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Retail efforts at many ski areas commonly lack the kind of allure and excitement that you would expect in a successful urban or suburban location. But thanks to a captive and engaged customer, the potential for sales gains is real.

In fact, there’s even more opportunity to boost retail sales today. As the number of down-country shops shrinks, those sales have to go somewhere. Why not to the resorts that these regular customers have already grown to know and trust?

To help resort retail shops become more attuned to the current retail environment and improve their bottom-line performance, SAM turned to some of the most widely traveled and knowledgeable retail observers around: manufacturer’s representatives. Here is their advice.


Firing Up Retail
What are ski-area retail shops doing right? What could they be doing better?

For starters, the reps agree, area shops should recognize, and take advantage of, the character of their audience. Their potential customers are enthusiastic about skiing and snowboarding; after all, by coming to the ski area, they are already engaged in the sport. This offers a distinct advantage over urban and non-area retailers. There is no need to create shop displays or offer other enticements to lure customers into the world of winter sports—they are already there.

But often, resort retail operations fail to tap into that enthusiasm. One reason for that, says Marc Lee, a Colorado rep for K2: they fail to employ shop personnel who match that customer enthusiasm. “The biggest issue I see is employees, clerks who are not there to help or engage the customers,” says Lee. It’s a critical point, he says, and the solution should be relatively simple: hire the right personalities, and spend extra time to train them properly.

“Staff training is the obvious thing,” agrees Chris Tiller, northern California rep for Salomon. “At the end of the day, the more knowledgeable your staff is, the more effective your sales efforts will be.”

Finding the right mix of products becomes the next challenge. It is inevitable, perhaps, that accessories will be an area shop’s overwhelming product category, at least in terms of units sold. Will Masson, an Eastern rep for Rossignol, estimates the typical category breakdown for an area shop is 50 percent accessories, 30 percent softgoods, and 20 percent hardgoods. That works to resorts’ favor, if only because the retail margin on accessories is fairly high.

Leslie Betts, a Burton rep in the Rocky Mountain region, urges area shops to “focus on accessories.” She notes that for snowboarding, that product mix should include replacement parts, especially binding parts that are known for breakage.

Yet an accessories focus doesn’t mean simply tossing bins of gloves and neck gaiters out on the shop floor. Instead, says Betts, the ski side of the business could learn from snowboarding, which has a track record of presenting merchandise with eye-catching razzle-dazzle.

Appearance and style matter. Many resort retail customers are used to sophisticated retail operations at the mall and in urban specialty stores. Resort operations have to match these examples if they want to convince well-heeled guests to pay top dollar for high-end goods.

“Displays and product assortments should be bright, colorful, and fun,” says Betts. By way of example, she adds, “Our (Burton’s) color story can really speak to customers.” Burton helps its retailers by providing a free supply of point-of-purchase (POP) displays and racks.

When it comes to company-provided display materials, free or otherwise, Tiller urges retailers to get in the game early. Many suppliers allocate POP materials on a first-come, first-served basis. He concedes that this can be a challenge for resort shops, which typically start setting up displays later than non-area retailers. But there’s no real reason resort retail shops can’t get requests in to suppliers early.


Big-Ticket Items
While accessories might be an area shop’s essential bread and butter, the shrinking number of urban and suburban retail shops provides an opening for resort retail shops to pick up sales of big-ticket apparel and hard goods items. Question is, how should these be integrated into the product mix?

Be selective, says Lee—that’s one of his first commandments. Retail space at most area shops is constricted, and more does not necessarily mean better. Area shops are often “really small and really crowded (with products),” Lee says. “It is not a great shopping environment.”

Often, less is more. Many customers feel overwhelmed by the dozens of different models on the “ski wall” at a typical downcountry retail shop. By being selective, and thus helping customers narrow their choices, resort shops can make buying decisions easier.

Tiller agrees. “Retailers are often trying to pack too much merchandise in,” he says. “The rule should be ‘clean, not cluttered.’” Masson is on board with this idea as well. “The simpler [the way that products] are merchandised, the easier it is for a consumer already overwhelmed by all of the other logistics of a day of skiing,” he says.

For both hardgoods and softgoods, then, fewer models that are well presented stand a better chance of selling than bombarding customers with a large array of choices. That might mean limiting shop offerings to models from just one or two brands. In that case, a resort retailer should work cooperatively with other area departments, the rental shop and ski school in particular, in choosing those brands, to maximize the shop’s relationship with its suppliers.

Such a cooperative effort could provide “an opportunity to brand your area,” as Tiller puts it. If an area were to combine, say, its rental brand and/or staff uniform brand with its retail offerings, it would certainly increase its buying leverage with that particular company. Masson points out that a larger buy can also lead a company to waive charges for branded display racks and other merchandising materials, and lead to better product pricing overall.

Of course, a closer affiliation with the rental program can have a direct impact on retail sales. Masson feels that not many areas are taking full advantage of this connection. “You have a lot of people who are trying equipment [through rentals], but that’s not turning into sales,” he says. He suggests that areas could be much more active in promoting retail sales through rental or demo programs, perhaps even going so far as to offer guided demo tours.

But back to the shop. The chief recommendations from reps are now clear:

• Take advantage of an enthusiastic, captive audience.

• Make the effort to train retail staff properly.

• Reduce clutter, keep the shop organized and easy to navigate.

• Don’t confuse the consumer with too many choices.

• Liven things up with colorful, eye-catching displays.


Display Rotation
Masson thinks another important piece of the merchandising puzzle is display rotation. “Rotating window displays is a very good idea,” agrees Tiller.

The aim is to keep the shop fresh in the minds of customers. Most ski areas have repeat customers who might pass by retail displays many times during the course of a season. For those potential customers, it is important to present a new look on a regular basis, perhaps even weekly, Masson says. Expose them to all that the shop has to offer, give them a reason to come in and look around. They may well find something that they need or want and can put to use immediately. That’s a powerful sales tool.

At the very least, displays should reflect changes in the weather and the seasons. For example, goggles that were big sellers in December should probably be replaced in March with sunglasses. Insulated parkas should be swapped out in spring for shells and fleece. This is not just an accessories issue: retailers should make the effort to fully reinvent their shops during the course of a season to reflect what customers want or need at the moment.

Tiller adds one more element to the formula—cross merchandising. Many consumers, women in particular, want some kind of color coordination across all their gear. It helps to assemble combined softgoods and hardgoods displays, or separate displays that work in tandem, at least on a color basis. These make it easy for customers to see themselves in this gear.


When All Else Fails . . .
If the entire retail operation starts to become daunting, there is one radical alternative to all of this, says Lee: let somebody else do it.

Hear him out:

In his territory, he has seen a trend toward farming out the retail business. For example, this is what behemoth Vail Resorts did several years ago in turning over its retail operations to Specialty Sports Ventures (SSV), which was managed and co-owned by the Gart family. SSV is now wholly-owned by Vail, but the expertise came from an experienced urban retailer.

Of course, Vail, due to its size, doesn’t always present a model for most ski-area operators to follow. Still, says Lee, “this could be a smart move for area operators that don’t have expertise in merchandising.” With the pressure many urban and suburban sports retailers are feeling, perhaps they would be willing to collaborate with their erstwhile resort competitors, and create a win-win for both.

In short, if you aren’t, and can’t become, a top-drawer retailer yourself, partner with someone who can.