The Boarding Company Limited - Our History
The Boarding Company Limited, trading as Absolute-Snow, grew out of a passion for all outdoor extreme sports - on mountains, on water and in the streets.
From the beginning it was obvious that:
* Some of these sports could be expensive to participate in.
* Most high street shops offered very poor value for money.
* The range of equipment on offer could be confusing and bewildering.
* Most extreme sports websites were, at the time, run by shop keepers who did not understand or properly cater for the needs of online customers.
So, bit by bit, we set about so to sort this little lot out!
September 2004
We started off really and truly offering bargain boards - or bargain snowboards to be precise - on a website called BargainBoards.co.uk. The website was home made, without a shopping cart so you couldn't even pay online!
September 2005
New professional website launched with loads of revolutionary design and technical features, many of which are now common place. Easy navigation, top quality photos and expert written product descriptions were fundamentals which remain with us today.
April 2006
We moved to bigger premises but we were not there for long!
October 2007
Watersports department launched.
September 2008
We moved into a brand new warehouse, with new offices and a new revolutionary concept in retailing a riders lounge style cyber shop where you could buy online but look at and touch the gear as well. This way, we could offer a larger choice than any high street shop!
May 2009
Our neighbours, the Hemel Snow Centre, opened their indoor real snow ski slope.
October 2009
Our third website design went live.
June 2010
With a growing team and more products than ever, we more than doubled our warehouse and office space.
September 2010
To complement our stock clearance outlet, BargainBoards, we launched Absolute-Snow.
June 2011
Our Rock Climbing and Outdoors department went live, for all your rock climbing, mountaineering, hiking and walking equipment.
July 2011
We opened two shops at The XC - one of Europe's biggest indoor extreme sports centres.
January 2012
We dropped the name BargainBoards in favour of Absolute-Snow.
July 2013
Our fourth website design was launched.
April 2014
We closed our shops at XC because they were too small and could only carry a small fraction of the 30,000+ products in stock in our main shop and warehouse, just one mile down the road.
January 2015
We uploaded the 100,000th product onto our website.
June 2015
Website was awarded "Google Certified Shop" status and became SSL certificated.
September 2017
Selected by Burton to be the only UK e-commerce retailer to stock and sell the fantastic new Burton Step On Bindings system in the launch year.
September 2017
Website number five went live.
September 2018
Relocated to much bigger premises in Watford, which enabled a 400% increase in the size of our shop.
March 2020
We acquired the Freeze Pro Shop trade name and website
2021 & 2022
We survived Covid 19. With travel bans and ski resorts closed it was a very difficult period for the entire snow industry. With China continuing to lock down entire cities throughout 2022, supply chain disruptions will continue into 2023 and even 2024. We hope you and your loved ones managed to come through unscathed and are ready to visit the mountains.
2023
Due to the continued growth of our water sports division, we are launching a brand new website dedicated to water sports customers over at Action Sports International. Absolute-Snow will focus solely on mountains sports.
March 2023
Brand new website launched at Absolute-Snow.co.uk!