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Essay about Billabong

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Billabong was founded in the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia in 1973 by Gordon Merchant. At first, he designed and created the board shorts at his home and then sold them to local surf shops. Surfers soon realized the durability of Merchant's board shorts that was the result of his triple-stitching technique. Merchant understood that his company needed to expand to achieve success, so Billabong started to sponsor contests—these contests increased the public's awareness of Merchant's products and the company consequently expanded. By the 1980s, Billabong board shorts were present throughout Australia.[citation needed] Based upon his success in Australia, Merchant decided to export Billabong's products and, by the late 1980s, Merchant's …show more content…

The Tigerlily decision represented the first time that Billabong had acquired a brand that focused exclusively on the 'girls' market, and the intention of management was to position the new addition so that it complemented the company's own 'Billabongs Girls' line.[11] In 2008 Billabong continued with the consistent acquisition activity that occurred in 2007 and announced four acquisitions over four successive months. Following the acquisition of the Gold Coast store Kirra Surf in May, the company announced its acquisition of the retail operations of Quiet Flight, a retail company on the east coast of the US that had already been operating licensed Billabong and Element retail outlets in Times Square, New York, US. The Quiet Flight deal resulted in the addition of 14 Quiet Flight and Surf Warehouse retail stores, most of which were located in Florida, US.[12] Then in June 2008, the founders of the Sector 9 skateboard company accepted an offer from Billabong that also included the purchase of the Gullwing skateboard truck brand.[13] Finally in August, Billabong confirmed the acquisition of boardsport accessories brand DaKine, which specialises in backpacks, bags, gloves and accessories, in a press release that projected that "DaKine is expected to contribute approximately 4% of Billabong International Limited’s Group sales in the 2008-09 financial year".[14] Billabong's retail expansion continued later in the

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