Soccer Stores

Here is another non car post. I recently started working for an online retailer of soccer shoes and I learned about nike bootroom.  The concept is that you get to pick, learn about, and customize your own boot from a variety of Nike boots.

This reminds me of why I got out of soccer business when I used to own my own soccer store.  There was just way too many different brands, different styles, and different sizes and carrying all those could drive one broke. So I got out just in time before I went completely broke.

I really do give credit to those shops out there that are making it. It is hard to stay in this business, satisfy your customers, and make money. The wholesale prices for these boots and inventory aren't cheap. For example Nike Superfly is retailed at $400 that makes its wholesale price around $210 plus shipping.

It takes a great amount of capital, risk, and courage, in order to make it in this business. In fact, I have seen the chain stores reducing their number of locations and small moms and pops places closing or reducing their inventory. This business is simply becoming hard to follow up. Just one Brand like Nike, has over 50 different styles of soccer shoes. Then there are other brands such as Adidas, Puma, Diadora, and many other brands which makes it hard to keep up.

Bigger stores have good inventory management systems that allows them to figure out which one sells and which one doesn't. That way they only order the ones that sell and move fast and are profitable. Smaller stores can not do this so they just close.

So if you are out there opening a soccer store, make sure you calculate this, and all your risks before going in. You could get in trouble if you just go in without experience.