Girls Visiting Skate Shops - What Should new Skater Girls Do?

Question: Girls Visiting Skate Shops - What Should new Skater Girls Do?

A new female skater wrote and asked, "I have heard it is better to go to a skate shop to buy a skateboard. The only problem is that I know that a group of (male) skaters frequently hang around outside the shop and being female (and younger than them), I'm a little intimidated about going into the shop. I've also known a lot of people to be pretty skeptical about female skaters and I am nervous that the staff inside the shop may treat me differently because I am female and don't necessarily 'look' like a skater. Is this likely to happen or are most staff professional?"

Answer: Unfortunately, this is a very good question. Yeah, skater guys can be punks sometimes. Sorry. The staff at any skate shop SHOULD be professional and helpful, but there’s no way to know for sure if yours will be cool or not.

One idea would be to take some friends with you, just to lend support. An older brother could help, a father - really, anyone might help to make a female skater feel more confident.

Of course, you shouldn't have to bring anyone else along. The shop workers should be more professional, and in most cases you should be just fine. I know it’s intimidating to walk past those guys, but you shouldn’t be treated badly.

One way to feel more confident would be to know a little bit about what you want before you go into the shop. Take a look at this article on picking the right size skateboard parts for you. The people at the shop should help you with all of this, but having an idea ahead of time should help!

And if you still don’t want to go to the shop, you CAN buy your skateboarding from an online skateboard store. I would highly recommend going to the shop instead, but if you can’t, there are stores online that can help. They won’t have anywhere near as good of customer service, but they will work if there’s no other good option.

This is an important note to add for the shop owners or workers who might be reading this: this girl's concern is fairly common. Making sure that girl skaters, young skaters and new skaters all feel comfortable in your shop is very important if you want to grow your business!