Companies with good service and warranty departments.

Thats cool that you want to start a shop. A big endeavor but its admirable. I think most important is to first know what exactly who you want to market towards. I think we'd all like to see a freeski specific store like D-structure, but you have to decide if that buiseness model is possible. Then you have to decide that you want to do only twin tips/freeride, you have to decide what kind of following you would like to have. The contradiction that I often see is that people are quick to bag on big companies like salomon and love line or armada, 4 frnt etc. thats fine, Im on armada's this year, but its funny that the majority of those guys are skiing teneighty boots, which proves that you can't rule the big guys out completely. Anyway that doesn't really answer your question. As far as skis are concerned, I know that K2 has an excellent warranty program. I have no personal experience with any other companies, but would think that most rider owned companies would be good as well, their only limitations being a smaller budget than a bigger company, which might influence them to be slightly more stingy. Again no personal experience though. For being a succesful shop, I think it is important to have a wide variety. I personally love Saloman bindings, I have met tons of people who curse them. As far as ski boots, I tried to ski 1080 boots, but I have a narrow foot and Lange fits me better. To me, the best way to have a succesful shop is to cater to the needs of everyone who comes in. If you want to be a freeski shop, i think that still applies becuase the variety of equipment for freeskiing is getting bigger. The only hard part with that is finding the budget to collect a complete inventory. Soo, thats my two cents, good luck with the shop, and let us know how it goes!
P.s. where are you thinking about opening?

Well I think your P.S. is probably the most important think for me to consider. The location pretty much determines what type of shop I would be able to open. As some one who really likes newschool stuff and has seen it blossom from it' beginings I would like to do that type of a shop. But of course there aren't that many places where a shop like that can survive. Currently I live in North Idaho. There is a big ski scene here and one pretty big city in the area. But it definetly doesn't have the market for skiing that some other places do. I'm moving to Tahoe this winter to take a semester off and have fun so I really want to check that place out and see what potential it has. Reno is the fastest growing city in American so it obviously has a lot of potential. I also Like the Seattle Portland area and I spend a lot of time over there. There is a shop there called snowboard connection that would be my dream shop to own just with skis too. I think it could support a Newschool shop pretty easily. I would also like to check out SLC and see what it is like. But overall I want to have a ski and snowboard shop that is geared towards the younger crowd but have stuff for everyone. But for right now I really don't know exactly where I want to be. I'm just going to check things out and do some networking and hopefully in a few years I'll have a good idea of what I want to do.
I think rails in general are just a phase. - Anthony Boronowski

You know my steez.

Come on. Anyone?
I think rails in general are just a phase. - Anthony Boronowski

You know my steez.