Saturdays Surf NYC

Saturdays Surf NYC Culture Crafting: The Need to Dig Deeper A Business Proposal with Op-Ed Flair Anne Chen May 2013 Full Project

Coffee. Surf apparel. Music, art. A relaxed, community ambience. It seems that 31 Crosby Street offers everything that a caffeine-craving, East Coast surfer needs. A male caffeinecraving, East Coast surfer, that is.

Let’s say you are a woman – like me – strolling through the streets of quaint Soho. You see a small gaggle of artsy-looking folk clustered in front of a store, which is tucked aptly away from city traffic. Almost hidden, you nearly miss it amongst the surrounding concrete jumble of apartment buildings, chain stores, and high rises. Immediately, your curiosity is aroused. You walk in, catch a quick glimpse of the words “SATURDAYS SURF”, but before you have time to take in the curious name, you’re confronted by something a little more familiar: coffee. And damn, it must be some pretty great coffee, because the line running from the barista bar is nearly trailing out the door. So you stop for a cup – and wow, it is really good. Pretty frickin’ awesome, actually. Exploring the rest of the store seems more appealing than ever.

Now with your delicious La Colombe in hand, you push past those still waiting for their drinks, admiring the interesting artwork and music posters along the walls as you make your way through the space. Seems café-ish enough. But as you get further in, you start getting confused – What’s with all these surf boards, tee-shirts, board shorts, and wet suits I’m seeing? Isn’t this a coffee shop? You recall “SURF” again – and things start making a bit more sense.

Hm… you’ve made it to the back of the store, and there appears to be an outdoor area as well - you hear its occupants before you see them. Another bunch of cool-looking kids, like the ones you noticed at the entrance – kids who look like they should be starring in a Radiohead music video, or catching some waves in California. As if this place couldn’t get any more surprising, there’s a backyard garden too?! – you start loving your little discovery even more.

So obviously, it’s time to examine the merchandise. You sift through the clothes – soft tee-shirts, cozy knits, perfectly tailored button-downs – all of high quality, a quality you could see and feel. You select a tee, savoring its refreshing logo-free-ness – it looks absolutely nothing like those of Hollister, Billabong… you know, those cliché, surf-culture-wannabe-brands you can find in any American mall. Yes, its price point may be touch higher, but you can’t really put a price on authenticity, can you? (Or maybe it’s that excellent coffee working its magic and putting me in a good mood..?)

Whatever - you know that one of these tops will give your wardrobe some much needed freshness. Plus, you doubt any of your friends – most of them sporting Billabong and Roxy tees – will own something as unique as this. In other words: this tee seems pretty darn priceless right now. But before you can dig out your wallet, you notice something: all these clothes are for… guys. So where’s women’s section? You look around hopefully, but all you see are some curtained fitting rooms.

Okay, maybe not all of Saturdays’ customers fit this profile. But let’s think about it – what is its business built upon? There are three main elements that I at least identify: (1) its great coffee; (2) its hip apparel; and (3) its strategic location. And these are three great subcultures to combine into one – cafe + boutique + Soho = a pretty awesome place to hang out. And it’s worked out certainly quite well for Saturdays – the company’s overall sales tripled from 2009 to 2013 to $54 million. Such success can’t be achieved through tapping into some untapped market,

but requires creating an entirely new one. And this is exactly what Saturdays Surf NYC did “culture craft.”

But my argument is that it shouldn’t have just stopped there. That it should have taken the next step by unearthing the subcultures within the subcultures… the ‘sub-sub-cultures’, so to speak. The most obvious breakdown: by gender. Fellas, in case you weren’t aware, we’re not only built physically different from you, but wired to think differently as well. To be sure, perhaps it was just the natural trajectory for the company to stick with male gear – all three founders are men. But whether we’re looking at the coffee industry or the surf apparel market (see Appendix), all demographic nuances point in one direction: women have a big presence, and it’s only getting bigger.

