Board Retailers Association
The Board Retailers Association (BRA) is the board sport industry's preeminent voice for independent retailers. BRA gives Board Sport Retailers - surfboard, skateboard, snowboard, and wakeboard - a cohesive voice on a grassroots level with manufacturers, trade show representatives, and other associations.
Our Purpose
With current market changes, it is important to the board sport business that we have a say in the direction that our industry is headed. BRA communicates and negotiates regularly with manufacturers and trade shows, improving business conditions and profitability for retailers, while working for the betterment of the industry as a whole. BRA members also benefit from valuable education programs and exclusive savings with insurance companies, freight distributors and many other day-to-day business partners. All of this for $125 membership dues per year.
BRA has seen department stores and discount houses taking core pieces of the independent retailer business. Top brand retailers have become "softwood," leaving other board retailers on weak footing as we fill our stores with the hardwoods necessary to perpetuate our sport, not necessarily our bank accounts. With a united voice, we can keep the playing field in check. One Mission, One Voice!
BOARD RETAILERS ASSOCIATION CELEBRATES FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
East and West Coast retailers formed the Board Retailers Association (BRA), a non-profit representing over 500 specialty board sport retailers, in February 2003 in an effort to consolidate our voices, experiences and visions into a cohesive organization. Five years later and under the direction of BRA’s Chairman and Board of Directors, the association now serves as the preeminent voice for independent retailers on a grassroots level with manufacturers, trade show representatives, and other associations.
“As someone who was there in the beginning, it is hard to believe that five years ago a dozen retailers on a trip to Sonoma came together with a vision of forming an independent association for specialty retailers. That vision has become a reality” said BRA President Mike Duncan.
Since its inception, BRA has brought about many positive initiatives and we’re looking forward to building on them throughout the coming years. Among our goals are to identify ways to help lower the day-to-day cost of doing business and to negotiate as a group what is beneficial to individual stores, thus strengthening our distribution base and helping the industry grow. Most important is the mission of the association to provide specialty retailers the educational tools necessary to remain successful and profitable in the board sport industry. Currently, the association represents over 500 board sport retailers across the country, or approximately 3000 separate retail stores.
“It is an honor to serve as BRA Chairman. I am proud to be part of an association that works tirelessly to help specialty retailers like myself. The knowledge and experiences that I have gained from interacting with other retailers in the industry have been priceless to both my business partner and I” said Todd Roberts, Chairman of BRA and Co-Owner of ZJ Boarding House.
With the positive reinforcement and support we have received over the past five years, BRA looks forward to continuing to be an integral part of the industry’s future. BRA would like to thank all of our members and everyone in the board sport industry that has supported the association over the past five years.
