Sarah - you didn’t have an online store and you created one with new items to buy? If so that’s GREAT!!!! How did you build it? You using Shopify? Wordpress?
So many companies in the endurance space have yet to do that. Way to move the business forward!
Yes! Thanks Jeff. It was something we’d wanted to do in the past and the pandemic forced to happen. We used Shopify because it was most user friendly and, because we are a super small business with no prior online sales other than race registrations, some of the other sites (like Square) wouldn’t support us. I mostly just fiddled around and set it up and then hired someone smarter than me for a couple of hours to help link it to our fb page and give some advice. In hindsight I would have hired someone to set up the page a bit better but at the time we were trying to be very lean and just get the darn thing live!
I love that story. There’s a really important lesson there that I’m going to write about. I think some people will read your comment and think “so they set up a store, big deal”. But the thing is, there are 20,000 other small events in the space who didn’t bother to see that new way to make money and then actually do it. And the reality is that your margins on merchandise (50%+) will be much greater than your margins on event production (<20%). Every single endurance company that went from small to large has a merchandise element that facilitates it. So kudos to you for stepping out of your comfort box and moving the business forward.
Thanks so much! We are still learning, but it has been super interesting and mostly positive. I appreciate the support and always educational/entertaining newsletters.
Has your company been innovating during the past year?
connecting with new athletes online, creating an online store and new items to buy, and trying to drive demand for our return to in person events.
Sarah - you didn’t have an online store and you created one with new items to buy? If so that’s GREAT!!!! How did you build it? You using Shopify? Wordpress?
So many companies in the endurance space have yet to do that. Way to move the business forward!
Yes! Thanks Jeff. It was something we’d wanted to do in the past and the pandemic forced to happen. We used Shopify because it was most user friendly and, because we are a super small business with no prior online sales other than race registrations, some of the other sites (like Square) wouldn’t support us. I mostly just fiddled around and set it up and then hired someone smarter than me for a couple of hours to help link it to our fb page and give some advice. In hindsight I would have hired someone to set up the page a bit better but at the time we were trying to be very lean and just get the darn thing live!
I love that story. There’s a really important lesson there that I’m going to write about. I think some people will read your comment and think “so they set up a store, big deal”. But the thing is, there are 20,000 other small events in the space who didn’t bother to see that new way to make money and then actually do it. And the reality is that your margins on merchandise (50%+) will be much greater than your margins on event production (<20%). Every single endurance company that went from small to large has a merchandise element that facilitates it. So kudos to you for stepping out of your comfort box and moving the business forward.
Thanks so much! We are still learning, but it has been super interesting and mostly positive. I appreciate the support and always educational/entertaining newsletters.