Taking High Street Business Online

Our 3000 square foot high street facility opened its doors in September 2005. We were selling a wide variety of sports equipment and clothing including rugby, football, netball, hockey, swimming, running, gym, racketsports, darts, snooker, cricket and more. We did very well for three years until the recession hit.

We met with local clubs on a regular basis and implemented promotions by setting up market days, we had invested in a custom stand and marketing materials to reach out to our customers whilst at the same time promoting and selling stock. This was very difficult and took up time and valuable resources. For two members of our small team to be out on this project put pressure on all the workforce. Sometimes we would sell alot but on other days it would be almost nothing. We were becoming tired of 6/7 day weeks, working every saturday and bank holidays whilst the realisation dawned that more than half of what we were doing was making us no profit.

People were eventually visiting us weeks later as a result of this promotion, and We noticed that each month our racketsports equipment such as tennis rackets and running equipment like running shoes were by far our strongest and most profitable niches. Then the lease on our premisis became due for renewal. It was decision time… Time to re-invent ourselves.

So we have concentrated on our strengths and provided extensive training for our team in both of these areas. We also took advice on customer service, and all of our sales team have completed an NVQ in retail. We gave up the high street shop. We gave up all sports except for running and racketsports and relocated to a fantastic new showroom situated within our warehouse just down the road. With things so tough in retail at the moment we have also launched our brand new shopping website, which we see as a vital way of moving forward. Everyone seems to be buying online nowadays! We are also running social media networking campaigns and a website blog so our customers have somewhere to comment on their own experiences.

Although this has been exhausting for all concerned we can now see a brighter future emerging. Moving from a high street location was always going to be an enormous gamble, and although its early days we feel this was the right move for us. We re-launched on January 4th 2011 with a unique racket testing area, a ‘same day’ restringing service, and a brand new video gait analysis department for runners which is now so busy on a Saturday it has become by appointment only!

Because of this dramatic downsizing we are now able to offer a far more comprehensive clothing range for both running and racketsports including Adidas, Nike, Babolat, Asics, Under Armour New Balance, and many, many more. A friendly and enthusiastic sales team awaits all customers at Original Sports, to offer advice and technical information as required. In fact, we are very encouraged at how many people comment on way they have been treated when the come to the showroom. Its going to be an uphill struggle again this year! But at least we will now be enjoying the challenge.