Heelychat, the forum for heelys, the shoes with wheels - View topic - How's destroying your own brand feel, Heelys?

*Last edited by Slicer on Fri May 30, 2008 5:30 pm; edited 1 time in total*

(Stockholders are highly encouraged to join and comment.)

Heelys, you lost a million dollars last quarter.

Did you think no one would have noticed?

This is spring. And you've already telegraphed your intentions to fail in the summer, too, the time when you should be doing out-of-school sales (yes, out-of-school, not back-to-school.. think about it.)

I don't want to hear any bullshit about fads, especially not on this forum. It was a fad because you fucking sold it as one and completely failed to support the kids just getting into it. DVDs are what, fifty cents to create? If you had had the foresight to, well, put one in every box, maybe you'd actually get second-pair sales instead of the current situation, which is millions of kids not being able to fucking do it after falling on their asses a few times. You could have had a Heeling army if you had bothered to educate them properly and en masse. Instead you have a whole lot of one-shot sales, and now nothing.

But Bitchlord Staffaroni wasn't making real long-term plans. You do know where he came from, right? LA Gear, the company notorious for LA Lights, which was light-up shoes sold to teenagers. THAT WORKED! ...in driving the company fucking bankrupt. And now he compounded it with Gamers, which, thank fucking GOD, were finally pulled off the market when it eventually came to light that no one wanted the fucking things. Surprise! Wow, who could have seen THAT coming, other than everyone on this fucking board?!

In sum, Staffaroni, fuck you, you sniveling little bitch. You only started listening to the voice of reason when I jammed it down your fucking throat, and then made a Pro Series promise your fired ass couldn't fulfill.

Heelys, you seriously can't sell 600 pairs of that to any large retailer? 600 pairs is a fucking test run. It's something you decide to try out in a small part of the country before you unleash it nationwide. It's thirty fucking thousand dollars- CHUMP CHANGE to you! What have you been telling the retailers, that there's little strychnine needles in the insole or what? Did they get seriously, royally fucked over the past year, even more than the sales figures would indicate, or what? Someone in sales needs his ass kicked. Maybe everyone in sales needs his ass kicked. Hell, I figure almost everyone in the fucking company probably needs a good, long ass kicking at this point.

Speaking of which, is there a qualified professional there who can perform craniorectal decoupling? In fact, maybe there should be a proctologist convention in the vicinity of Carrollton, with a cash prize given to the expert who can rectally extract a size 11 Torch along with a man's own head, without using power tools.

And an extra-strength, super-deluxe fuck you to Don Carroll, who has announced his open intention to run Heelys into the fucking ground. 30-35% of sales WILL be from the wheeled shoes, you douchebag, not because you'll have increased sales of other products but rather because you'll have DESTROYED THE FUCKING WHEELED SHOE SALES!!

That's it. Now I'm god damned livid. I'm inviting all pissed Heelys stockholders (and at $4.35, you BETTER be pissed!) to this board, and hopefully to the stockholders' meeting on the 30th, so that voices may be heard and ass may be kicked.

Team Heelys - Midwest Joined: 23 Oct 2006 Posts: 8388607

We're sounding more and more like the soapers, we can create the most grand of plans, but I can guarantee you nothing will happen. How have the soapers uprising results been? HSL has less and less respect for them.
Please, Don's not giving you exactly what you want, he's thinking of the general public which is WHAT HSL NEEDS.
The glow wheels will be a hit, little children are out main market, and that's something they'd love. Now, before you go on about how kids shouldn't be the main market, the fact of the matter is that IT IS, and it most likely will be for a long time. I personally think their sidewalk sports deal will work out great, did you know that more kids skateboard nowadays than play in little league? If we could even occupy 10% of skateboard shoe sales, we'd be well off.
Don is not in anyway against heelys. He's being a good CEO and doing what's best for the company. He's seeing where the sales are, and is trying to benefeit heelys with all of the latest trends.

Guest

Hailey...there's one flaw in his / your plans.

WE DON'T BELONG IN SKATEBOARDING...THEY DON'T WANT US THERE AND IT'S NOT OUR TERRITORY.

i don't wanna be mean...but it's true. it's not our place. heely's is strictly heelys. taking a wheel out of a shoe and still calling it heelys is like painting a car yellow and calling it a school bus because it's yellow. no...that's not the direction we need to go. there are better options than "trying to open up a new avenue w/ skateboarders".

Team Heelys - Midwest Joined: 23 Oct 2006 Posts: 8388607

There's one flaw in your plans as well.

Your wrong.
I get respect from skateboarders, the only time they hate is on youtube.
Nike makes basketball shoes, Nike makes skate shoes. Just because Element makes skateboards dooesnt mean they cant make shoes too.
Companies can do more than one thing.
Oh, and if skateboarders don't want us there, lets all quit heeling at skateparks, I guess that makes pro model useless. Oh well ..

Guest

they need to focus on the market they already have first b4 moving onto something that they haven't tested. we need shirt sales (obviously none out there), pads, helmets...instuctional dvds...things that market where the shoe is going.

but what are they doing...they are going in a different direction and leaving us on the waste side. i mean, there are better things to do to bring up the sales of this company...

why shift gears w/ shoes when i can go into the department store w/ my shoes and skate right up to the shirt and buy a heelys shirt?! ya'll have some sick ones and that would be the easiest most cost effective way to get more sales. pants, shirts, hats...w/e. that's what we need...no take the wheel out of our shoes!!!

Guest

oh, and hailey...i didn't mean to say we don't belong there...

what i meant to say was that our shoe's w/o wheels don't belong there. i love going to the skate park. but our shoe does not belong there. we can't compete w/ vans and dc and etnies. we would die...crash and burn

Heelys screwing over the Soapers is no news, because Heelys bought the grindplate to use on... Heelys. For Heelys to turn around and screw Heelys by "shifting focus" is madness.

