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2015 is going to be your best year ever


Retail Tribe’s Ian James looks at how 2015 can be your most prosperous yet


t’s the start of a new year and the time for resolutions. In truth though, in too many cases it’s ‘hope’ that the New Year will bring good weather, more golfers and improved sales. Let’s change that. Let’s put simple plans in place that will deliver a better year, irrespective of the weather. I visited 38 Pro Shops in the United Kingdom over September and


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October, and a few more in November. My purpose was to ground myself in the problems you’re facing in the trenches and to seek out the ideas and opportunities for improvement. I was reminded that the general UK Pro Shop is not a Country Club


boutique with expansive floor space, high-end fittings and lots of staff. It is usually compact and, I add this kindly, steeped in the heritage that is golf in the UK. There’s one, maybe two staff trying to handle queries and customers, who seem to come in bursts between empty spaces. Product lifecycles are a challenge. Competition with the High Street and Internet is fierce. Customers know they have the power. This is retail, and I love it. No two clubs are the same, no two shops identical and each professional


has their own personality. But there were, with a few exceptions, some common challenges. This is the year that they should be faced and overcome. Here are three suggestions for you:


Improve your cash position by the end of 2015 I find PGA Professionals remarkably transparent. It makes my job of


providing advice easier. I was struck by the scale of cash challenge that many were facing or trying their hardest to avoid. It’s easy to see why there’s a cash problem. The amount of stock of golf balls and gloves, in almost all cases, was obscene. The amount of clothing stock was disproportionate to projected sales. In both cases it was clear that “stock pressure” is someone’s strategy for your shops. Let’s set out to fix those problems by the end of 2015. First, I’d love you to


make golf balls and gloves fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). And let’s implement a simple ‘open-to-buy’ buying system for apparel and footwear.


Golf Balls and Gloves If you are at 120 days of golf ball stock with an average gross margin of


25% then you are likely cash neutral for the year with a return on stock investment of about 100%. That is not good for the key FMCG product in your shop. Most shops I saw were between 120 and 180 days of golf ball stock.


Anything over 120 days is causing a really negative impact on your ability to trade, unless you are cash rich. Reducing your stock to 45 days will increase your return on stock


investment to around 300% (on golf balls) and mean that you are cash neutral in just four months (instead of 12). If you want to learn more about this and how to fix your golf and glove challenges, go to www.retailtribe.com/fastmoving.


Open-To-Buy This is a simple buying system where you set a financial limit to the


value and / or quantity of stock you are going to carry in any apparel sub- category (e.g. Men’s SS shirts, Men’s Winter Woollens). If the value of your stock on hand and orders placed has reached that


20 SGBGOLF


figure then you are NOT open to buy any more stock. The amount you can buy in any category is the value of the gap between your limit and the total of stock on hand and orders already placed. It’s a very simple process. The skill is in knowing enough about your


business to set the sub-category limits. If you want to learn more about Open-to-Buy then go to www.retailtribe.com/opentobuy.


Create your own Brand that your golfers appreciate very clearly In most shops I visited the Professional’s brand and his or her brand


messages were almost totally missing. If that wasn’t bad enough, in many, every message was about price, savings or promotions. That’s not the absence of a message, that’s the wrong message. The price, savings and promotions messages would have been fine if


they were within the context of powerful messaging that described how the Professional(s) delivered their expertise and value to the golfer. Even Aldi, the leader of the discount pack, has advertising in store, in


print and on TV, which does more than talk about price. They also talk about the quality of certain products in their range. Through November they were providing messages about ‘Christmas Cheer’. We’ve created some examples of good Brand messaging for PGA Professionals online at www.retailtribe.com/brandmessages.


Have a plan for your 2015 activities to engage with golfers If you’re a green-grass


Professional and you want to increase sales, then you have to increase the number of “engagements” you have with golfers each week. I ran a workshop in


December with about 25 Professionals and they each listed the number of engagements they had the previous week. An engagement was more than a chat and a query such as “How was your golf today?” It was at least five minutes of dedicated time with a golfer in an environment where the Professional could assess a skill or technique, and offer advice and guidance. Excluding the three full-time coaches present, the average number of engagements in the previous week had been eight. You should have a plan to push that up to over at least 30 engagements


with golfers in a week. Done correctly, that’s only about seven hours per week dedicated to engaging with golfers. If you’re going to do that then you need to create a plan for each month.


Create a calendar that is three months in advance with events, activities and skills challenges you are going to run. If you are three months in advance then you’ll have time to promote it correctly and to secure sponsorship from supplier partners. You’ll probably also be able to then add a social component to each activity, event or skills challenge, so that you can improve the club’s revenues as well.


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