VH Footwear/TRUE by Scott Van Horne

[Sniper9 530]

9 minutes ago, D1VE said:

Finally made it into Pure Hockey to double-check against True's own brannock, as per instructed directly from True.

Lo and behold.....their brannock says 8.5 or just under. They made the skate from a 9 and stuffed the toe box.

Moral of the story: listen to the smart folks on this forum and don't depend solely on the scan! The more info they have to work with, the better off you'll be.

Funny little side note: the reps at the store didn't even know they had a brannock specifically from True, I had to insist they look for it for me. The amount of misinformation / general lack of knowledge through this process has been nothing short of astounding for a big box store. Wonder how aware True is that they're paying the price because people aren't properly trained from the get-go? Something to ponder.

 

The thing is. They stuffed the toe box... Meaning they KNEW the skate length was wrong and tried to reduce it with the toe plugs... So what does that say?  If the skates were too large and they didn't stuff to then fine, scan issue and wrong length.. but the fact they stuffed it shows they had a boot too big and knew it was too bit for your feet and just filled it with foam... That's the issue I have. 

I know there is foam inside the toe box for comfort. Mine has it.  It's a diff foam that's permanently affixed to add padding and comfort and dampen vibration. However, my right skate does have a piece of red Eva in the toe box and I'm pretty sure they did this bc my right foot is about 1/4-1/2 a size smaller than my left foot. Both skates are identical in size, so they did this to account for the different size feet. It doesnt bother me that much because the difference is 1-2 mms.. but it also makes you wonder how custom this skate is if they need to do this even to solve a couple mm difference when they advertise the skate being built inside out, which clearly they aren't. 

Edited December 27, 2018 by Sniper9

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

3 hours ago, Sniper9 said:

The thing is. They stuffed the toe box... Meaning they KNEW the skate length was wrong and tried to reduce it with the toe plugs... So what does that say?  If the skates were too large and they didn't stuff to then fine, scan issue and wrong length.. but the fact they stuffed it shows they had a boot too big and knew it was too bit for your feet and just filled it with foam... That's the issue I have. 

I know there is foam inside the toe box for comfort. Mine has it.  It's a diff foam that's permanently affixed to add padding and comfort and dampen vibration. However, my right skate does have a piece of red Eva in the toe box and I'm pretty sure they did this bc my right foot is about 1/4-1/2 a size smaller than my left foot. Both skates are identical in size, so they did this to account for the different size feet. It doesnt bother me that much because the difference is 1-2 mms.. but it also makes you wonder how custom this skate is if they need to do this even to solve a couple mm difference when they advertise the skate being built inside out, which clearly they aren't. 

On 12/21/2018 at 9:23 AM, flip12 said:

 

If the Foam is red that's the liner foam not added. All added foam is black. 

[Sniper9 530]

10 hours ago, oldtrainerguy28 said:

If the Foam is red that's the liner foam not added. All added foam is black. 

It doesn't make sense then because the left doesn't have it and has the permanent dark grey looking foam that you have you chisel off. I can see that the red Eva foam liner is taped on for my right skate. Both skates are the same size, and my right foot is smaller, so in my case I am positive the red liner that is taped is to reduce the length. 

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

I dont know what to tell you. in the 3 years I have been fitting these skates the red has always been the top cap liner. Not and extra and never taped.

[Sniper9 530]

2 hours ago, oldtrainerguy28 said:

I dont know what to tell you. in the 3 years I have been fitting these skates the red has always been the top cap liner. Not and extra and never taped.

I wouldn't lie. I'll take pics when I get a chance

[smu 29]

23 minutes ago, Sniper9 said:

I wouldn't lie. I'll take pics when I get a chance

I agree with OldTrainer red is the regular, when added foam was put in after mine were first sent back the foam was dense and in smaller pieces and taped in place. My photos are 3 or 4 weeks back.

Alan

[shoot_the_goalie 281]

Same here.  Red foam adhered in both skates.  Black foam is the added insert that was taped in.

[Sniper9 530]

Is the red foam adhered to the entire toe cap? I'll take pictures later 

[Vet88 674]

The red foam will cover the area from where the liner ends on one side to the liner on the other side. It doesn't cover the roof of the toe cap. This is used primarily to prevent any carbon splinters getting into your toes and as a comfort addition, it is a finishing product they use.