Considering the context- in-store demos dying out, Pro Models only a maybe, etc- it's obvious what he's saying. He's not going to try intelligent shrinkage, or better focus, or cutting some of the dead weight. Instead he's going to throw money at the problem by sending the company into a million different directions, most of which it will be vastly, horribly outclassed in. He clearly, blatantly has no clue what he's doing, and I'm not even sure if he cares.

We DO belong in skateboarders' territory- AS HEELERS.

Seriously, H2, if Heelys is still seen as a little kids' shoe (as you yourself just said), how well do you think Heelys brand everything will sell compared to its Nike, Adidas, Vans counterparts? Nike might as well just take advantage of the low stock price and gulp them down like a grouper eating a minnow.

In fact, I hope Nike DOES buy HLYS out, because at least THEN we can be guaranteed of being treated well by a real sporting company. Axe 'em all, Nike, and put that patent to good use.

Joined: 22 Feb 2007 Posts: 1548 Location: Ohio

Guest

agreed...but that's not the issue...ish!

i agree, they can't be punished...but this whole topic just pisses me off

Team Heelys - Midwest Joined: 23 Oct 2006 Posts: 8388607

HEELYS are considered as a kids shoe.
SIDEWALK SPORTS is not

If Don send the company in many different directions, perhaps he'll find a route to success.
Seriously, getting all of HSL's stock holders to drop their stocks and let HSL go bankrupt is gonna help them produce pro model, I'll give you that one.

Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 469 Location: Ol' Virginny

I'm just here for the potatoe salad.

It would be unfortunate if Heelys fell apart, but the world would keep turning. It would end up as one of those marks on the calendar of life that we could all look back on and say "I remember that!" Hell... who knows, maybe one day there will be a retro revival and they will raise from the ashes. With that said... maybe Heelys are before their time?! People might not be ready. Let the gas prices rise some more and maybe people will see them as viable transportation to urban workplaces. (of course, the petroleum used in the urethane creation process will throw the prices of future Heelys into 4 digit $$s).

Deez, I'm not about to sit down and accept that. I'm just not. If Heelys does go down, it ought to go down fighting.

Seriously, Heelys, if you don't think you can make money on the shoes, rename yourselves Sidewalk Sports or whatever and sell the fucking patent to Disney. They'll take it off your hands and proceed to make HAND OVER FIST money with it through pure brand leverage, with Disney-themed.. everything, Sora wearing them in KH3, etc, etc, etc. (For any Disney execs who have made it here through the bile and profanity: DO IT. Seriously.)

Before anyone says their suspicion, I SEVERELY doubt that the serious skater segment will get neglected if that actually does happen. Disney has money, and knows what to do with it.

"Pro Models? Mega-verts? You said you need those for demos and sales and you want those available to everyone? You said it's only five figure expenses to make them available? Heh, we'll pull that out of petty cash even if we don't make more back directly. Have fun with it. Just keep the kids buying and the cash rollin' in..."

Ah, if only the CURRENT company was so wise...

(BTW, in case people reading this don't know who Don Carroll is, read this. Just don't read it where your family or co-workers can hear your reaction....)

After reading this thread (and sufferring a verbal warning from my boss for excessive hatred towards bovine fecal matter) I have came to the following conclusions without any persuasion. I will draw it out for you:

Heelys went to the store and bought a gun (we'll stick with a .357 magnum), and then bought 2 bullets (we'll call the bullets Ralph Parks and Don Carroll)

Heelys decides that one Friday night, they want to throw a party, and brings over their close friends (which they all happen to be shoe companies who are only going to this party for the free booze and the opportunity to poke fun at the slightly 'off' kid)

Upon having a few drinks, Heelys decides that its all or nothing. Ralph and Don are loaded into (the really big gun) and then shot at a steel building... There are two outcomes:

1. One of the bullets is going to go straight up, and ironically get stuck in a bird, causing the bullet to get carried away to some new level of enchantment, away from the burning house party.

The other bullet will ricochet, smacking Heelys dead in the forehead. From this point, Heelys will die; bleeding profusely from the gaping hole in which a drunken stupor created.

2. One of the bullets will bounce right into the laps of (pretty well known shoe company) and Heelys will forever be taken into a new direction, while the other bullet will never leave the chamber, and decides to stay will Heelys in a feeble attempt to regain its say in the market place.

I do not need to sit here and explain the facts to you; most of you see that yourselves, with the Heelys label being thrown off of Journeys, and the other corporate markets who look at Heelys like its a joke. Or maybe I should explain the lack of support Heelys has behind it; from pissed off soapers to angry, news reading parents. This company made a lot of controversy, in which nobody can argue. I don't think Hula-Hoops went through this much shit.

In terms, I have to agree with Slicer, H2, DeezU, and RLX (to a point)

Slicer - In total agreement, I can see that Heelys is desperate to make a point, almost as a final stand, to the world that they are a serious shoe company. Though really whoever decided that they should take out the wheel in the shoe and paint pink skulls on the shit kickers should be formally executed as it was in the 1800's.

H2 - I can see your point about going different directions. Blast a bird shot at a watermellon a few times, you're bound to strike something. Thats why I feel Heelys are going into a (decent at best) direction with making a new line of shoes; until I saw what their plans were for next fiscal shool year.

RLX - Your right, we don't belong in skateboarding. Or soaping. Or inlining. Or walking. Or riding a bike. We belong in Heeling. Which, I think Merlyn said it best

De-announcing as the meeting is over.