Now back to my earlier fictional tale, of you as a female wandering through Soho. The district itself (think: great shops and restaurants, home to the likes of Sandra Bullock and John Mayer) was basically designed for regular pedestrian footfall (think: narrow, cobble-stoned streets, too small for automobile traffic.) New Yorkers and tourists alike know that the cast-iron neighborhood is perfect for an afternoon stroll, a romantic dinner, a wardrobe update, simple sight-seeing… etc., etc. So yes, it has become a lot more commercialized (its story a classic case of gentrification), but Soho has also retained much of its history, bohemian spirit, and picturesque charm (The Little Singer Building, anyone?) The odds of a serendipitous first encounter with Saturdays, like the one I’d woven, are thus pretty darn high.

So every female coffee-drinker who walks in and wishes to take a piece of Saturdays home with them is a potential long-term customer. As of now, she’ll maybe pop in for a caffeine fix, but what if she could stop by for that pick-me-up and buy a tee-shirt, a jacket, a pair of shoes, a tank top..? And if you need to imagine the unrealized sales Saturdays is losing out on in dollar signs, just consider the fact that a cup of coffee runs between $1 to $4, while a tee-shirt costs about $40, a woven shirt about $118, a jacket about $225… you do the math. If you can’t, heck, I’ll do it for you: you’re that woman from my story again. Except this time, Saturdays has a women’s section, so you’re able to buy that tee-shirt. So instead of banking just $1 from you (first scenario), the brand got $41. And remember that “quality you can see and feel”? Well as someone who’s actually shopped Saturdays, that I wasn’t kidding about. So I’m 99.9% certain that it’s going to leave you pretty satisfied and making a return trip for something else (Hell, why not bring a friend or two, since it’s always more fun to shop with your gal pals?) And even the dumbest marketer knows how invaluable positive word-of-mouth is.

Here’s some stats to back up my point, since no one’s great at persuading with mere hypothetical stories. In the U.S., the ratio between male and female coffee drinkers runs at about 50-501. And the percentage of female surfers has risen substantially in the past few years. A 2007 New York Times article reads: “although the total number of surfers held steady, near 2.3 million, from 2001 to 2005, the proportion of women jumped from 19 percent to 33 percent.”2 Moreover, “Roxy, the largest women’s surf apparel maker, grew from $20 million in sales in 1996 to $650 million in 2006. That figure rivals worldwide sales of $750 million for its parent company, Quiksilver, the largest manufacturer of men’s surf apparel.”3 But it’s not just female surfers who will potentially buy Saturdays apparel – any fashion-savvy woman would appreciate a nice, wellmade tee or jacket that pays genuine homage to the cool, relaxed culture of surf (think: athleisure trend.) “The bulk of the women buying [surf apparel], very few of them even surf,” the same

New York Times article quotes Randy Hild, Roxy’s SVP for global marketing back then. “Very few want to, or expect to be world champion. Eighty to 90 percent of consumers buying my product are not users or hard-core surfers. I have to make sure I’m relevant to them.”4 And as for the gender breakdown of Soho residents (AKA the individuals who are most likely to be walking in the 31 Crosby Street area), it is roughly 50-50 as well.5 It seems pretty obvious, now that I’ve ranted on for so long: it’s prime time for Saturdays Surf NYC to introduce a female apparel line.

Appendix 1. Professor’s House. “Coffee Facts and Statistics.” 2014. Web. 21, April. 2012. para. 6. <http://www.professorshouse.com/Food-Beverage/Beverages/Hot-Drinks/Articles/Coffee-Factsand-Statistics/>.

2. Higgins, Matt. “Women of the Waves Seek Equal Pay.” The New York Times. 7, March. 2007.

Web. 21, April. 2012. para. 8 <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/sports/othersports/07surfing.html?_r=0>.

3. Higgins, Matt. “Women of the Waves Seek Equal Pay.” The New York Times. 7, March. 2007.

Web. 21, April. 2012. para. 6 <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/sports/othersports/07surfing.html?_r=0>.

4. Higgins, Matt. “Women of the Waves Seek Equal Pay.” The New York Times. 7, March. 2007.

Web. 21, April. 2012. para. 17 <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/sports/othersports/07surfing.html?_r=0>.

5. Source: http://homes.point2.com/Neighborhood/US/New-York/New-YorkCity/Manhattan/SoHo-Demographics.aspx