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Kite Fix Economics 101
By Mark Rivers/www.KiteFix.com

Originally Published in the December 2009 Issue of The Kiteboarder Magazine

So here is the situation… You lent your kite to your “buddy” and he went and landed it on a stick he didn’t see on the beach. Now your favorite 2007 kite has a two foot long tear down the middle of the canopy. So now what?

kite-repair

As much as we would all love to go out and buy brand new 2010 kites with all the great bells and whistles, not all of us can. So if you want to continue kiting, you will have to get your kite fixed. You could try putting some tape on the kite and hope that it holds for the rest of the season, but if you want to do a more permanent repair, you are left with two major options:

  • 1. Send your kite to a reputable company to get repaired
  • 2. Repair it yourself using KiteFix

Given these two options, if you are on a kite trip in some exotic location, or you don’t want to wait and miss the only wind you have had in the last two months, fix the kite with KiteFix. If you have time and access to a reputable repair company, you may ask yourself which option is better for the resale value of your kite when you decide to sell it and upgrade to a brand new crispy 2010.

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To answer this question, I gathered some data from iKitesurf (www.ikitesurf.com) on used kites, their prices, the presence or lack of damage, and then then compared repair costs to determine the “cash in my pocket” once all
was said and done. Here is what I found out:

  • Kite resale asking prices for 3-year -old major brand kit es are approximately $440 US regardless of kite size.
  • The average price of 2007 major brand kites without tears or repairs is approximately $460 US (22 cases).
  • The average price of 2007 major brand kites with some form of tear or repair is approximately $390 US (10 cases).

Damage your kite and you will lose approximately 20% or $70 US of the value when you go to sell your 3-year-old kite (It is interesting to note that when I compared 2009 12m major kite brands, this same 20% rule applied. I used 2007 kites for comparison as that year had the most data for the comparison). Now consider the two options we spoke about earlier: To send your kite out to get fixed or to fix it yourself. Here are the average prices including shipping you will pay (minimum) to get your kite fixed:

  • Kite sent to reputable company : $90 ($20 shipping both ways plus $50 minimum for the repair), or”¦
  • DYI with KiteFix Complete Repair Kit : $55

So given the above we can calculate the “cash in pocket” as follows :

  • Kite sent off to be repaired: $390 – $90 = $300 cash in pocket.
  • Kite repaired with KiteFix: $390 – $55 = $345 cash in pocket.

So your final cash is pocket is more when you use KiteFix, but to do a 100% scientific comparison, one would have to look at the price of kites repaired by a reputable company versus the prices of kites repaired with KiteFix. Unfortunately there is not enough data to do this comparison at this time, however if we assume, rightly or wrongly, that you will get less for a DYI repaired kite with KiteFix, you still end up with about the same cash in pocket regardless of the repair option you choose. So what does this mean?

SUMMARY:

  • How you fix your kite will not significantly impact the “cash in your pocket” when you go to sell it.
  • How you fix your kite depends on the type of person you are and your willingness to wait for your kite to get repaired.
  • If you are not a DYI type of person, and don’t mind waiting for your kite to be repaired, send it to a reputable company.
  • If you are a DYI type of person, can’t wait or don’t want to miss sessions, use KiteFix.

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LINKS:

Some reputable shops doing kite repairs:
www.airtimekite.com
www.fixmykite.com
www.windfiredesigns.com

KITEFIX DEALERS NEAR YOU:

www.kitefix.com/dealers/map.php?&page=dealers