranty it under their normal
warranties.
All valid questions. And all
questions that are not answered in any email, Facebook Tag, or video
Keith and David have produced. We received over 50 emails at Eagle
and BFC asking us if Eagle was involved in the manufacturing of Keith's
new suits? So, we set out to do our own investigating. We started
off by sending Keith the following email:
To: Keith
St.Onge ; wbcbarefoot@gmail.com
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:46 PM
Keith:
We’ve had about 50 emails in the last couple days since you announced
your new suit asking what we know about them and if Eagle’s involved at
all.
I’ve checked out your videos and read through all the forum posts out
there. Your videos don’t say anything about where you’re producing your
suits or how your business is organized to support warehousing,
shipping, wholesaling vs retailing etc.. There are posts on forums that
claim you’re making your suits in the USA and other posts that state
you’re making them through Vortex’s vendors in China. So I understand
where all the confusion is coming from. I’m going to post an article
about your new suit and what we know about your process based on our
sources, and hopefully answer the questions that we’ve been asked. I
prefer to publish facts from the source/manufacturer himself in place of
assumptions or just a list of more questions? I hope you find it
beneficial to address this confusion as well. It’s always better to
address these things sooner than later.
Can provide me with answers to the following questions:
1. Are your new barefoot suits being manufactured in the United
States? If yes, by who? If NO, in what country are they being
manufactured?
2. Is Vortex Wetsuits, Fluid Distribution, Ten-80 or Scott
Hannigan himself going to continue to be involved in the manufacturing
process of your new suits in any way? If yes, please explain how that
relationship will work going forward?
3. What is the warranty, returns, and exchange policy on your new
suits?
These are all pretty straightforward questions about your business
structure and manufacturing process, and purposely not about suit
design, functionality, performance etc….
I hope you choose to answer these questions as straightforward as they
are presented. They’re questions you’ll be asked a lot and if addressed
now will help clear up a lot of confusion that seems to be out there
since your Facebook and email announcements.
Regards,
Chuck Gleason
BarefootCentral.com
From: Keith St.Onge [mailto:kso@ksobarefoot.com]
Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 2:22 PM
To: cg
Cc: World Barefoot Center; davesmall83@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: KSO Barefoot Suits
If anyone has any questions have them call the school and we will be
more than happy to answer any questions they may have.
Keith St.Onge
www.worldbarefootcenter.com
2x World Overall Champion
Trick World Record Holder
Slalom World Record Holder
We were disappointed that Keith feels
he needs to hide his production plans from us. Since we weren't
going to get any cooperation from the man himself, we set out to make
some calls to sources close to Keith to find out what they know.
You can't do much in this sport without either telling someone about it
or someone finding out about it, or someone spilling the beans over a
few too many beers.
Based on our sources, this is what
we've been able to gather. We aren't going to say we're 100%
correct on this, because things can always change, but our sources are
pretty reliable:
1. Keith plans to have a dive suit
company out of Ft. Lauderdale/North Miami manufacturer the suits for
him.
2. The dive suit company he's ordering
the suits from will most likely be manufacturing the suits in off-shore,
thus the reason for the long wait time to receive them. We
have no information on the number of suits coming in or how his sizing
will run. Based on artwork mock-ups, they will most likely be
sized similar to Vortex patterns.
3. As for warranty, we have no clue
how Keith plans to support warranty issues, repairs, returns, etc...,
but we're sure he'll figure something out. He's already offering
his suits through Lake Elmo, so he'll need to figure out some sort of
returns policy and procedure, even if that procedure is to just replace
suit failures with new suits.
4. As for Vortex, we sent an email to
Vortex owner Scott Hannigan asking him if he plans to stop making
barefoot suits. We did not get an answer. Most of our
sources have informed us that Mr Hannigan intends to get out of the
barefoot suit market all together. We plan to continue to try to
contact Hannigan to confirm this.
So before you set out to place your
order for a new 2010 Keith St. Onge or DSmall suit, we advise you to do
some of your own research. Don't buy anything if you don't know
where it's made and don't have a clear understanding of how the product
will be supported after the sale. Keith will find out very quickly
that it's not the lines on the paper that make a company successful or
not. There's about a thousand other things completely unrelated to
that.
Chuck Gleason
NOT the 2x World Champion or World Record
Holder, BUT
Owner of Eagle Sports, the Best Damn Barefoot Suits in the World!
www.EagleSports.com sold
on-line at
www.BarefootCentral.com
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