Edited December 27, 2018 by Vet88

[Sniper9 530]

You guys were right. It is red. And my right skate has the softer black foam that reduces the length a touch for me. It was just weird bc the black down was only inserted around the big toe area so when I looked in the skate and saw the red around the lateral side, it looked as if the red was added on top. I confirmed the left side is all red. 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Sniper9

[smu 29]

The red foam feels like plumber's pudy and I was told it is 1.5 mm thick, not much, but that was the standard.

Alan

[CigarScott 132]

On 12/25/2018 at 9:38 PM, Nicholas G said:

The profit margin on all custom skates is very low. If a manufacturer has to make more than a single pair of skates you can assume they are likely breaking even or losing money. 

You would obviously know more than the average beer leaguer when it comes to wholesale costs and being able to make an educated guess as to what it costs true to produce a pair of skates. In the case of my skates, I have no idea how True could have even broke even on my order. I would assume that you know what the exact wholesale costs are for their skates, but I’m sure True wouldn’t want that made public.

I’m going to do some rudimentary math to see what their potential costs were for my order. In my case, I paid $839 US (plus tax) on my boot-only order. From my understanding from what I’ve gathered from people I’ve know who’ve worked at an LHS, most products are keystone so even if I round up and say that they wholesale for $450, I would assume that True would keystone to the retailer and their production costs is $225. Under this assumption, before shipping and what not, True would break even when they build a customer a second pair but when you factor in all the shipping costs for the old pair to be return, the new ones being sent and then sent back and returned, along with footbed requests, unless they’ve figured out how to make a pair skates for like $20, they’ve had to have taken a bath.

Sent initial pair via FedEx Ground to retailer – Manitoba to Texas - $20

Pair returned to via FedEx International 2 day – Alabama to Manitoba - $50

Replacement pair sent FedEx Ground to retailer – Manitoba to Texas - $20

Additional footbeds sent via FedEx Ground – Manitoba to Alabama - $15

Replacement pair sent back to True for modifications via FedEx Int. 2 Day – Alabama to Manitoba - $50

Skates returned after their tweaking via FedEx Int. 2 day – Manitoba to Alabama - $50

So based on my conservative estimates, True spent over $200 on just shipping costs for my order.

It may make sense for True to farm out some of their customer service functions for the US market to their parent company’s HQ in Memphis or somewhere else that they have facilities. It would save them tons of time and money by not having to paying international shipping and dealing with customs for things like customers requesting additional footbeds or replacement tongues, etc. It may make sense for them to freight their retail orders once a week or in some other scheduled interval to Memphis and then shipping them out of there since, depending on their volume, should save money by eliminating a lot of international shipping. But these decisions are for people that are way smarter than me. I fully understand that they’re getting commercial rates which are far better than if I went to FedEx and paid for the same service but if I was True’s accountant or their parent company’s accountant, I’d have a stroke every time I received the monthly bill from FedEx.

I think a lot of the problems that True are having know is the growing pains of expanding from beyond specialty hockey shops with knowledgeable, experienced employees who’ve been fitting skates for years and into the “big box” hockey shops where the employee knowledge can be hit or miss. I think it is great that there is the demand and enough retailers who want to carry the product which makes it more available to the general public as a year ago, I would have had to have traveled to north of the Mason-Dixon Line to get fitted but now that they’re expanding beyond the West Side Skates of the world so they’re going to run into inexperienced fitters or less-than-ideal scanning environments.

Another issue that I don’t think anyone has mentioned is that with the expanding availability of and I assume increase in order volume, that they’ve had to have hired additional people to build the skates and that their inexperience perhaps is also causing issues. I would assume that their long-time employees would be exclusively working on their NHL and other pro orders, so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit that the pairs that I’ve gotten from them along with others on here were made by newer, less-experienced employees. It seems like no one that hasn’t work for True really has any idea how incoming orders are reviewed, how QC checks are made, and so on so it’s anyone’s guess as to how many sets of eyes are reviewing scan info, notes, etc. and comparing them to the finished product. From what I’ve gathered on here and other hockey nerd forums is that they’re having issues with about one in twenty orders so if they keep their problem orders to less than 5% then they should be able to weather the baths that they have to take to make things right for me and the others with less-than-ideal results.

