Shoe Time of Year

In an effort to increase sales in the shoe category provide your members/customers with better service and information about one of the most important pieces of equipment in their repertoire. The most effective way to accomplish this is to invite the sales associate from your major shoe vendor to make a full blown line presentation and product-knowledge seminar to your entire professional staff. They can provide detailed information regarding the construction and fitting of shoes, offer tried and true selling suggestion, but most importantly they explain that golf shoes are the foundation of the golf swing and drive home the significance of them being as properly fit as are clubs.

Create eye catching displays in the golf shop to attract attention and conversation about golf shoes. This is particuliarly true now that the spikeless phenomenon is still riding a crest. Install shoe displays in the locker room and enlist your locker room manager to assist in marketing golf shoe sales. Make sure that he is invited to the seminar and well versed on the benefit of having the correct fit and construction for comfortable and effective performance. Provide a catalog in the locker room as well as on the floor of the shop.

Put up a list of the entire staff in random order. Every dozen pair of shoes sold the next associate on the list gets a free pair of his choice and goes to the bottom of the list. Most vendors will participate in such an effort and are happy to give the baker’s dozen piece at no charge, let the sales rep announce the contest of sorts at his seminar and pick names out of the hat to create the random list.

Have a spring TRADE-IN offering a significant discount to anyone bringing in an old pair and don’t hesitate to invite your key customers to the presentation with your staff.

Having just attended a number of Christmas parties where the entire Foot Joy line was displayed on tables for the purpose of taking special orders makes this suggestion seem a bit late except that it’s a good idea any time of the year as long the proper audience can be created; member/member and member/guest tournaments for example.

The strategy I use to create the proper inventory of shoes to sell from is to determine last year's sales and think in terms of two turns. Within that number of units I try to provide one style of golf shoe in all available sizes in whatever the most appropriate style and price is for that facility, so that anyone walking in who has forgotten their shoes can be fit in a pair for today's round and then build the rest of the selection around that depending on the importance and relevance of spikeless, street casual, ladies, etc. If special orders are a big part of a club business I order a number of onesies to fill displays.

Everything starts with the staff understanding the product and the importance of the category and wanting to discuss their knowledge with the customer.