Cutting Edge Sourcing And Partnering

I recently had the pleasure of spending a day in the New York offices of the Greg Norman Collection visiting with Mike Elliott (V. P. of Sales), Jim Annese (Sales Manager) and their talented staff. The acquisition of GNC by The Tharanco Group is being applauded on the inside as a partner who will greatly enhance Norman’s efforts to be the leading authentic golf lifestyle brand, combining performance, luxury and style and they already seem to be projecting a more international aesthetic.

Several aspects of the brand that I have admired over the years are its focus on green grass distribution and its diversity of price points not only in fashion collections but essential in-stock programs which, when used properly, can significantly improve inventory turn rates and margin. Mike, Jim and the entire back -end operation are professionals who realize that each customer has unique needs; they pride themselves on being flexible and accommodating to specific needs.

Mike Elliott is a long time friend and incredibly business savvy and so I asked him to give us some general incite about the current state of affairs in the industry and the future of GNC specifically. This is what he had to say:


We are currently operating in the most challenging business environment of the modern day. That means customers are gravitating to well known quality brands offering a high perceived value relative to what the consumer has available to spend. Accordingly, brands that offer a diversity of products and price-points to meet the diversity of the consumer are well positioned. Additionally, brands that offer the latest in fashion and technological advances capture the imagination and attention of the consumers desiring the latest and greatest. Greg Norman Collection is uniquely positioned to appeal to all.

While Greg Norman Collection does offer a range of products that retail from $45 to in excess of $100, the niche positioning of the brand is $69 and under. In fact, the average retail price for 2010 will decrease slightly from 2009 levels based upon the need to respond to price compression in the marketplace today.

As for the fashion and technological inspiration, Greg Norman Collection is a clear leader in both respects. Since the inception of the brand, Greg Norman Collection has been widely known for its fashion offering with the hottest selling styles of today being the Raglan Mesh Performance Polo and the Argyle Body Mapping Polo. With the advent of the Play Dry sub-brand beginning in 2000, Greg Norman Collection made a commitment to lead the golf industry in performance fabric innovation. That commitment to product innovation has led to the offerings of today including ML50, 2-Below, TCT and G-Tech among others. Within the performance area, customers are raving about the ML50 fabric that is also used in conjunction with the 2-Below and TCT offering. ML50 represents a micro-luxury 50 denier synthetic fabric that provides a soft, silky hand, easy care and moisture wicking at $69 and less. 2-Below and TCT (TEMPERATURE CONTROL TECNOLOGY) both incorporate technological advances that provide cooling and heating of the skin for additional comfort on extreme days. In 2010, ML50 will be enhanced becoming ML75 and thus an even more luxurious fabric. As for the fashion aspect of this fabric, Greg Norman Collection began a new "embossing" process in Fall 2009 that will be expanded in 2010.



To Mike’s point - in merchandising the shops that I work with for spring the product that has caused the most enthusiasm and sell-through has been the GNC ML-50 shirts.

No one on either side of the table would deny the statement that golf is relationship-selling. Productive relationships in business are based on empathy that results in concerned colleagues managing to walk the same path towards matching goals. Mike and company have done an impressive job of putting together a hard-working team that ‘gets it’ - that do care about their partner’s business and are willing to think outside of the box if it benefits the customer. Mike and Jim and the rest of their team are the go-to guys for corporate needs, tournament needs and good business advice. Give them a call – I do, their Site link is to the right.

In-House, On-Line

About ten years ago there were a number of companies competing to own and IPO the online tee-sheet business. Part of the marketing strategy of these efforts was to promise the shops they were partnering with free in-store kiosks where members/customers could make tee times online and/or shop with participating vendors in real-time inventories tied into POS systems which were also going to be provided. As it turned out most of the promises were smoke and mirrors, most of the companies are gone and the only thing remaining is the bad reputation of the term shop-kiosk.

In the entry entitled ‘The Climate in Orlando’ and in reference to reducing inventories by cutting back the space you need to merchandise with a sitting area, one of the asides mentioned in that discussion was that this area could be a spot where shop staff could sit and go through readily available catalogs of partnered vendors and make special order recommendations.

This entry will suggest taking that concept one step further by adding a laptop to the area with a desktop of icon links to all of the major vendors affiliated with the shop. Envision this laptop sitting on a coffee table in front of a small sofa that used to be functional only as a place to sit and try on golf shoes and where now customers can basically point and click to the entire inventory of goods that you have access to by virtue of the shop’s accounts. The backdrop for this desktop of links could be the message that the shop is in the business of servicing the members/regulars corporate and tournament needs. This is obviously an effort to drive the special order and corporate business, but it also accomplishes some things that are more subtle and perhaps not quite so apparent.

Most customers today fall into one of two categories: Customer A – the computer savvy, who like most of the population, are increasing their online shopping exponentially every year; or Customer B – the computer fearful who have trouble opening their email let alone point and clicking to drill down to a leather jacket from Peter Millar.

The laptop kiosk being suggested would intrigue Customer A to take the time to become increasingly familiar with all the goods and services your shop can make available. More interesting perhaps is the opportunity for your staff to teach Customer B how easy it is to navigate the desktop and shop online; more of the ‘above and beyond’ service to which we keep aspiring.

The process of creating this desktop should involve asking the following questions:

• Do the vendors you are researching have web sites that sell to the public? If they do you may want to reconsider your account.
• Does your mix of vendors include categories such as tailored clothing, lady’s handbags, luggage, crystal, blue jeans and tennis shoes. This is the perfect way to provide these categories with a minimum of - or no inventory?
• Does the shop want to go after ad specialty categories such as pencils, name-tags, key chains, tee shirts; who are these vendors and how do we open accounts with them?
• Do we have someone on staff that has the computer savvy to make this seamless and can they be incentivized to take ownership of the project?
• What is going to be the best way to introduce and market this concept to the customer base or membership? Obvious are newsletter and email announcements, but a special order contest among staff members could be fun also.

Make the screen saver a rolling slide show of pictures from the member guest or corporate outing. This will certainly attract attention and promote conversation.

For many shops, whether at private clubs or public facilities with a regular customer base, the special order business can represent as much as 20-25% of the total revenue per year and with a healthy hard-goods business, maybe more. Special orders other than the result of a lesson and club-fitting are almost always the idea of the customer. The kiosk will help inspire more of these ideas in-house. If you are already doing this or something similar please leave a comment.