[smu 29]

I have emailed Rob with QC and customer contact suggestions.

Nothing more I can do!

 

Alan

[JR Boucicaut 3802]

Custom skates aren't keystone.

In True's case, it's cash and carry, which was good for these smaller stores to be able to sell skates.

[Giltis 116]

21 hours ago, JR Boucicaut said:

Custom skates aren't keystone.

In True's case, it's cash and carry, which was good for these smaller stores to be able to sell skates.

I'm sorry I'm not familiar with the terms, what does this mean?

[CigarScott 132]

4 minutes ago, Giltis said:

I'm sorry I'm not familiar with the terms, what does this mean?

It's a retail term, not specific to hockey equipment. Keystoning is when the markup from wholesale is 100% or doubling so if a product wholesales to the retailer for $100 then the retailer would charge $200. If that same item is keystoned by the manufacturer then their production costs would be $50 for said item.

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/keystone-pricing-in-retail-2890192

[Cavs019 708]

Does True sell insoles separately? I’ve finally joined the cult and need an extra set. Or anyone have any extra pair for a 7ish boot?

[VegasHockey 1280]

1 minute ago, Cavs019 said:

Does True sell insoles separately? I’ve finally joined the cult and need an extra set. Or anyone have any extra pair for a 7ish boot?

I can send you a pair. You need the blue and red? 

[Sniper9 530]

3 hours ago, Cavs019 said:

Does True sell insoles separately? I’ve finally joined the cult and need an extra set. Or anyone have any extra pair for a 7ish boot?

I also have a pair that I don't use since I'm using speed plates. One is an 8 the other is a 7.. I'm sure you can just trim the 8 down .. not sure why they put an 8 in one of mine since it's more of a 7.5 but I guess they didn't have half sizes in insoles? 

I'm sure they will send u ones if you email them. They sent me extra red insoles via registered mail for free. 

[CigarScott 132]

They'll ship you some more no charge if you contact customer service.

[Paddy 11]

On 12/26/2018 at 8:51 PM, D1VE said:

Finally made it into Pure Hockey to double-check against True's own brannock, as per instructed directly from True....

 

Where is your local pure hockey?

 

I'm in a situation where I have one closer to home (<1hr drive), and another 5min from work (work is 1.5-2hrs from home).

 

Anyway, the PH near work is super convenient, but their skate fitting was a joke when I got my last pair. A couple teenagers, occasionally walking by, who'd go in the back to grab something I ask for. It took hours to try on 4 pairs. The other PH has a fitter who's been talked about on this site as good. My locations are Sterling and Rockville.

I wish there was a prideful, knowledgeable, local shop that did custom skate fittings around me.

[smu 29]

Regarding the True Braddock device I asked one of the salesman to see if he had a True device that was supposed to be sent to them and measure my size 5 foot in Bauer skates. I was measured as a size 6 skate which is absolutely wrong in my situation, but then I notice this was not a True issued scale, I missed that. 

I use my shoe size of 7 and go down two sizes and once kicked backwards on the heel and laced up I am pulled away from any touching of the end of the toe.

lastvSpringci was able to get a 4.5 Tack on and it fit well except it was a D and I desperately needed a C width. I am told that CCM had a little problem with their sizing then, so the 4.5 boot was explained.

The LHS did not know if he had a True device or did not know if there were any differences! With a Bauer skate I usually go 2 sizes smaller.

i would not think that a Braddock device would be different whatever the name on it.  

Am glad I did not use one last Spring or I might have gotten a much too small pair of True skates.

[raganblink 82]

On 12/30/2018 at 9:05 AM, Paddy said:

Where is your local pure hockey?

 

I'm in a situation where I have one closer to home (<1hr drive), and another 5min from work (work is 1.5-2hrs from home).

 

Anyway, the PH near work is super convenient, but their skate fitting was a joke when I got my last pair. A couple teenagers, occasionally walking by, who'd go in the back to grab something I ask for. It took hours to try on 4 pairs. The other PH has a fitter who's been talked about on this site as good. My locations are Sterling and Rockville.

I wish there was a prideful, knowledgeable, local shop that did custom skate fittings around me.

