Tux said..
If your doing a reasonable volume you are would be be paying about $200ish for the materials on a short board...whack on 8 hours labour at $50 an hour and your talking $600 for the finished board...this cost goes up obviously if your doing longer sticks. A lot of the guys down here don't do sell into shops or have a retails setup so they are reduce there over heads...generally its a shaping bay and glassing room with a few board racks out the front maybe some wax and shiz....no clothes...no wetsuits....
Not saying these blokes are not getting shafted by cheap often inferior chinese products just saying that there are alternate business models/setups for guys to try and make a buck...
Yahoo Surfboards in Dunsborough. A real surf store with boards from three different local shapers who do custom orders as well as all having boards on the racks. Next to these local boards is a selection of pop outs and where you can buy your hypo krypto to go with the beard you are working on. In the shop right next door is another local shaper who has the machine that cuts the pre-shapes for everyone. All these shapers then send their boards to The Factory for glassing by yet another bloke who does custom boards. None of these store sell board shorts or t-shirts.
By working together these five shapers - and others - utilise each other's skills, minimise overheads and specialise in an area to maximise revenue. So, like Tux and others have said, there are different models for business and the good shapers survive.
