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What do you want in a shop?
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With the world going the way it is, a lot of small shops are struggling to keep their heads above water. The days of going a to your local shop and picking up your skis for the season are gone, replaced by purchasing from shops online that sound small (a certain "ski barn") but in actuality have huge Wal*Mart sized warehouses to keep stock to ship online. Then the skis are brought to the small town shop for the mount and the techs have to physically pull the tag off from the online store. I've been there, it stinks.
As a 7 year employee of a small town shop, I am looking for ideas to keep us afloat. We arent going out of business, but its tight and with more money in the budget, we can better serve the community we come from as skiers and snowboarders.
What we cant do:
Prices are as low as we can go...Come January first when hardgoods go on sale, we make barely enough on a pair of skis to cover what we paid to have that ski shipped to us from the distributor. Prices can't really get any lower. It would seem the simple solution would be to match prices to online shops...that isnt going to happen. Shops have heating and electric bills, rents to pay on space, wages for techs, and a whole slew of other expences that need to be covered. The overhead is higher, so the prices need to stay about where they are.
What can we do?
Take hints from you guys. Shops are looking for ways to draw customers in again. We have had ideas from creating a more sparse gallary feel with pieces from local artisans around the shop, to incorporating a coffee bar or something of the like to the shop. The thought has cossed our mind to create a more freeride oriented shop away from the race lines we carry as well.
What I would like to hear is your input. What could a shop do to recieve your business in this world of online box stores and cutt throat price breaks?
PM's work. Responses in this thread work.
Thanks for your time!
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I think it all ties into having a good relationship and local presence in the area. I go out of my way (and pay a little bit more) to buy from my local shop because the guys who run it are cool and down to earth. You're never going to get those "bargain hunters" to stay loyal to a local shop so I don't know that I would waste my time trying to. Just work to support the local scene, represent your shop when you're out riding and have good customer service.
Also, one thing I love about my shop is that they will order anything for me out of the lines they carry (For instance they didn't carry SPK Pros but they carry Salomon. They ordered several sizes for me to try). Then they will sell it to me for "Minimum Advertised Price." A lot of kids don't buy locally because they think its tough to get exactly what they want. Get a few catalogs and leave them on the counters and make guys feel comfortable ordering through you instead of online. The margin isn't as great as selling stuff "in-store" but you'll have more customers.....
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sell the smaller brands which big shops don't. like switch gloves or 4frnt.
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My advice is to just have something other places don't. Part of the reason people loved Jibij so much was that they could go in and either lounge on a couch watching ski movies or they could browse the merchandise of cool new brands that nobody else carried. It was just a fun place to be for either hanging out or looking for new gear. It made for a very comfortable fun environment.
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make it a fun place to be, make a rail or two inside with drop in and what not and have skis set out that you can try out on the rails or just be able to bring in your own and shred. have ski movies paying, couches, and beezeys
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Really know the goods as much as possible so you can answer any question and teach the customer about the product. Also, noobs must be welcomed. Too many times have I walked into a new shop and get crappy service because I don't know the workers' names because I just found the shop. Local shops are all about service. If a customer is pleased with your help, they will change their want/need to go through you.
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an east cost shop that sells jibarish (sp?)
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make it a chilled shop. pump some ska music, and some oldschool rap stuff. like from jurrassic. be different from the gaper shops.
maybe create some own stickers for promotion, or get some stickers from brands and give them with the skis.
try to be personal and create a feeling that you care for the customer. i thought the idea with the rails and teh gap in the store was awesome. but dunno how big your store is. maybe set up a couch area with some mags like freeskier or powder mag and have freeski movies run in the back.
for the younger dudes, amybe you could get some tall hoodies to wear under the ski suit. some dope goggles would be sick. maybe when snow comes you could build a little setup infront of the store. that would def get you some attention.
or maybe start a crew. with a small sponsorship. i know a lot of smaller stores do that
anyways, that are just ideas which come to my mind. dunno if i helped you or not.
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already been said, but really just keep it a chill place. good music, ski movies and if possible brands no one else around, (so we can be spared of the guilt of buying saga, jiberish etc online.) Of course, get yourselves out there, make sure people know you're legit. find some people to rep for you or somethin.
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I feel for both sides of the argument here, and this will be quick and to the point.
But really...all these B&M stores...who just stayed B&M. I don't know how much sympathy I can feel for them. They let the internet era pass them by, and they never developed an online web presence to take them to the next level.
You can't sit idle and watch all your customers go online and buy stuff for low costs, and then not do the same thing yourself. (Be like skis.com, have a B&M store and sell stuff online and have an online department basically)
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