Swing For The Green - Harley Abrams

As Operations Manager for SuperSpeed Golf, Harley Abrams knows that the main channels for consumers into golf, the two primary ways that players get the equipment they need to play the game, are direct to consumer sales, such as ordering clubs, bags or apparel straight from Ping or Titleist, and big box stores like Golf Town, who specialize in having every major brand names at brick and mortar locations, but generally make their profits on marking up the product offered.  

Unique to golf though, explains Abrams, is a third avenue, what those in the industry call Green Grass stores, the pro shops, located on every golf course on Earth, big or small. The product in these stores can range from tailored sets and limited editions,  to ziplock bags of lost balls sold by the pound, but they all sell at the very least a round of golf, often acting as the course's front office, which means any customer who enters that store is a reliable buyer, someone already putting down money on the sport. What's more, while Covid-19 shut down or heavily restricted how many customers could use big box stores, pro shops and golf courses maintained a low but steady number of customers on and off the course, thanks to the four-player nature of the sport. This allowed SuperSpeed Golf to continue selling and promoting to active customers, craving escape in the great outdoors.

Here's what the phenomenon of Green Grass stores can teach other e-commerce operators and business owners about blended distribution channels.

• Find your own patch of Green Grass. Getting in with the big box stores can take years of constant hustle and stress, and winning your way to partnering with a major direct to consumer brand more often than not means selling part if not all of your product to them, rights and all.  You need somewhere safe that you can establish your brand and start making your presence known, without having to bend to the terms of a larger partner, where you can have a more personal engagement with your core customers. Not every product is going to have a communal spot like a pro shop, you may have to look for other universal touch points, like famous fans and users of your product, or annual events. Sales will be spotty at first, but above all you're selling your brand at this point, and buying exposure to a wider audience of interested buyers.
• Settle down and get comfortable. Don't spend your time trying to get the attention of the big box retailers you dream of someday seeing yourself in, they don't make decisions about which products to partner with based on how persistent they are. Establish your brand, first and foremost. Sales, and the potential profit others can make from your product, are what matters, so spend your time focussing on selling as much as you can through smaller Green Grass channels. Prove that your products are popular and your brand is capable first, the big box stores will eventually take notice and follow in their own time, often eager to make a deal.
• Invite your friends. Celebrate and share stories about your users and product, how people use your products, who uses them, and new ways people come up with using your product. Your consumers, all of your consumers not just the influencers and celebrities, are your product testers, so listen to them when they find errors, fixes, new uses and unexpected outcomes.  Their ideas, freely offered, may be what takes your brand into the mass market, or finds a weakness that could have irrevocably broken it if left unaddressed.  Positive buzz and word of mouth are still the most trusted ways to make a sale, no matter how advanced marketing technology becomes.

Find your own patch of Green Grass, set up shop wherever you can lay down roots, and let your brand and product become known to your customers by presence, convenience and word of mouth, and soon enough you won't have to worry about putting your neck on the line selling to big box retailers, they'll follow the customers back to you.

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