And that becomes a problem when there are more guy's in hockey (or any hobby, really) to make a buck rather than trying to make things right for the customer to leave them genuinely happy with their purchase which will ensure less money spent in the future.

Don't get me wrong - the goal of running a store is to make money - you're dumb if you don't - but the best way to make your money is to build something over long periods of time and create a well-known, knowledgeable, respected store that takes pride in making sure the customer gets the best thing for the customer, even if it means that customer won't spend as much with you in the future. Instead of the current status quo with a lot of stores in the US - which is let's just try to make as much money as possible every year, even if it means selling product that won't leave the customer satisfied. We have a AAA team which has kids come in from all over the country - these kids are 18-15 - and it is insane at how many of them have ill-fitting skates. I had one in today, he's 17 and has skates that have 2 inches between his toe sweat and the edge of the footbed. I know that's not a sure fire way of finding out the correct length, but, I know you're not supposed to have 2 inches between your toe sweat and the end! Whoever sold him skates didn't give two shits about proper fit. And now his less than 6 month old JetSpeed FT1s are going bad on him because he doesn't fill the skate out correctly and is causing a crease because of it. 

[Sk8Stk 39]

On 12/28/2018 at 1:54 AM, CigarScott said:

You would obviously know more than the average beer leaguer when it comes to wholesale costs and being able to make an educated guess as to what it costs true to produce a pair of skates. In the case of my skates, I have no idea how True could have even broke even on my order. I would assume that you know what the exact wholesale costs are for their skates, but I’m sure True wouldn’t want that made public.

I’m going to do some rudimentary math to see what their potential costs were for my order. In my case, I paid $839 US (plus tax) on my boot-only order. From my understanding from what I’ve gathered from people I’ve know who’ve worked at an LHS, most products are keystone so even if I round up and say that they wholesale for $450, I would assume that True would keystone to the retailer and their production costs is $225. Under this assumption, before shipping and what not, True would break even when they build a customer a second pair but when you factor in all the shipping costs for the old pair to be return, the new ones being sent and then sent back and returned, along with footbed requests, unless they’ve figured out how to make a pair skates for like $20, they’ve had to have taken a bath.

Sent initial pair via FedEx Ground to retailer – Manitoba to Texas - $20

Pair returned to via FedEx International 2 day – Alabama to Manitoba - $50

Replacement pair sent FedEx Ground to retailer – Manitoba to Texas - $20

Additional footbeds sent via FedEx Ground – Manitoba to Alabama - $15

Replacement pair sent back to True for modifications via FedEx Int. 2 Day – Alabama to Manitoba - $50

Skates returned after their tweaking via FedEx Int. 2 day – Manitoba to Alabama - $50

So based on my conservative estimates, True spent over $200 on just shipping costs for my order.

It may make sense for True to farm out some of their customer service functions for the US market to their parent company’s HQ in Memphis or somewhere else that they have facilities. It would save them tons of time and money by not having to paying international shipping and dealing with customs for things like customers requesting additional footbeds or replacement tongues, etc. It may make sense for them to freight their retail orders once a week or in some other scheduled interval to Memphis and then shipping them out of there since, depending on their volume, should save money by eliminating a lot of international shipping. But these decisions are for people that are way smarter than me. I fully understand that they’re getting commercial rates which are far better than if I went to FedEx and paid for the same service but if I was True’s accountant or their parent company’s accountant, I’d have a stroke every time I received the monthly bill from FedEx.

I think a lot of the problems that True are having know is the growing pains of expanding from beyond specialty hockey shops with knowledgeable, experienced employees who’ve been fitting skates for years and into the “big box” hockey shops where the employee knowledge can be hit or miss. I think it is great that there is the demand and enough retailers who want to carry the product which makes it more available to the general public as a year ago, I would have had to have traveled to north of the Mason-Dixon Line to get fitted but now that they’re expanding beyond the West Side Skates of the world so they’re going to run into inexperienced fitters or less-than-ideal scanning environments.

