Cold has crept back into the air and left frost on the ground, letting us know that Old Man Winter is up to his annual tricks. Bid farewell to fall and its sports of oblong pig skins, stitched spheres and leather hexagons alternating black and white. It’s time to greet a new set of sports at a time of year when—whether the activity embraces the weather, in the case of hockey, or necessarily hides from it, as any basketball player or wrestler who has worn shorts and a tank top or a singlet outside in Novembercan testify—competitions are held indoors.

As anyone with even a single season of experience in action-figure assembling, column cutting and plate engraving under their belt would expect, the big three winter sports remain the same: basketball, wrestling and hockey. Bowling also does well this time of year, though its numbers are not near what they once were. In your town or city, there may also be other annual activities with competitions (anyone up for an ice fishing tournament?) or other, less popular winter sports (the who, what, where, when, why and how of curling has never been clear to me), but these three generate the most volume.

TOUGH COMPETITION

Of course, with each new season, more wrinkles are also expected. As anyone who witnessed this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing knows well, basketball has become a big-time sport all over the world. Much of that popularity is due to its ease of entry: If kids can get a ball and find a court, they are set. Everything else, even shoes, are optiona—although I’m sure Nike disagrees.

“All those sports usually gear up in October. Wrestling wraps up by the end of the December, and basketball and hockey are done by the end of March,” says Cathy Garcia, who in addition to her duties at Plastic Dress-Up in South El Monte, Calif., is the President of ARA. She adds that PDU has expanded their wrestling line with products that will come out this winter, acknowledging the growth in the sport.

With the exception of wrestling, Mike May of JDS Industries, Inc. in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has seen much the same, “JDS offers a large variety of both plastic figures and resin figures for the main winter sports of basketball, hockey and volleyball. There are several other sports during the winter months that we offer products for, including karate, swimming, darts, billiards, snowmobiling and dancing.”

Mark Reifsnyder of Liberty Supply Company, Inc., in Philadelphia, Pa., concurs with Garcia in regard to the top three winter sports. However, he has noticed a couple of others who are strong for Liberty Supply. “Swimming and track are among the less-spoken-of sports. Basketball is by far the biggest winter sport, played everywhere. Of course, ice hockey is big across the northern part of the country. Wrestling, interestingly enough, has pockets. It’s very heavy in the Northeast and the Midwest, but we don’t see that much wrestling in Texas or Florida.”

PARTICIPATION PEAKS AND VALLEYS

While everyone agrees on today’s top three winter sports, there are little differences of opinion in regard to one of the top sellers from years ago. Bowling, which once generated a great deal of winter trophy business, is part of the winter sports offering as well, and it starts in October and ends in March.

“There is also a little bit of spring interest, and that’s usually in the much younger youth sports market, but that’s it. It just isn’t much of a mainstream sport anymore,” says Garcia.

However, May notes that JDS has seen an increase in the volume of bowling awards sold in recent years. Unfortunately, that’s not a trend many others have seen, including Roger Bischoff of Allard Trophy in Valley City, located in JDS’ neighbor state, North Dakota.

“Bowling used to be our big sport up here, but that’s slowly died off to be very small. A bowling alley closed, but another contributor has been casino gambling. A lot of people who used to bowl go to casinos instead,” says Bischoff.

Reifsnyder has seen similar trends, “We have found that a lot of the bowling leagues are now what are called money leagues. When you’re bowling for the championship, it’s a pot of money, not a trophy. So, bowling has gone down.”

As that sport’s participation diminishes, others have risen to fill its place. As basketball has become more popular, its participation has risen during its traditional season, but that is no longer the only time of year it’s played.

Garcia points out that, “Basketball has evolved to become a year-round sport. Basketball, statistically, is the least expensive sport to participate in. It takes the least amount of gear, uniform stock, commitment and cost in terms of playing surface and finding basketball courts, versus baseball, football and soccer, in terms of what the leagues need in order to perform their sport. Basketball has the least barrier to entry, ergo it has been growing more than any other sport in our business, from a sales perspective, and it has become year-round.”

