Big skis companies vs small skis companies

If I was a pro I would probably want a big company sponsorship, travel budget shit like that. But since I'm buying my own gear I like to support smaller companies.
 
Smaller companies. Usually better quality and not many other people will have the same ski. Also usually more expensive.
 
Big companies - have a lot of money and a lot of brand presence because of their financial leverage. In the ski industry, bigger companies seem to be less involved with the sport.

Small companies - don't have as many resources and therefore are forced into using their limited resources more creatively. Small companies are much more in touch with skiing and its community and I think are an accurate reflection of skiing and what it embodies.

I ski 2-3 days a week, spend a considerable amount of time on NS, and involve myself mostly with other people who share the same passion for skiing.

Do you think the CEO of Under Armour, Salomon, Spyder, Rossignol etc can say the same? How involved do you think they are within our actual community? What do you think smaller companies like ON3P, Bloom, Icelantic, Yoke, etc have to say? I would argue that smaller companies generally spend more time involving themselves within the actual community and therefore are a better reflection of what we collectively care about and agree upon as skiers.
 
This. It all depends on what you need, personally I support smaller companies that make quality gear rather than the big ones, which isn't supposed to be a move against larger companies given one customer won't really make a difference (In a sense). But when considering what snowpants to get this year I was trying to decide between Nike and Bloom. I liked both prodcut equally, but I chose Bloom over Nike because I figured that Nike couldn't care less if a kid bought their gear for a sport that they probably only see as a way to generate a bigger profit (I don't know if that's true but I'm just assuming). And when I thought about it, would I rather give my money to a company whose maybe not all that passionate about the stuff they're making or one that has dedicated 100% of their time and effort into this specific product because they too are passionate about the sport that they're producing for? I thought it was pretty obvious.

 
it really is a depending on your ski style question, if you thrash skis, go for the big company's, to collect dat warranty, if our mellow and shred but don't thrash skis, them support your samller homies

that's my outlook
 
i like small companies because they always have skies with creative dimensions. Moment, ON3P, fatypus (rip), white dot. I also like to have skis that no one else has
 
A interest question... Is it really that way??? For my experience after a trying many companies i have a better answer with small ones with all the things that buying a ski involves! I personally support small brands! Buying some stuff from them!
 
Many big companies add a skiing line after making a fortune in other products. Think nike, Oakley, under armor, etc. So not necessarily.
 
I see what you are saying and you are right in some regards. But, I think big companies are also very actively involved in the community as well.

First, I don't think the CEO of any of these bigger companies is necessarily the one making all the decisions. The CEO of a bigger company isn't going to be making the decisions on events/competitions that they want to endorse/put on, or what athletes they want to sponsor.

Also, while the CEO of larger companies probably aren't be active on NS, it doesn't mean that several other people at the company aren't. Take K2 for example. I know there are several people who work at K2 on here all the time. Ryan Schmies, for example is very active in the community, and has addressed problems or concerns that I have had before. I think that the people who work at these larger companies are still, for the most part, very passionate about skiing and the community.

Same thing with onenerdykid, he is the Boot Production Manager at Atomic, and is very active on NS. He frequently helps those with questions. These are just the only examples I can think of off the top of my head.

I don't really have a preference one way or another, I have had "smaller" company skis like Bluehouse and 4Frnt (if you can even consider that a "smaller" company anymore), and have had bigger company skis like K2 and Rossignol.

I'll probably get roasted for this response but whatever. I just think that these larger companies might get unwarranted hate.
 
i've only ever ridden a few skis, although i love my liberty morphics for carving and skiing all around the mountain and the line travelling circus's are super fun to ride, i rode DPS in japan and they fucking killed it in the powder. I also think the smaller companies have more focus on the graphic than bigger companies like volkl and slalom skis because their graphics suck and companies like ON3P have sick graphics
 
Agree the big companies make skis with a graphic simple and mostly one color graphic or something similar
 
Pretty much every big company besides armada aren't big because they make better products, they were around before the freestyle era, companies like volkl and slalom were around before heaps of small companies like ON3P and had a greater share of the market place so they can advertise more and attract shops to purchase their gear to sell, compare this to J skis where you buy the skis direct from the company meaning people who aren't directly involved in the freeski community don't really know about the products and only see adverts for volkl etc on TV and buy them because they know about them.
 
