Photo by John Hafner.
Joel Wilson
Central Coast Archery
San Luis Obispo, California
About once a year, we look at our existing brands and consider what else we might want to bring in. For example, this year, we brought in e-bikes and Sitka Gear apparel. We’re always trying to listen to our customers and keep everything looking fresh.
As for moving existing merchandise around, we do it monthly. We have a woman who comes in and refreshes existing displays and makes new ones. We like to mix things up so our customers aren’t so used to looking for certain items in the same exact spots. It causes customers to look around a little more, and that way they’ll notice things they didn’t notice before. Plus, our shop is quite small, so it doesn’t really frustrate our customers — they can still find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.
Our displays also build throughout the shop. In the front, they’re kind of low, in the middle they’re a little taller and in the back, they’re the tallest. From the back of the shop, a customer can see virtually everything in the store.
Probably our largest rotations happen before deer season in July and then in December for the Christmas season. Before hunting season, people are buying more bows, arrows and broadheads. During Christmas time, we’re selling more youth bows, recurve bows, bag targets and “gifty” items. We’ll also bring in various $20-or-less items such as slingshots that make good gifts and are easy add-on sales.
Inventory and merchandising displays fluctuate based on those seasonal shifts.
Andrew Nielsen
Anthem Archery
Decorah, Iowa
We like to rotate our merchandise seasonally. In January, we move a lot of target archery gear to the front. We try to highlight products like target sights, target bars and large-diameter shafts.
Soon after, new products launched at the ATA Show begin trickling in. Any new ones that excite us get highlighted so our customers can see what’s new right away when they walk in. In March, we bring forward and display turkey hunting products like decoys, maybe a ground blind and some calls.
By late spring and summer, we know our customers will be gearing up for deer season. At this time, we’ll bring forward our food plot seeds, trail cameras and other deer gear.
We also make shifts based on holidays. When Father’s Day is approaching, we’ll highlight things like small coolers and can coolers. Since Father’s Day is timed at the beginning of summer, these are great items to put in highly visible areas. Around Christmas, I have many youth-bow packages readily accessible to show folks who are shopping for their kids.
Bill Puruczky
The Archery Zone
Johnstown, Pennsylvania
I believe store size affects how often you can rotate. We would like to rotate more often, but our archery-only shop is small — about 1,000 square feet — so we rotate just a couple of times a year or once quarterly at most.
Our rotations are seasonal. We highlight certain items during deer season, and we highlight other items during the Christmas season. Crossbows seem to sell very well during the late bow season and leading up to Christmas. That goes for crossbow accessories, too. And then during the offseason, we have less merchandise, so we spread things out somewhat.
When new bows and accessories come in, we don’t hide them amongst everything else. We have special places for them right up front so that we can point them out right away when our customers ask us what’s new. That’s especially true if they are products we really believe in. One example is the Excalibur TwinStrike crossbow. We put it in a special place because it’s new technology and outstanding.
When we get busy and we’re trying to wait on multiple customers, it makes it easy to have new products highly visible. Either our customers find the products on their own, or we can quickly point them in the right direction. It works very well for us.
We’ve occasionally made mistakes. One time, we moved broadheads behind the counter. It didn’t work, and we learned our lesson on that one. We’ve rotated them to a new location where customers see them while we work on their bows. By putting broadheads right in front of them, they don’t have to look for them. They’re right there, and then our customers remember to grab a pack before they check out.
We don’t bother rotating small items like peep sights. We keep those and similar items in the back. Customers don’t really look for those. Most times it’s a given that we’re installing the peep sight for the customer anyway. In other words, it’s more or less automatic when someone’s buying a bow that they’ll ask for a peep or we’ll suggest one.
We’ll occasionally change the front counter around, too. Naturally, we’ll put impulse items there. These aren’t items that they came in looking for. But, they catch the customer’s eye, and it leads to frequent sales.
We also move the arrows around a little bit. Closer to target season, we put more target arrows out and cut back some on hunting arrows.
