Skateboarding legend Stevie Williams, now known as Lord Williams, good homie Rasul Shariff Childs is speaking out about something that does not always sit well with the skateboarding community, Zumiez.
Zumiez is all about corporate presence in skateboarding, the company often gets heat from core skaters who feel it does not represent the roots of the culture. But Sul is not afraid to say what he believes.
According to Sul, the store is actually helping keep skate brands alive.
As we previously reported, Zumiez hitting a 2 percent increase in their second quarter only added fuel to the conversation. For Sul, this is not just numbers on a page, it is a reflection of how skateboarding businesses survive in the modern market.
"Zumiez is the reason why a lot of skate brands are still in business," Sul said. "It is called cross marketing. When your brand is in a store like Zumiez, you get more customers introduced to your brand. So everybody just hating on Zumiez is missing the point. You cannot make any real money just off the local skate shop. There are only about 400 skate shops nationwide in the United States. That is not a lot of stores. If you want to make some real money off skateboarding, your brand has to be sold in Zumiez. A skate shop cannot hold that capacity by itself. If you want to reach a bigger market, you have to be in a store like that or your brand will not make a profit."
Sul also noted that a lot of new skateboard brands start out saying they do not want to be in Zumiez, but he believes they will eventually see the necessity if they want to survive. "You can just be selling your products at a skate shop when there are only 400 skate shops nationwide, and from a business point of view, that sounds absolutely absurd. You might as well sell most of your stuff online and just have a little bit of your products in a skate shop. That is how you make your brand work today."
This is about keeping skateboarding real and making it pay, not just something you do for fun, as per Sul. Skateboarders might not all feel him, but he is calling out the truth about how you gotta respect the culture while still figuring out how to survive and get that paper in the game.