Why industry data is important for specialty retailers.
Posted by
TrackFly Sept 10th 2024
The begining of Modern Skate and Surf
MARK
George, could you tell me a little bit about the history of Modern Skate and Surf, you've been around since 1979 is that right?
GEORGE
That's correct. I went to Venice Beach in 1979 from Michigan to visit some friends that moved out there and we went down to Venice Beach and I saw waves crashing in and girls and bikinis and Muscle Beach and skateboarders and I thought to myself I want to bring that lifestyle back to Michigan.
So I opened it in September of 1979 with $1,000 and I've been trying to make that $ thousand back ever since.
"I got up to five locations including two indoor skate parks and was continuing to work on opening more locations throughout the Midwest..."
MARK
Let me ask you, George, so you've been around for so long you've had multiple locations in the past, what is would you say it was one of the biggest challenges that you had as an independent retailer and how did you overcome it?
GEORGE
Yeah, so my original goal was to open up 25 stores and have somebody come and write me a check you know? I was pretty successful with the first store and then quickly into a second store I got up to five locations including two indoor skate parks and was continuing to work on opening more locations throughout the Midwest then 911 came along and slowed things down a little bit and then 2008 came along and almost took me out so I ended up having to close four out of five stores and downsize over a period of six or seven years.
I stayed through all my leases, all my vendors got paid, but we ended up having to downsize and I have one location now which happens to be 880,000 square ft and includes a 60,000 ft² indoor skate park, the third largest in America and it's an iconic location just north of Detroit.
"Tony Hawk showed up unannounced and skated doubles with Andy on my vert ramp which just warmed my heart."
MARK
You guys just reached your 45th anniversary, can you tell us a little bit about the different connections you've made in this industry, you were telling me that at your 40th Tony Hawk actually showed up to your skate park. Can you tell me about that story? GEORGE
Yeah, I was lucky enough I've got good friends in the industry and Steve Van Doren from Vans came out and barbecued, Paul Schmidt who's in The Skateboarding Hall of Fame for board design came out and did what he calls Create a Skate where he teaches people the science of skateboards and how you can make your own skateboard.
I had Christian Hosoi, Bucky Lasek, Bill Danforth, a legendary skater out of Michigan, Andy McDonald was there and Tony Hawk showed up unannounced and skated doubles with Andy on my vert ramp which just warmed my heart.
Everybody had such a good time, Ron Allen showed up, Tony Magnuson and just a lot of pros, Bill Tocco an old G&S skater from Michigan too, and a lot of the guys that I had not seen in like 20 years who are now in their 40s showed up so it was a big reunion of everybody that kind of grew up at Modern over all the years and we just did the 45th this year and a lot of pros showed up for that too.
We had some skate demos and everybody enjoyed it. We had some bands playing and to kind of celebrate being around for a long timeI tell everybody you know being in business 45 years just means that I'm old but hopefully, I'm a little wiser now and what's happened is you know in the industry I used to go out to the trade show in ASR is called in California and I'd buy a $200 ticket six months in advance and then fly out, sleep on a former manager's couch and borrow his car and go to the show and stay on top of the trends of what happened in the industry.
I really believe in trade shows and the personal relationships that you build at the trade shows, to have the knowledge, to continue to get the proper products in your store, to be profitable and so I continue to come to places like Surf Expo and Outdoor Retailer and hopefully other shows on the west coast that are up and coming and continue to meet with the principles of the businesses and become friends with them. "They did $320 million in sales the year they went out of business cause they couldn't pay their bills..."
MARK
Can you tell me a little bit about your thoughts around data and the importance of data as you're looking at how to manage your business and help your business thrive in this industry?
GEORGE
I always say I'm not my buyer the customer is the buyer. They tell me what they want and then I get that for them and I also have a lot of young guys working for me who are more my demographic as a retail store and they can inform me as to what they think is cool through social media now because the trends seem to be quicker coming to the Midwest than they used to be but the bottom line is I've always said that margins determine whether you stay in business or not.
It's not how much you sell it's how much you make on what you sell that allows you to stay in business. I always used the example of Herman's World of Sporting Goods in 1993. They did $320 million in sales the year they went out of business because they couldn't pay their bills and who wouldn't want to do $300 million in sales but they had gotten their bills so far out of hand that they couldn't handle the payments on them and their overhead was too much.
So I believe that knowing your statistics whether it be open to buy, you know which products are selling the most for you, what your dollar flow, cash flow is, is very important to you including things like you know how much your rent you know what's the long-term goal for that particular store, whether you should rent or buy that kind of thing.
But inventory is the key to all of it right there. If you can control your inventory you're going to be allowed to be successful no matter what level of sales you're at.
"So knowing the statistics in your store is very important and also industry-wide and that's why I've partnered with TrackFly."
MARK
How important do you feel like it is not just to look at your own data from your sales but look at the industry data that might be available?
