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Heard on the pulp mx show that dragon and spy were done in mx. On the other hand I saw on spy’s Instagram story about a month ago that they were coming out with a new mx goggle. So I was wondering are they done in a sense that they are not sponsoring any riders/teams. Or are they in fact shutting their doors in this sector?
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I believe Dragon is for sure. I know Seely switched from Spy to 100%. Michael Lindsay posted on another thread that Spy pulled their sponsorships. I know Talon Hawkins still runs Spy in all his Instagram posts. Hopefully Spy isn’t done, I really like their new Foundation goggle.
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It’s been a few bad years for goggle companies. Smith closed shop about 3-5 years ago. VonZipper stopped making MX goggles at the end of the 2016 season and Dragon did the same after Anderson won the title. I could understand if Spy no longer wanted to pay the high pro salaries for goggles sponsorship. As long as they still support amateur racing I would feel okay with using them, find it hard to use a company once supported the sport but stopped and cut all ties.
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redrider_714 wrote:
It’s been a few bad years for goggle companies. Smith closed shop about 3-5 years ago. VonZipper stopped making MX goggles at the end of the 2016 season and Dragon did the same after Anderson won the title. I could understand if Spy no longer wanted to pay the high pro salaries for goggles sponsorship. As long as they still support amateur racing I would feel okay with using them, find it hard to use a company once supported the sport but stopped and cut all ties.
Scott, 100% and Oakley seem to do fine. And I think there's a pretty big profit margin on goggles. The materials and production process used aren't that expensive. (once you go to higher quantities) It's just some R&D money they need to get back.
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Yeah both of those brands don't really have any distribution other than shops buying direct. That's a death sentence for most brands. Even oakley you don't really see in shops anymore because dealers don't want to deal with ordering direct from them.
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Edited Date/Time:
redrider_714 wrote:
It’s been a few bad years for goggle companies. Smith closed shop about 3-5 years ago. VonZipper stopped making MX goggles at the end of the 2016 season and Dragon did the same after Anderson won the title. I could understand if Spy no longer wanted to pay the high pro salaries for goggles sponsorship. As long as they still support amateur racing I would feel okay with using them, find it hard to use a company once supported the sport but stopped and cut all ties.
Smith is still in business: https://www.smithoptics.com/us/Root/Men%27s/Goggles/Off-Road/c/1320
They do seem to focus more on winter sports then MX. I considered their googles to be the best back in the day.
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cappelmans wrote:
Smith is still in business: https://www.smithoptics.com/us/Root/Men%27s/Goggles/Off-Road/c/1320
They do seem to focus more on winter sports then MX. I considered their googles to be the best back in the day.
I didn’t mean closed all together, I was talking more on the making of MX goggles. I can see the confusion with how it is written though.
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Dragon is still making the product; but, they’re not spending ANY marketing money in the segment.
I ripped a start from Egypt and I was happy about that.
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Spooner wrote:
Yeah both of those brands don't really have any distribution other than shops buying direct. That's a death sentence for most brands. Even oakley you don't really see in shops anymore because dealers don't want to deal with ordering direct from them.
Why? What's wrong with buying direct?
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Spooner wrote:
Yeah both of those brands don't really have any distribution other than shops buying direct. That's a death sentence for most brands. Even oakley you don't really see in shops anymore because dealers don't want to deal with ordering direct from them.
RR61114 wrote:
Why? What's wrong with buying direct?
As a parts manager, would you rather buy products from each of your 500 brands individually, or get all the brands you need from three or four sources? Distribution really helps.
Braaapin' aint easy.
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Dragon was sold a few years ago, the new owners may have decided to make some changes after having held it for awhile now.
http://files.winonacapital.com/sitedocs/pdf/wcmdragonsalepressrelease2012.05-8597.pdf
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Spy isn't done with moto completely, they are still supporting Axell and a couple amateur guys. As much as the older generation will grumble, racers don't sell product as good as social media stars do it's just the way action sports and motorsports is going. A lot of bigger sunglasses and action sports companies are hurting and cutting/diverting marketing budgets across the board. This isn't just in moto, oakley pulled the plug on their head-to-toe surf team going to just doing sunglasses only. I have a feeling its going to get worse before it gets better. Talking to a lot of my former colleagues still in the industry, the outlook isn't very good for brick and mortar establishments that can't keep up with social media.
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Sadly....... get used to seeing a lot more of this...........
www.bettercallsaul.com
Die Antwoord
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stiksandstones wrote:
If someone pulls out of moto, it doesn't mean they are going out of business.
Very true...
However, what it absolutely shows is that among all the genre they sell to, that mx just isn't a big enough market anymore to stay in............................
www.bettercallsaul.com
Die Antwoord
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I can't believe spy would not be supporting moto. Are they still going to sell mx goggles? Moto helped get them where they are.
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woodsryder wrote:
Not surprised about Dragon since WPS dropped them.
Ordered Dragon stuff two weeks ago from WPS, only selling off all inventory when Dragon pulled the moto side sponsorships and stopped making goggles. Gone from there website and all inventory sold off
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You can also throw VonZipper into this as well. Ive heard they are getting out of the MX sector and as someone who loves thier products and has nothing but great experiences with them, its kinda sad to see them go too. Not sure what their time frame is but to my knowledge they don't sponsor any riders now.
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100% is killing it in shops right now. Oakley makes dealers spend X amount of money before they can be a dealer. Eliminates a lot of shops. Fox has the same dumb marketing strategy. Although I doubt it lasts long. why should a dealer make a big investment in FOx or Jokeley when their customers can buy any of their crap on ebay half price free shipping?
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This was brought up again this week on the pulpmx show and mathes believes that they are done supporting big riders, and inevitably leading to ending mx sector of spy. Like I stated at the beginning though I swear I watched a instagram story of some girl giving a tour of spy, and she specifically said that there was a new line of mx goggles coming out, and they purposely in the video showed everything on the wall but the spy mx goggles. (this was after the foundation was out for a while as well, so it wasn't the foundation goggle, I could also see some color schemes as they grazed over the wall and none of them were current foundation color schemes). Im hoping someone can elaborate a little more, or hopefully someone saw this video as well.
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