Garcia reiterates that wrestling is also on the rise, becoming a popular school sport, although, “It does not generate the sales that basketball does for obvious reasons. Wrestling is an elite sport, rather than what I’d consider a participatory sport. If you don’t win or place in the top three, no award is presented. There are no participation awards in wrestling.”

Reifsnyder adds that with the economy being the way it is, he suspects participation in all winter sports will go down until the economy turns around. One of the reasons for that potential decrease in winter sports awards, and perhaps a decrease for other sports, has nothing to do with the price of trophies and awards.

“There just aren’t as many kids participating because people are looking at travel costs as a part of the expense to participate. I’m a Scout leader, and I know when we were planning our schedule this year, one of the things we looked at was, because of the cost of gas, how far do we want to travel for camping? You have to start factoring that in, because ice hockey has a lot of teams that have to travel a lot, and we’re seeing a cutback there. Teams aren’t attending all of the tournaments they may have three or four years ago,” says Reifsnyder. He adds this will hit hockey more than basketball or wrestling, because it also has high equipment costs.

Retailers have seen business fall off in other ways as well. Bischoff once did a lot of school business, but the schools have consolidated. “We’ve got a best free-throw plaque, we used to make five of them. Now, we make one. We kept the customer and lost 80 percent of the business.”

Other retailers have been a little more fortunate, such as Tom Donovan of Showcase Awards in Milwaukee, Wis., who says he has seen changes but none of them drastic. “With some of the tournaments, they still order the same amount of trophies, but instead of paying $4 a trophy, they may just spend $3.50. I think the quantities are staying in there; it’s just that they’re probably making them a little smaller to stay within their budget or spend less than previous years,” says Donovan.

INTERNET RETAILERS

Trends in the popularity of different sports and customers dealing with the price of fuel are not the only reasons many awards retailers have seen a decrease in their trophy sales. As the Internet continues to settle into our daily home and business lives, we must also accept the reality of its advantages for consumers who are shopping not only for the best possible price, but also searching for that bargain whenever their busy schedules allow for it: morning, noon or night—even the middle of the night. Those advantages are only strengthened by the already price-driven nature of sports awards, particularly trophies, that unfortunately has been in place for some time now.

“The Internet retailer is impacting significantly the market in terms of sales by the traditional retailer,” says Garcia. “Two things are happening. One is the traditional retailer who realizes they need a presence on the net, and they create a shopping-cart style order entry system on their website. That’s been extremely successful and done with much broader appeal nationally in terms of long-standing traditional retailers who have very successful store fronts and who are not afraid of the Internet. That’s number one.”

Unfortunately, many small businesses in this industry do seem to be afraid of the Internet. They’re not particularly sophisticated when it comes to the net, and they tend not to want to jump in.

“Second are people who, because they’re excellent marketers, are coming into this industry and building websites that are unbelievable in terms of their success. In the case of PDU today, and this is also true with some of the major suppliers, we are finding that our biggest customers are Internet retailers,” says Garcia.

Donovan is among those retailers who have noticed increased competition from the Internet, “I have, but probably more so with soccer than the winter sports. I think the Internet guys are much more aggressive when it comes to the soccer organizations. I’ve seen a couple where they’ll go in there and give a lowball bid. But, one of the advantages I have being local is that I can always deliver the trophies, whereas when they come from some of the Internet companies, they have a shipping cost that’s involved.”

This is yet another example of how acquiring and retaining clients goes back to customer service. This demonstrates, says Garcia, that it is always critical to pay attention to customers and their concerns.

“Some shops don’t know why their leagues didn’t show up on their doorstep with their annual order this year,” says Garcia.

Make the phone call to find out why that business didn’t return. Is it the Internet? If so, why? If it’s convenience, maybe that business can be reclaimed with flexible hours and increased availability.

“There are several ways to retain and obtain business, but first shops have to identify that their customers have changed the way in which they purchase their awards. If they’re not paying attention to that, they’re putting themselves at risk,” says Garcia.