GEORGE
You know that's really important cuz like I said back in the day I used to get out to California and I would drive up and down the coast and I would see what people are wearing and I would see how the stores were merchandise and I had to do that manually you know, because there was no internet and there was no YouTube and all that going on at that time.
So you had to do everything on your own and take the initiative to go out and personally visit stores up and down the coast and go to the beaches and see what people are wearing and you know go to the skate parks and such and nowadays with the technology increasing year by year and becoming better and better you can track your statistics not only in your store but throughout the industry.
If you can track the industry statistics you can kind of tell exactly what's selling in general. You know sometimes I have to say being from the Midwest that I've got a caveat. That might be selling in California because it's a different weather pattern than what we have or the East Coast and it's different than us but in general a lot of the same things nowadays the trends come quicker with TikTock and Instagram so following the statistics of the industry as a whole is very important to help you make a decision on what's hot and what's no. So knowing the statistics in your store is very important and also industry-wide wide and that's why I've partnered with TrackFly.
It brings high technology into your point of sales system to help you track your sales and also will allow you to look at industry figures which will help me guide my open to buy within each category. Whether it's shoes clothing hard goods, you can take a look at the industry trends and like I said before with TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook the the trends go so much quicker throughout the country that you need to stay on top of them very very quickly and to have the tools that TrackFly provides it just makes you smarter in your business decisions.
"With the technology that TrackFly provides, we can communicate with our vendors more directly on what the trends are and what's selling the best for them."
MARK
So part of TrackFly is being able to collaborate with your brands and sharing that inventory feed with them about how their products are doing in your store. What are your thoughts about that tool and being able to share Modern Skate’s live sell-through of a particular brand with that brand partner why do you feel like that's important to share that with your Brands?
GEORGE
Yeah, I've always said this industry is about relationships and you know you develop a relationship with your m vendors and your vendor reps and sometimes they come and go and some of the vendors can't afford to pay a rep enough money to survive in certain territories so they got to give them like 11 states and then they got to drive all over the place.
So, with the technology that TrackFly provides, we can communicate with our vendors more directly on what the trends are and what's selling the best for them. I've always said I'm not the buyer the customer is the buyer I just find out what they want and I get that for them and if I tell the vendor this is what my customer wants and they make that I'll buy more.
My key is to communicate with the vendor on what the proper thing is to get for my particular store in my region and you know I'll segue into the fact that I happen to be chairman of Board Retailers Association which represents thousands of independent retailers throughout the United States. Board sport retailers like skateboard, surfboard, standup paddle, wakeboard, and snowboard and we're partnering withTrackFly because collectively we all do better if the industry does better.
I've always talked about how independent retailers is very important to the industry. We're the feeder system we're the first Stoke that the kid has when they come in the door. We're the ones that have the employees to do the things that the customers do and some of the major brands can't possibly pay their employees enough money to be as stoked about their product as we are.
I told a vendor a long time ago I said you can't pay your employees enough money to care about your stuff as much as I do and I pay that vendor money, they don't even pay me, I pay them to buy their product to tell everybody how good it is.
When we sell any different product it's hard to hire employees or reps to cover the territory or make it to every store but with the technology that TrackFly provides we can communicate on a lot quicker and better basis and more accurate basis where we can all communicate together and be more profitable from top to bottom again.
I call it vertical retailing with different owners independent retailers communicating with reps and vendors through technology is the way of the future. "I think we're going to find a lot of the bigger vendors finding that independent retailers are important to their business. "
MARK
So you've actually sent a couple of invitations already from your TrackFly account to a couple of different brands. Could you tell me a couple of those that you're excited to connect with, collaborate and share that live sell-through data with them specifically for their products?
GEORGE
Yeah one of them in particular is Skullcandy, I've sold them since they came out in the beginning and you know again a lot of independent vendors that start out new they come in skate shops and grow their business through skate shops and then they expand and they go Nationwide and we have a saying in the independent retail arena that “once it's in it's out”.
As soon as everything goes to the mall then our customers are looking for something new and different so and it could be a business strategy for many people and a lot of different Industries do that.
They build their brand, sell it out, and move on but I think with Skullcandy you know they went into some department stores and chain stores and such and it became less of an impact on the independent retailer and they don't have the same negotiating strength with some of the bigger box guys than they do with an independent on maintaining their own margins.
So they've come to the conclusion of working with independent retailers more directly and we've partnered with Skullcandy to do so through Board Retailers Association and Modern Skate directly. And then I like to use the example of Adidas.
They got rid of all skate shop partnerships selling their shoes and wanted to sell directly and Nike was planning on doing kind of the same thing, then they saw what happened to Adidas and they changed their mind and their new strategy is to continue to work with independents and I think we're going to find a lot of the bigger vendors finding that independent retailers are important to their business.
You know they can let us worry about rent they can let us worry about insurance hiring and firing, compensating employees, and those kinds of things and if we all communicate together we're in the same boat together. We can all be more profitable. 
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