What climbing gear do you expect an outdoor sports store to stock?

We probably have a quarter million dollars of 3+ year old mountain bikes in the store so inventory/opportunity cost is not as much of a factor as, say, REI. That said, we’d never consider bringing in something like shoes.

I’d echo what other have said about Winter hiking and ski mountaineering. Especially if you already stock ski touring gear you could get some glacier lines, mountaineering style harnesses, arc, etc and see if that generates interest. You could probably put together a display fairly easily that would generate conversation. It’s the right season for it and if you get enough interest it may let you branch out into offering rock specific gear. 

On on a side note how good of a deal are we talking about on a few seasons old Mtn bikes? 

John Wilder wrote:

$2k- wouldn't bother. 

$5k- probably still wouldn't bother. 

$10k- maybe stock a couple pairs of shoes, men's and women's, single size run, plus the bd momentum harness package. Throw in a couple guides and some chalk. 

Retail isn't cheap- even a tiny stock is way more than you might think. You really couldn't even consider stocking a climbing section for less than $20k- especially if you wanted it to make money. 

If your store has a significant inventory and runs on pre-seasons, you'd need to hit an even higher number. 

As someone who has owned a bike shop before, I was thinking the same. It spends so fast, you don't even realize it. Then the product comes in, and you're like, "this is it?!".

Retail is tough. Not impossible however.

Thanks. The winter hiking/mountaineering approach is good, as we do a lot of AT and BC setups. And who can walk by an ice axe without fondling the handle a bit…

How does this look?

3-5 various harnesses

One of each belay device

9.9 70m rope (other kind?)

A spool of 7mm cord

10 assorted slings

Basic quickpack and some lockers

Chalk, few chalk bags bags

Pair of basic ice tools (or one ice ax?)

Pair of crampons

We already have some general purpose packs.

Other ideas?

I'm going to go against the trend here and say ice climbing gear is a bad idea. It looks cool, but it's specialized enough that ice climbers are going to go somewhere with a wider selection than you can stock given your budget. Further, it's seasonal, so once spring comes around, you end up having to put it all in storage for next season, when new gear might come out, leaving your gear out of date. This is a great strategy for making sure that your boss takes away your budget when spring comes.

Forrest Carver wrote:

Thanks. The winter hiking/mountaineering approach is good, as we do a lot of AT and BC setups. And who can walk by an ice axe without fondling the handle a bit…

How does this look?

3-5 various harnesses

One of each belay device

9.9 70m rope (other kind?)

A spool of 7mm cord

10 assorted slings

Basic quickpack and some lockers

Chalk, few chalk bags bags

Pair of basic ice tools (or one ice ax?)

Pair of crampons

We already have some general purpose packs.

Other ideas?

So you're appealing to the climber who doesn't wear climbing shoes? Seems like a narrow market.

If you don't have climbing shoes, you can't do any kind of climbing except ice with what you have in the store, and I think once you add climbing shoes, you aren't going to have budget for everything here. And if your only market is ice climbers, you can say bye bye to your sales once ice climbing season is nearing its end.

I think you're approaching this as a climber looking at what you would want to buy, but you have to approach this like a businessperson, and realize that experienced climbers are not a very large market, especially for a brick and mortar store with narrow stock. You're much better off selling a variety of stuff that beginner climbers need, especially things that climbers will want to try on before buying, because that's the #1 reason they'll come to a brick and mortar store.

Forrest Carver wrote:

Thanks. The winter hiking/mountaineering approach is good, as we do a lot of AT and BC setups. And who can walk by an ice axe without fondling the handle a bit…

How does this look?

3-5 various harnesses

One of each belay device

9.9 70m rope (other kind?)

A spool of 7mm cord

10 assorted slings

Basic quickpack and some lockers

Chalk, few chalk bags bags

Pair of basic ice tools (or one ice ax?)

Pair of crampons

We already have some general purpose packs.

Other ideas?

