Industry Business Resources

Best Practices for Rental, Retail and Technology in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond

WELCOME TO SIA'S BEST PRACTICES IN THE COVID-19 ERA HUB

Welcome to SIA's Industry Resources page for best practices in the COVID-19 era, an online resource for members to become better educated about the evolving best practices in our industry, from rental to retail to technology. This is also a place where we're bringing the community together and enabling discussion.

To facilitate a conversation amongst industry peers, we've set up a closed group on Facebook. This is an opportunity for all of us to collaborate, trade best practices and ideas, and ask/answer questions in order to optimize your business in this difficult time. A few rules – no antitrust and no collusion here. Be nice, be supportive and really try to help each other during these unusual times.

If you're feeling a deep sense of uncertainty now, you're not alone. Let us help. Please keep coming back to this page, as it will be evolving as we receive updates.

RENTAL BEST PRACTICES:

BEST PRACTICES FOR SPORTS RENTAL IN THE COVID-19 ERA

The team at Wintersteiger put together a plan to evolve your business while keeping staff, customers, and you safe & healthy.

To move forward in the age of COVID-19, rental environments are forced to change drastically. With some planning, reorganization, and consideration, our rental partners can lead the charge into this new world. The new world of rental will shift to be more customer-centric and technology based than ever before. Drawing from the realm of boutique rental/demo, the process will need to be scaled accordingly, but the focus shifts to using technology for the best customer experience while minimizing the number of staff who interact with each customer/family/group.

Listen to Ryan Eittreim, Sales Director of Consumer Products at Wintersteiger on the Channel Mastery podcast discussing this plan – https://channelmastery.com/ryan-eittreim-wintersteiger-episode-141/

See this PDF for the full plan: Best_Practise_Flyer_WINTERSTEIGER_Final

Watch the Hygiene in Ski Rental video here or visit their Hygiene in Ski Rental website here

For any questions please contact [email protected]

BOOTFITTERS ONLINE EDUCATION WITH BOOTDOC

As we move forward in the Covid-era, BOOTDOC is happy to introduce a new method of education delivery for bootfiters at every level. Using online platforms, BOOTDOC is committed to providing the same, industry-leading support as they have in years past, but are adapting to meet the challenges of social distancing head-on.

Download their 2020 Bootfitting Education Clinic flyer here: Bootdoc Clinic Flyer 2020

To register for the clinics, click here

SKICLICKER™ ALLOWS YOU TO MEASURE, SCAN AND ADJUST SKI BINDINGS WITH BETTER WORKFLOW

Measure all rental boots and store the data in your system pre-season. In season, easily scan the rental boot, adjust the binding with the SKICLICKER™ Sole, and the customer is ready for the slopes. Much faster and more efficient that the traditional process.

Benefits:

  • Customer Satisfaction
  • Improved Working Environment
  • Better Business

For more information, visit Sun Valley Ski Tools here or watch the video below.

 

SKICLICKER™ - optimize your ski rental workflow from SKICLICKER on Vimeo.

RETAIL BEST PRACTICES:

BEST PRACTICES FOR SPORTS RETAIL IN THE COVID-19 ERA

 

The folks at BOOTDOC and Hotronic put together a plan to evolve your business while keeping staff, customers, and you safe & healthy.

To move forward in the age of COVID-19, retail environments are forced to change drastically. With some planning, reorganization, and consideration, our retail partners can lead the charge into this new world.

See this PDF for the full plan: Best_Practise_Flyer__Sports Retail in the COVID Era_BOOTDOC_FINAL

For questions, please contact [email protected]

TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES TO CONSIDER FOR YOUR BUSINESS IN THE COVID-19 ERA AND BEYOND:

When considering what's working today for virtual sell-in and buying, SIA hosted a Town Hall to provide  actionable strategies and approaches for specialty brands and retailers to work with as the selling season and buying processes continue to shift with COVID-19. You can watch the recording of this Town Hall here.

The following technologies may be beneficial to your business now and going forward:

AvantLink is the premier online affiliate network for the outdoors. AvantLink's approach to affiliate marketing is simple - grow your business through quality partnerships. Partners who earn a commission from sales generated by referrals to your website. Three unique international networks feature thousands of accomplished publishers all backed by category-leading advertising brands.

