The Integral II system can use any standard binding toe unit, though Look strongly recommends its own single-pivot toes because they are self-adjusting for toe cup height and because they grip the upper radius of the boot toe, an area that is more or less immune to wear problems. Roger Neilley, product manager for Raichle Molitor USA, points out that the Look toe also has long toe wings that make it easy for rental customers to center the boot toe in the binding, and says that the Raichle Integral rental boot will incorporate a replaceable heel block so that rental operators can repair worn boot soles easily.
What’s most important about the Look Integral system is the fact that it uses a fixed sole length for all boots, eliminating the need to adjust the binding for boot length. It should therefore be possible, at some future date, to mount the binding on the ski at the factory, thus relieving rental operators of a large portion of their product liability. “We’re giving this some consideration,” Neilley says. “At least we think the skis could be pre-drilled at the factory.” Raichle-Molitor distributes Fischer skis, and the plan is to offer a complete Raichle-Look-Fischer rental package.
Raichle’s Viva boot, according to Neilley, is currently the best-selling rental boot in the U.S. market; the company also has a long history of rental service with Tyrolia products, which it distributed until December 31, 1991. The contract between Raichle-Molitor USA and Look will be a distribution agreement, but Neilley says it “protects Raichle’s investment in new boot molds.”
Other manufacturers have been less aggressive in developing new rental technology. Salomon has a new rental heel unit that can be adjusted on its track without using tools. Major competitors have offered this feature on toe units for a number of years, but the heel unit is the more commonly adjusted element. The new rental heel is significant largely because of Salomon’s current overwhelming strength in rental bindings. The new heel will save rental operators countless hours of fiddling.
Salomon, says product information manager Dave Bertoni, is “very happy” with the rental market. Over the years, the company has avoided the product problems that have forced binding competitors to undertake expensive warranty replacement programs or even (in the case of Spademan and the plate binding firms) to leave the market. Consumer enthusiasm for the company’s rear entry boots has made Salomon a first choice for many rental shops interested in building a quality image.
One reason Salomon is so fond of rental is that the business compensates for what Bertoni calls the erosion of entry-level retail sales. “In boots, entry level retail and rental use essentially the same product,” he points out. “We sell fewer inexpensive boots to the public and more to rental shops. As far as volume goes, it’s a wash.”
Salomon doesn’t sell rental skis yet. Ski manufacturers are a good deal less enthusiastic about low-end rental. “No one makes money selling rental skis,” says Tim Jamieson, CEO of Nordica Sports System and until recently president of Elan, the most successful wholesaler of rental skis. “The problem is warranty costs. In retail, you get one-half to three-quarters of one percent of your product back for warranty service. But in rental, you can see six to seven percent back over the two-year warranty period and not all claims are legitimate.”
Rental skis are subject to extraordinary wear and tear. No retail customer would walk on his expensive skis across a road or parking lot; rental customers often do. So rental skis must be made with double-thick bases and edges, and armor-plated topskins. They’re expensive to make, yet must be sold cheaply — $60 is a typical target price. Jamieson notes, sardonically, that a $130 ski-boot-and-binding combination pays for itself in six days of rental. “Day seven is pure profit for the shop,” he says.
Faced with costly demands for warranty service, Jamieson says, “The major ski manufacturers aren’t really looking for new rental accounts.” Instead they prefer to deal with established customers he characterized as “rational” in regard to warranty.
“We used to have warranty problems,” admits Steve Dudley, western sales manager for Rossignol. “Five years ago we beefed the skis up a lot and since then warranty returns have been only one-half of one percent.”
But Dudley sees the whole rental market moving upward, away from the abused entry-level ski toward the performance-oriented demo ski marketed to the more experienced vacationing skier rather than to the beginner. Dudley cites rising sales to rental shops of models like the STs, 4CS and DVR — relatively inexpensive skis, to be sure, but built in slalom-ski molds. While these skis are built more for performance than for durability, Dudley says warranty hasn’t been a problem. “They’re not subject to the same abuse as low-end rentals,” he says.
Is rental profitable for Rossignol? “I wouldn’t call it profit, because the margins are too low,” Dudley says. “Let’s just say it helps us offset our overhead.”
Tim Kohl, president of RD, calculates that seven to ten percent of all catalogued or in-line skis may find their way into high-end or demo rental. “In the mid-range or sport models it’s probably higher, up to 15 percent,” he says.
But much of this volume is done through shops that don’t consider themselves rental operations — they are simply specialist retailers pushing high-end demos out for sales promotion. This is a fact not lost on Marker, where product manager Kirk Langford is fond of saying: “We don’t sell rental bindings. We sell bindings for demo skis.”