IMPROVING WINTER SPORTS SALES

In this era of super-discounted competition, how is a mild-mannered awards business expected to compete? Be proactive as possible. Send a direct mail, or better yet, a direct email (and if you haven’t yet compiled a list of your customers’ email addresses, what are you waiting for?) well before it’s time to start ordering and let them know of the trophies, awards and services your company offers. Let them know that you’re aware they have many options, that you’re grateful for their business and that the benefits of working with a company such as yours, versus placing an order online, are many.

That’s a technique Donovan has used, much to the benefit of Showcase Awards. “It’s critical to follow up a couple of months prior to their previous order date. If there are new people, you can put them at ease with what the order consists of and how it’s run. Oftentimes, I know more about it than they do.”

Among those benefits to consider offering is delivery (if you don’t already offer it), which Donovan also does. With many teams ordering trophies online (therefore having them delivered to their doorstep by the post office, UPS, FedEx or DHL), this service seems to be more of a necessity to remain competitive rather than the over-and-above service it once was. If an awards shop delivers, that may save the customer shipping costs, an important factor in a market in which customers are constantly seeking the least expensive arrangement possible.

However, May notes there is always an opportunity to upsell. “It is up to the retailer to create an attractive option based on the situation.”

Garcia has her own advice for retailers, in terms of increasing their sales, “Offer awards with a much better price point, a much lower price point. Everyone in these leagues are suffering from the same thing that anyone in this economy is suffering from, and that is that they have less dollars to spend in terms of their awards. Therefore, they need to shop for a cheaper price.”

All retailers, according to the ARA surveys Garcia has seen on the economy, demonstrate that. They also show that retailers are changing their complexion in terms of what they’re offering to their end users, because those customers don’t have the dollars to spend on awards that they might have spent five years ago.

Bischoff agrees, noting that the sports market as a whole is somewhat declining. Yet, “Some of the new trophies have certainly inspired some customers to buy them. There are more colors and more changes, and the kids like it.” He adds that they have moved into engraving plastics and working with Braille for ADA signage.

With sales tightening up for many, how can a shop increase its sales? If a shop doesn’t have one already, one way Reifsnyder mentions is to have a website built.

“It’s becoming more and more evident that these businesses need an Internet presence. Many potential customers are scanning the Internet before coming in, asking, ‘Can you match this price?’ An Internet presence is almost required,” says Reifsnyder. He adds that networking with new members to league committees is critical in order to retain their business.

NETWORKING TO IMPROVE SALES

In a competitive environment, it’s more critical than ever to take full advantage of any opportunity the competition doesn’t have. When competing against Internet companies, that means networking and developing personal, face-to-face relationships—something difficult to do online.

Donovan notes that networking has always been critical, adding, “With schools, there is not as much turnover, but networking is especially important if you do a lot of work with any organizations that are run by volunteer groups. Those people change all of the time, so networking is really important from that standpoint.”

Don’t forget that there may be opportunities to network with the parents of the kids on these teams, potentially earning their small company or corporation’s business. It’s also a good idea to take advantage of the networking opportunities available in your area.

“Every single awards retailer should be involved with their local chamber of commerce,” says Garcia. “They need to expend the dollars, and it’s usually $1,000 or more, to become a member of their local community, and that means chamber of commerce. Whenever I speak with a retailer who is aggressively involved in that part of their community, they are able to most successfully network. They network with anyone involved, whether it’s in sports or otherwise, and they open up their opportunities to know what’s going on in their community.”

No one argues that the winter sports market—and the sports markets in general—is seeing fierce competition. Developing an Internet presence and contacting customers before others have a chance to swoop in—either by email, direct mail or a phone call—are essential efforts critical to continued success, but nothing beats the personal relationships that can be developed by networking.

Donovan notes, “There are still plenty of opportunities out there. It’s just a matter of finding creative ways of approaching people. Customer service has always been a key in this industry, because people like to buy from people they know and like.”