I gotta say, I love having a local running store. Our local running store in Greeley, CO was run by a well respected local coach. It was called Bell's Running. He ended up selling it to a dude that loves to run who did not change the name. Eventually he sold it to a growing local chain company called Altitude Running.
They seem to do poor business. I hope I'm wrong. I do participate in the local running community occasionally and love that they do things like group runs. I would rather pay full price and have a quality store locally. I try to support them and buy all my shoes from them. I am friendly with the staff and always have a positive experience with the store. I recently paid the full $130 for a new pair of Novablast 1. I know I could use amazon and probably get them for $80. I'm about supporting the local business I love. I would be disturbed if they closed down.
I live in a town with 3 LRS’s (down from 4 since last year) and basically no local 5K’s anymore, though there is a huge, overpriced annual 10K and a crappy, overpriced marathon and half. The vast majority of weekends April-October there are no road races. The existing LRS’s here do precious little to ensure a vibrant local competitive scene.
I'd blame your city/store's views/fears of COVID.
Except it’s been the case since prior to 2019. And good ol’ CU drove most of the policy so they could keep making money from sportsball and housing/feeding students.
Trust me, you can make more money selling ice cream than running shoes. The better question to ask is what is the market size needed to support a profitable running store with a certain concentration of active runners? My local metro area with 180,000 people and a medium level of active runners couldn't stay open.
I live in a town with 3 LRS’s (down from 4 since last year) and basically no local 5K’s anymore, though there is a huge, overpriced annual 10K and a crappy, overpriced marathon and half. The vast majority of weekends April-October there are no road races. The existing LRS’s here do precious little to ensure a vibrant local competitive scene.
This. Though two are chain stores at this point and the third really only serves to siphon customers for the in-house PT services. There really isn't a need for more than one or two LRS's here, it's just that the spendy locals have more dollars than sense so prefer to be told what shoes to buy, much like they are happy to pay someone to tell them how to run. Yet the fact remains that these stores and coaching groups do basically nothing to support local races, save for Lee Troop's Team Boulder. I could spend time and money having some middle-aged shlub try to jam me into support shoes I really don't need or be told my size in the shoe I really want is sold out (both happened at the same store) OR I could spend a little less time and find a better price for what I want online and have it show up at my door inside two days. There's nothing that their personal service or local ownership can do that will make up for not having the right shoe for me. What sense does it make to support poor management with a purchase? Just so they can have a weekly run club for the same subset of lonely weirdos? They deserve to go out of business.
As for COVID reax, it was the county and not the city that enacted mandates for most of the past two years and there was certainly no actual enforcement from either the police or the sheriff.
There was a store that closed down like 10 years ago. A guy who look like he hasn't ran a step in his life ran it. He misjudged the market in my area. Middle class folks who don't run. Then one of the employees who was a college sprinter bought the business from him. I swear there were days I am sure they didn't make one sale. They used to hold group runs but I never joined because I didn't want to to be pressured into buying shoes from there as I was buying them for 50% off from online deals.
Trust me, you can make more money selling ice cream than running shoes. The better question to ask is what is the market size needed to support a profitable running store with a certain concentration of active runners? My local metro area with 180,000 people and a medium level of active runners couldn't stay open.
Only places I can possibly imagine is in big cities filled with high earners. But the rent is probably high too and so are the wages so I am not sure. Fleet Feet bought Jackrabbit stores in NYC. The business at JRs were not that great to begin with so I am not sure how they will fare with no discounts under Fleet Feet. One upside for brick and mortal stores is JR being bought out. I am sure many of us here got deep discount on shoes from there. Places to get cheap running shoes are disappearing. RW doesn't discount as heavily anymore. Same for JR former owner, Finish Line. But I got more than 70 pairs of new shoes in my basement to last me my lifetime. Kept buying and buying when my favorites went on sale. I cannot run enough miles to outrun them.
You can't go entirely by foot traffic because most running shoe stores also offer online shopping. I/we usually order shoes, watches, and goo's from the local store's website.
Why did you use an apostrophe to (incorrectly) make "goo" plural, but you didn't do that for "shoe" or "watch?"
There was a store that closed down like 10 years ago. A guy who look like he hasn't ran a step in his life ran it. He misjudged the market in my area. Middle class folks who don't run. Then one of the employees who was a college sprinter bought the business from him. I swear there were days I am sure they didn't make one sale. They used to hold group runs but I never joined because I didn't want to to be pressured into buying shoes from there as I was buying them for 50% off from online deals.
