The $17,000 Shop Credit

Depending on the facility, shop credits either won by or awarded to members/regulars can vary from zero to a significant percentage of the overall business. I’ve talked to many pros who say their members hold their credit until the end of the year and they manage their Christmas business and end of year inventory on the outstanding credit still to be redeemed. Because of cutbacks in trying times many tournament favors are now shop credits instead of especially bought favors. The point is shop credit is important at most facilities and like any other part of the business deserves to be looked at as a part of the business worth creatively attempting to increase.

The football season is almost here and its high profile marketability provides an opportunity to create some shop excitement. The following example can obviously be tweaked according to facility and clientele but let’s call our hypothetical approach “The Big Game”.

Place a clipboard on the shop counter with the appropriate sign –up sheet where you list the ten NFL games that are going to be involved in this week’s random drawing. Anyone interested in participating signs up next to one of the ten slots on the sign –up sheet and owes $25 to the pot. Our signee can play as often as he wants but only once per sheet. When the sheet is full we move on to the next sheet hoping to fill as many sheets as possible.

On Sunday morning before the games each sheet will have the ten games involved drawn and posted next to the name on the list corresponding to the number of the draw. Ritualistically every Sunday morning this drawing is performed in the shop in front of any crowd that might form and until each name on each sheet is paired with a game. Each sheet is its own pool and has a winner. The winner per sheet is the guy or gal with the highest total points per game on the sheet. The winner wins $250 worth of shop credit.

The interest in wagering on football needs not be documented here, it is incredible. Even members or regulars who aren’t fans of the game or trying to pick winners may find this a fun $25 endeavor. It’s difficult however to find ten to one odds on football wagers without betting multiple games so you have some appeal to die-hard gamblers as well.

The staff could be incentivized to talk up the clipboard and sign people up and the interest in the Sunday morning ritual of drawing games to names could have people stopping in who may otherwise not be in the shop.

Four sheets per week is $1000 worth of shop credit. The real beauty of the concept is that it is a seventeen week season. Multiply 8 sheets per week times 17 weeks and you could be talking about generating 10% of this year’s revenue in some shops.