Your Pro Shop Zone

Your pro shop or retail sales area should follow suit with your other zones in that you want to keep it looking as nice as possible.

This means that your displays are neat, clean and non-cluttered. Put professional shelves, grids, and racks to work for you whenever possible to showcase your merchandise. Your sales items should take up as little space as possible and have professional looking price and packaging information (no hand-written signs).

Keep your displays bright and inviting. Change the look of your displays at least twice a month.

Be sure to stock plenty of the required items your students must have. This could include uniforms, school shirts, gear bags, safety equipment, etc. You wouldn’t want to not have a uniform in stock to fit someone for a first lesson.

Display at least one of all required merchandise and stock the rest out of sight to again maintain a non-cluttered display. In addition, you may find it easy to stock a few of the most requested non-required items in stock as well as your logoed promotional items.

Because inventory can be expensive to keep, consider a direct ordering program such as the one offered by Tiger Claw or another company.

Another option is to keep some catalogs on hand for your students to browse. If they’d like to order, let them know you’ll take care of it as it will save them on shipping charges on most items. If you ask for a 50% upfront payment on more expensive items, that will help you use O.P.M. ( other peoples’ money) to make the purchase and still profit.

To further maximize your retail zone and market your school, create gift certificates for your pro shop that can be sold or given away as a thank you for referrals and that publicize your shop and encourages students to buy at the same time.

In addition use school logoed merchandise as rewards and gifts in addition to selling them.

Action Steps: What to do now

1. Evaluate your current pro shop or retail area. Does it convey a professional message?

2. Fire sale, or give away merchandise that is dusty and has been sitting unsold for a long time.

3. Thoroughly clean and organize your retail area.

4. Keep a master list of what sizes and quantities of required items like uniforms, belts and safety equipment that you have on hand for ordering and record keeping.

5. Enroll in the Tiger Claw direct ordering program so you can sell more items without spending money on excess inventory.