I agree people buy LOADS of stuff inexplicably. I was in Verizon the other day, and guy walks out with seven new iPhone 13 phones, cases, and a mess of cables/dongles. No phone trade-ins, etc., just put $15K on the card right there. Then drove away in a Rivian pickup.
Also, I have zero idea how specialty running shoes stores make it now, not ten years ago, with Zappos, etc., out there.
That said, I do think that in some parts of the country a store with only the high-priced stuff would do well. I can think of a dozen 'boutique' trail shoes that are $225-300 that I might buy in a store, if I could get my hands on them and have now. Sort of like the guy with all the phones.
Okay I'm responding to this comment just to say that the person you are describing I'm the Verizon store was probably a thief committing credit card fraud. That happens in running stores when people ask to buy seven Garmins and the person at the register doesn't think twice or is inexperienced.
Next, idk where all the other sad running stores are that people are describing, but the one I grew up going to/that I've worked at on and off for years is GREAT. We do not have many high schoolers working, more like young professionals and a lot of people who run/ran collegiately and definitely know what they're talking about. We are well over $10k most weekdays (since COVID has gradually cleared up. I acknowledge that for a while there were some days in the low thousands) and more on weekends. For marathon weekend our busiest store will be over $150k per day.
Many running stores also have an online presence (which saved us during COVID) and online sales will beat most stores in sales any given day. Online inventory will show all old models in the entire company, so you can get those same crazy markdowns that you see on Zappos from smaller running stores, both online and in person. Gotta love finding a dusty old Brooks Transcend 5 in size 13 that actually works perfect for someone and costs like $50 lol.
It depends a lot on demographic for sure. One time I worked at a different store within the company that is less busy but has very wealthy customers. It was a slow winter day during COVID. Someone came in ~20 minutes before close to "browse". My coworker picked up a hypervolt, casually started gunning his IT band on the sales floor, and it was game over. She tried it out, proceeded to Christmas shop, and left with a $2700 ticket. That last sale singlehandedly beat out the sales totals for most of our stores that day.
I bet if Letsrun opened a chain of running stores they would do very well. The employees would wear the yellow Letsrun t-shirt and a yellow Letsrun hat. At tre front door there would be lifesize cardboard cutouts of the smiling Brojos and other running stars.
You pu$$ies are delusional. Running stores don’t pull in $15,000 per day. Losers. You’re lucky to make a sale. I will try on your overpriced shoes and buy them online. I could care less if you donate to some pecker head kids. And old guys that work there are not full of amazing knowledge. They’re weirdos who need a real job.
My four-seasons community without a major sporting goods retailer can keep two specialty bike shops open for 25 plus years, but no running stores; my friend tried. And please don't open a running store somewhere where there is an existing store that seems to be just hanging on; it will become a competition to see who starves to death first.
You pu$ies are delusional. Running stores don’t pull in $15,000 per day. Losers. You’re lucky to make a sale. I will try on your overpriced shoes and buy them online. I could care less if you donate to some pecker head kids. And old guys that work there are not full of amazing knowledge. They’re weirdos who need a real job.
My four-seasons community without a major sporting goods retailer can keep two specialty bike shops open for 25 plus years, but no running stores; my friend tried. And please don't open a running store somewhere where there is an existing store that seems to be just hanging on; it will become a competition to see who starves to death first.
Idk if I agree with that. Just because you have one store that’s not doing so well, you can’t have someone else who may be better try and revive the area? I believe the expressions is “rising tides float all ships”.
You pu$ies are delusional. Running stores don’t pull in $15,000 per day. Losers. You’re lucky to make a sale. I will try on your overpriced shoes and buy them online. I could care less if you donate to some pecker head kids. And old guys that work there are not full of amazing knowledge. They’re weirdos who need a real job.
COULDN'T care less. Stop for a few seconds to think what 'COULD care less' might mean and you'll realize it's the complete opposite of what you're aiming to say.
My four-seasons community without a major sporting goods retailer can keep two specialty bike shops open for 25 plus years, but no running stores; my friend tried. And please don't open a running store somewhere where there is an existing store that seems to be just hanging on; it will become a competition to see who starves to death first.
Bike shops offer more since bikes are harder to order online. Plus I feel like a big chunk of their profits come from repairs and tune-ups.