Also they have mass production were they can offer a better price for local shops to sell and make a better margin than small companies
 
If you want a quality product you will simply have to put out more cash for it. Smaller companies can offer products at the same level and usually much higher than a bigger company can...the difference is that small companies offer a more personal experience. Not many outerwear companies will let you into their wear house to exchange product and chat with you like Virtika will. Just one example. Smaller is better. I'd much rather buy products from some stoned skier than a cooperate jackass looking for a bigger payday. /rant
 
Small companies make better skis in the sense that they generally have more bomber construction

small companies like praxis dont make a ski for everybody though, the big companies generally make better dad skis.
 
Both have there place. The big guys have the money to put into r and d which in turn leads to innovations. The smaller guys can then take these advances and fine tune them. So together products improve.
 
Head, Atomic, Völkl etc. wouldn't make skis if it weren't for racing. One of the few reasons they got involded in freeskiing is because, "Hey, this thing is starting to get bigger, lets make some extra skis to squeeze out some more cash". And because they're already big and most people know about them, where do you think everybody who weren't hardcore freeskiers and knew about smaller brands went?

The big companies.
 
That is just not true. Look at the brands that really started doing freestyle stuff. It was brands like salomon with the 1080 and rossi with the extremes and then scratches that really developed freestyle. Brands like Armada, 4Frnt and Faction could not have been without the bigger brands really developing the sport in the first place. It may sound strange to you guys, but there would be no ON3p or JSkis without the atomics and salomons of the ski world.
 
That was kind of my point. But same shit with rossi and salomon, unless they knew they could make money from it they propably wouldn't have mad those skis.
 
You always have to look at the passion a brand has, rather than it's size. You see both types of brands that lack passion, and also both types that exude it. A big brand like Atomic started out just like any small garage brand, making 50 pairs of skis in a year using only the finest materials available. That passion that went into our skis in 1955 is still there today, handmade with tons of love using the finest materials possible.

Like Tom said, one of the benefits of a big brand is our R&D and also purchasing power. Being Atomic, we custom make all of our ski components from the raw material, rather than buy them pre-made from a supplier, which is rare in the ski industry. This allows us to control every aspect of the ski to exactly our wants, rather than be a mercy of material supplier. And because we buy so much of it, we can pass that savings on to you. Look at the Infamous for example- how many other skis in that price point can you name that have a 7000 series base?
 
But do you think that any business (Atomic or Small Brand X) would make a product where they would lose money on it? No company will launch a product where they don't make money from it.
 
Volkswagen owns bugatti, which operates at a net loss. When they sell a Veyron, it goes out of the showroom for over a million and still costs vw hundreds of thousands ontop of its asking price.

They do it because they can. And people said it was impossible. But mostly for the love of it.
 
I've heard of this before as well, but never seen any actual proof of the car's actual cost vs what it "wholesales" for vs what it retails for. I can't see any reasonable way a mega profit-oriented company like the VW group would ever sink that kind of money and not see a return on investment on the actual product itself. They can't sell enough Golfs to offset that loss.

Did Bugatti make the Veyron with the intent to prove the world wrong? Most likely without a doubt, and same goes for the love of designing cars. But I seriously can't understand how they could incur such a huge cost just to build the car and then sell it at retail (which is marked up over their own cost) with a loss in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over retail. The company wouldn't last 2 years and would be in debt faster than any government.
 
But they did take a chance and made skis before anyone else was doing it. Really the brands you may not like are the real invators of the sport and without them you may still be doing ski ballet
 
I like the customer service of small brands and the idea of having a ski that's more unique and specific to what you want, but I buy all my skis used and can find much better deals on bigger companies' products
 
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