Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer a great opportunity to blog about product pricing. We often hear from folks who’d like us to sell a 121C complete for the price of a Penny board. We know the Aileron is the best cruiser board in the world and we also realize that it costs far more than a penny (or a nickel, LOL). It’s not a surprise that quality and price usually go hand in hand and there are reasons for this.
While we do solve an environmental problem, it’s important to understand we use perfectly good upcycled (scrap but new) material and not “recycled” (reused stuff.) Our aerospace prepreg Carbon Fiber requires special handling, transportation and even expensive, refrigerated storage. It’s far from “free.”
The aerospace grade material in the Aileron is so expensive that if we purchased it new, our cost for the Carbon Fiber alone would be more than what we charge for a complete build with trucks and wheels. With it’s 22 layers of the best CF we’d literally have to sell this board for over $1,000!
This is one reason why nobody else makes anything like it. Most other deck makers simply lay a single thin layer of inexpensive, consumer grade “wet layup” CF over a wood or fiberglass board and then plaster their adverts with “Carbon.”
We’ve also invested years in engineering, R&D and in optimizing manufacturing and logistical processes. Our boards have to be carefully cured at high temperatures and pressures, water jet cut, and hand finished in processes that are vastly more expensive than those required to stamp out plastic boards.
When it came to choosing components for our completes we chose, the finest, Made in USA trucks, wheels and bearings. We know that the folks at Randal trucks and Shark Wheel are as proud of their gear as we are of ours. Also, because we aren’t in the business of peddling components, we are happy to sell you a deck and point you at our suppliers so that you can save a few $ and have some fun by building your own.
We position the price of Aileron to compete with the best quality exotic wood boards from companies we respect like Arbor and Loaded. Rest assured we are always looking for ways to optimize our processes and reduce the price you pay. However, there are already
plenty of cheap plastic and wood skate decks out there and the world doesn’t need another Globe. Like Tesla or Aston Martin, price is not our primary focus and we will never sacrifice our commitment to quality to lower the price.
We are planning to offer some new models at a variety of prices and are preparing a new crowdfunding campaign to finance the tooling for an exciting smaller and less expensive deck.
Finally, we’d like to remind you that your Aileron was built by skaters in Southern California, the heartland of skating, and not by children slaving in some offshore sweatshop. We care about the community we live in and are proud to employee our friends and neighbors. They care as about your ride as much as we do. Buy one today and share the pride that comes with quality.