who knew...the Berrics costs $150,000 PER MONTH to run...

**skategeezer** · 09-22-2009 11:35 AM

so, there is a rather large kerfuffle over at skatersinc.com on their forum.
seems like the folks at west 49 are selling berrics t-shirts exclusively.

for those who don't know, West 49 is Canada's version of Zumiez.

people are angry at Steve Berra and they are writing to him. Tellingly, Monsieur Berra is writing back...

From Steve Berra-

You are the 10th person today to email me this and I will tell you the same thing I told them.
It costs nearly $150k a month to run the Berrics. I don't have any money. I've put everything I've
ever made in skateboarding and otherwise into this the past 2 years of my life and have not made
a penny. The site is FREE, but I can't do all the work. We need to hire people, they don't work for free
like I do. We need to pay $20k a month in bandwidth alone so that you can download the videos
for FREE. We have a store. Have you ever bought a shirt? If you have it would go to keeping the
lights on, to keeping the immense amount of expenses we incur. As far as I know, there wasn't
one shop from Canada calling to carry Berrics stuff. West 49 called. I don't live in Canada. I don't
know Canadian skateboard politics and to be honest with you, the people I talked to at West 49
were really nice. You have to understand we are a business as well and we need to stay in business.
I have a bunch of people here that depend on us staying in business for their jobs. I also know
that West 49 do not make blank boards or shop boards. Shops that do, are not supporting us, the pro
skaters, but do we email each and every one of them and say how lame they are for not supporting us?
Do I email each and every single shop that exists because they don't carry my board or my shoe? No. That's ridiculous. So you can talk about us having to support the core shop all day long, but has the core shop supported us? The answer is neither here nor there, I'm just playing devil's advocate and trying to get you to see another viewpoint. I don't care what the answer is because I know what we are doing, what we are about to launch in 2 weeks is going to be so great for core skateboard shops that you will not bitch about our tee shirts being in West 49, so please be patient. I promise you, great things are coming for the very shops you're talking about.
fondly,
sb

see the thread here...

SkatersInc.com • View topic - Even more bad news

**Tagsrover** · 09-22-2009 11:46 AM

economics 101 - nothing is free

especially considering west 49 reached out to them i think it's perfectly fine. And berra brings up a great point about core shops, if they aren't supporting the berrics there is no reason for the berrics to try and exclusively support them.

I personally thinks the berrics is an awesome site that has a lot of great videos, and free none the less

buttery ass mondays FTMFW

**Xgecko** · 09-22-2009 12:05 PM

polite enough I would have told him to toss off

**WillJ** · 09-22-2009 12:40 PM

Steve Berra has done more for skateboarding than all of the people bitching about where he sells his shirts, combined, will ever do for skateboarding.

period