Learn more about AvantLink here

SIA members receive special rates with AvantLink. For more information on this opportunity, contact your membership representative or email [email protected]

 

Brandlive is a live video experience platform that is tailored to the needs of product companies to connect with internal audiences, retailers, distributors, and rep groups that drives positive returns for your business.

Learn more about Brandlive here

 

Centric Software provides a Digital Transformation Platform focused on the product development requirements of retail, apparel, footwear, outdoor and consumer goods companies. We provide an easy-to-use, “single version of the truth” approach to line planning, global sourcing, calendar management, materials management, quality management, collection management, technical design and continuous improvement of retail execution. Centric PLM is user friendly and completely web-based enabling real-time remote collaboration with teams and vendors.

Learn more about Centric Software here

 

Elastic Suite is a next-generation B2B e-commerce and digital merchandising solution that will transform wholesale business partnerships. With features like digital catalogs and customized line & assortment planners, Elastic is leading the way in digital merchandising and print elimination (via traditional catalogs & brand books). Industry leaders like Burton, The North Face, K2, Patagonia, Smith and Outdoor Research are partners because of Elastic’s superior capability to create efficiencies across the sales process and increase revenue by improving sales and reducing costs. With a global reach and best-in-class customer success teams, it’s no wonder that Elastic is the industry standard for B2B technologies. 

In an effort to assist all brands and manufacturers, Elastic has created a Virtual Sell-In Guide with expert insight and advice on how to conduct virtual line-showings and sell-in meetings. Download the Guide here. 

Elastic is also offering a special partnership discount for all SIA members to help prepare for Spring 2021 Sell-in! Reach out to our sales team at [email protected]es.com for more details. 

Learn more about Elastic here

 

Locally believes that local shops help form the backbone of our local culture, that improving the visibility and ease of local shopping options can reduce our environmental footprint, and that combining the best of online and offline into one shopping experience is something virtually all shoppers are clamoring for. We guide online shoppers to find and buy products in-stock at nearby stores; we empower premium brands to serve their customers and retail partners in novel ways; and we enable retailers to turn online shoppers into loyal in-store customers. We work with our brand, retailer, and partners across North America, Europe and Japan in a variety and growing list of industries.

Learn more about Locally here

SIA members receive special rates with Locally. For more information on this opportunity, contact your membership representative or email [email protected]

 

NuORDER is the leading global digital wholesale / b2b e-commerce platform, offering best in class web-based and mobile application solutions.

Built as a company-wide solution, NuORDER is leveraged by companies like Arc’teryx, Tecnica, Hestra, POC and 100’s of other Sports & Outdoor companies to provide the most efficient way for merchandising & planning, sales, marketing, customer service and IT teams to run the entire end to end wholesale business digitally.

NuORDER’s functionalities have revolutionized and streamlined the practices of over 2,000+ brands and in turn the 500,000+ retailers, both majors and speciality, working with them. NuORDER transaction volume is greater than $30B globally.

Learn more about NuORDER here

 

Podium can support SIA members in utilizing modern communication techniques to generate more reviews, increase your local search presence, and enhance your overall customer experience. Podium helps over 60,000 businesses increase their local visibility and manage their customer interactions.

In a contact free world, customers prefer to use messaging, chat, and text to interact with businesses. And now, SIA members can use Podium to capitalize on this trend.

This winter season, it’s likely that being able to interact with customers, manage rentals and tuning, and even generate retail sales via text and messaging will be critical to your success.

In addition to Podium’s industry leading reviews and communication technology, now you can even receive payments via text. Use Podium to generate a simple link and send it via text to your customers. No logging in for your customer- no reading card numbers over the phone. Payments are processed immediately and the money is sent to your account.

Learn more about Podium here

SIA members receive special rates and incentives with Podium. For more information on this opportunity, contact your membership representative or email [email protected]

 

Quivers enables specialty brands to manage orders from online channels while selectively distributing order fulfillment to local retailers. Our software has a number of benefits which include powering omni-channel experiences, eliminating channel conflict with dealers while selling d2c, supporting dealers with online sales opportunities, reducing stock-outs by leveraging dealer inventory, enabling global sales, decreasing shipping time/cost and more.

Learn more about Quivers here

SIA members receive special rates with Quivers. For more information on this opportunity, contact your membership representative or email [email protected]

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