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Finding REAL REVIEWS is harder and harder for skis,snowboards, and gear. Opinions??

AdironRider

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So for you folks slamming blogs for reviewing a product, do you really expect anyone that you would trust for a ski review, to buy everything himself out of pocket? Blogs aren't just for you to use free of charge. That being said, everyone skis different, you should demo and do your own reviews, otherwise you are still going to have a problem with expectations.
 

MidnightJester

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Its less the slamming or critique of the blogs for the review themselves. Its that they do very little actual reviewing. They read from a given script. That is not a real review, its a infomercial.
 

fluid164

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It's not realistic to demo everything yourself. I want a review of a movie before I see it. I want to see what people say about a resort or mountain before I go. User reviews, like TripAdvisor or Amazon are probably they must useful, it's just that no ski site has become the must go destination for that kind of reviewing I think because of the incredible array of equipment out there.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 

abc

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It's not realistic to demo everything yourself. I want a review of a movie before I see it. I want to see what people say about a resort or mountain before I go. User reviews, like TripAdvisor or Amazon are probably they must useful, it's just that no ski site has become the must go destination for that kind of reviewing I think because of the incredible array of equipment out there.
hmmm... I'm tempted... I could potentially do something about it! I even have an algorithm (from previous work) to work out the individual bias statistically.

Well, at least I should take a look at what's out there so see if that indeed doesn't already exist.
 

fluid164

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hmmm... I'm tempted... I could potentially do something about it! I even have an algorithm (from previous work) to work out the individual bias statistically.

Well, at least I should take a look at what's out there so see if that indeed doesn't already exist.

I'm in. Being an obsessive research shopper, I know exactly what's needed and it isn't out there.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 

MidnightJester

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I wonder what the numbers are of a item sold for skis and boards and gear for a given line. Is it 10,000 for a good product run for one pair of skis. I wonder how many new skis/boards are sold a year for all lines together. Are 1,000,000 New pairs of skis sold a year, a 1,000,000 snowboards.
 

fluid164

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I wonder what the numbers are of a item sold for skis and boards and gear for a given line. Is it 10,000 for a good product run for one pair of skis. I wonder how many new skis/boards are sold a year for all lines together. Are 1,000,000 New pairs of skis sold a year, a 1,000,000 snowboards.

here's some good data: http://bit.ly/1oc5CFR

under 700,000 alpine skis sold in 2011/2012 season….no surprise, clothes are huge.
 

AdironRider

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I wonder what the numbers are of a item sold for skis and boards and gear for a given line. Is it 10,000 for a good product run for one pair of skis. I wonder how many new skis/boards are sold a year for all lines together. Are 1,000,000 New pairs of skis sold a year, a 1,000,000 snowboards.

I highly suspect the numbers for each individual sku (aka each individual board in a respective size) is much lower than you might suspect. For example Never Summer makes less than 1000 total of their top of the line stuff. Obviously more of the more value priced products. But still, not really approaching millions. I would suspect even for a company like Burton, a million snowboards would be a banner year.
 

AdironRider

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Its less the slamming or critique of the blogs for the review themselves. Its that they do very little actual reviewing. They read from a given script. That is not a real review, its a infomercial.

Again, everyone rides differently. Its almost an impossible task to have a standard "quality level" of a review as a result. Outside of specs its all subjective and could be read as an infomercial no matter how you slice it, depending on ones riding style, etc.
 

Cannonball

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The movie review analogy is a good one. If you read on random person's blog about a particular movie you might suspect they have some biased connection to the movie. But if you read reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (or similar) you expect that they are reviewing way too many movies to worry about bias from one vs another, so you pretty much trust it. It would be nice if there were a consolidated review forum for ski/board gear that could cover enough volume that bias would be less of a concern.

For snowboarding, thegoodride.com comes close.....http://thegoodride.com/
 
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