Another issue that I don’t think anyone has mentioned is that with the expanding availability of and I assume increase in order volume, that they’ve had to have hired additional people to build the skates and that their inexperience perhaps is also causing issues. I would assume that their long-time employees would be exclusively working on their NHL and other pro orders, so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit that the pairs that I’ve gotten from them along with others on here were made by newer, less-experienced employees. It seems like no one that hasn’t work for True really has any idea how incoming orders are reviewed, how QC checks are made, and so on so it’s anyone’s guess as to how many sets of eyes are reviewing scan info, notes, etc. and comparing them to the finished product. From what I’ve gathered on here and other hockey nerd forums is that they’re having issues with about one in twenty orders so if they keep their problem orders to less than 5% then they should be able to weather the baths that they have to take to make things right for me and the others with less-than-ideal results.

Would like to shut a few of these points down before people read them and run with them, because some are just not true at all. I won't touch your early logistics / customer service points because those are just opinion and speculation, but want to talk specifically about your remarks in regard to the employees at the factory.

I work closely with Scott, amongst others, at the factory on a near daily basis and believe I can give a small amount of insight into the operation today. I can assure you that there are no "older employees" that exclusively work on elite level boots. The same people that are making your skates are making NHL boots - no separate workers at all. NHL players, in most instances, have had several pairs made for them in the past. As they have worn and adjusted these past pairs, all feedback is recorded in their file for future manufacturing reference. This information is used in the making of future skates for this player, so less adjustment is needed by the equipment manager / brand rep. No different in a retail skater ordering a second pair of boots a few years down the road - I always have to do less work the second time as True is so thorough with accomodation.  

In a first pair of skates I make for a retail skater, I may need to spend 15-20 additional minutes after the bake tweaking the boots to their liking - this is what they are designed to allow. This has nothing to do with how the boots are made / measured at the factory, but instead accommodating for personal preference and comfort - every skater is different in this area. I want to echo what another poster said where most people posting here online are not the ones that love their skates and could never use anything else, as most of those people do not seek out forums for feedback. Most posters here are the ones either skeptical or encountering issues.  From my experience, 1 in 20 is not even close to the issues I have encountered, and I would be pretty surprised to hear if that has been the case for even newer, less experienced pro shops. In the last 400 pairs made, I have only sent back about 4, maybe 5. These were some more peculiar cases with very large or small skaters that required a bit more attention by the factory - all customers were completely pleased with the remade pairs. 

Please reach out if anyone has additional questions or is in search of skate support, but just wanted to chime in before incorrect facts start spreading. The factory is pushing out better quality products than I have ever seen before, so I can assure everyone that your file is not being neglected or disregarding specific details due to overall expansion.

 

[Superjet 6]

4 hours ago, Sk8Stk said:

The same people that are making your skates are making NHL boots - no separate workers at all. NHL players, in most instances, have had several pairs made for them in the past. As they have worn and adjusted these past pairs, all feedback is recorded in their file for future manufacturing reference. This information is used in the making of future skates for this player, so less adjustment is needed by the equipment manager / brand rep. No different in a retail skater ordering a second pair of boots a few years down the road - I always have to do less work the second time as True is so thorough with accomodation.  

In a first pair of skates I make for a retail skater, I may need to spend 15-20 additional minutes after the bake tweaking the boots to their liking - this is what they are designed to allow. This has nothing to do with how the boots are made / measured at the factory, but instead accommodating for personal preference and comfort - every skater is different in this area. I want to echo what another poster said where most people posting here online are not the ones that love their skates and could never use anything else, as most of those people do not seek out forums for feedback. Most posters here are the ones either skeptical or encountering issues.  From my experience, 1 in 20 is not even close to the issues I have encountered, and I would be pretty surprised to hear if that has been the case for even newer, less experienced pro shops. In the last 400 pairs made, I have only sent back about 4, maybe 5. These were some more peculiar cases with very large or small skaters that required a bit more attention by the factory - all customers were completely pleased with the remade pairs. 

 

I won’t disagree that most people only bother to review things when they’ve had a bad experience, but LOL this is such BS. 

Why isn’t everyone made aware of a “Pro fit” option?  I wasn’t, even afer an ill fitting first pair.   Also you cant claim everyone was satisfied after the remake. The second pair I had made fit no different than the first even after you spent two hours trying to narrow the heels. I gave up on them but I still say True does not have the capability to make a skate that propely fits a smaller foot with a narrow heel.  Not “Truly Custom” as advertised.