I think this might be taking too far of a leap into more rock stuff. I'd say ditch the chalk and chalk bags because you're not gonna need chalk for easy mountaineering. Instead of a 9.9mm rope something more geared towards alpine/glacier. For belay devices, just a reverso or atc-guide would be fine, and maybe a few alpine style harnesses. Also, maybe add a light selection of snow pickets and ice screws

David Kerkeslager wrote:

I'm going to go against the trend here and say ice climbing gear is a bad idea. It looks cool, but it's specialized enough that ice climbers are going to go somewhere with a wider selection than you can stock given your budget. Further, it's seasonal, so once spring comes around, you end up having to put it all in storage for next season, when new gear might come out, leaving your gear out of date. This is a great strategy for making sure that your boss takes away your budget when spring comes.

No ice gear.. what?

Do you even ice climb bro? :)

Bill Kirby wrote:

No ice gear.. what?

Do you even ice climb bro? :)

Nope. Haha!

But I do trad climb, and there's no way I would encourage him to carry trad gear, because there's no way I would go to a place that only has one kind of cam to buy trad gear.

Think about it: let's say you're in the market for a pair of ice picks. How do you go about buying them? Do you go to a sporting goods store that you somehow noticed just started carrying a narrow selection of ice climbing gear? Or do you go online to shop? Or do you go to a brick and mortar place like Rock & Snow that you know has a wider selection?

Now think back to when you bought your first pair of climbing shoes. Did you shop around, or did you just find a place that sold climbing shoes and get the cheapest ones that fit?

Starting with buying ice climbing gear is silly because literally everyone who sells ice climbing gear sells it better than you, and people doing something specialized like ice climbing will shop around because they want something specific, especially for big-ticket items.

Forrest Carver wrote:

Thanks for the responses so far!

We’re a bike/ski store in Maine but we dabble a bit in all sorts of stuff. Climbing is not particularly popular in this area…the closest well-known crag is 2+ hrs away (N.Conway, NH) and I believe the state only has a couple of climbing shops. For employees of the shop that are actually into climbing it’s just me (a know-nothing) and one other guy (minor enthusiast), so we would not have an in-house expert or anything close to it. That is probably the #1 issue with this plan. 

The hope in having a small climbing display is that a regular customer might swing by, see a rope or ATC hanging on the rack, and say “Hey, I didn’t know you guys can get climbing gear! Can you price match a pair of Cobras from Backcountry?” But it would also be cool for starting conversations and maybe introducing cyclists or skiers to the sport.

We probably have a quarter million dollars of 3+ year old mountain bikes in the store so inventory/opportunity cost is not as much of a factor as, say, REI. That said, we’d never consider bringing in something like shoes.

As sad as it makes me, it seems we’d achieve the desired goal by just having a single harness and chalk bag hanging from a Black Diamond POP display.

Of note, we have a pretty active online store and can ship internationally, so there are secondary avenues of sale beyond local. 

If you're looking at the second bolded item as a safety route for items you can't sell in your store, you'll need to fix two things and be prepared to do a third:

1. Eliminate the first bolded item. In fact, that should probably be done before deciding on and ordering any gear for your shop. However, you alluded to having identified this as an issue.

2. You'll need a lot more inventory than your budget allows.

3. You'll need an advertising and marketing plan and budget, including social media, to get the word out. Just putting up a notice on your site is likely inadequate for the necessary ROI. And figure out what is a reasonable ROI.

As someone else in the thread mentioned, you're looking at this from the perspective of an eager climber, not a small business owner.

Remember that by taking this on, you will be graded by your boss/shop owner.

I'll take a shot at this...with yet a different approach.  Become THE SOURCE for the ENTIRE line of some otherwise hard-to-find gear. I'm thinking of The Mountaineer (Keene Valley, NY)  - they seem to be the only/best place to find parts and accessories for Grivel ice gear. When no one else has replacement frontpoints, or the various add-on bits for an ice tool, or the goalie-style facemask for a Grivel helmet, they've got it.  So maybe sweet talk Petzl into giving you picks for discontinued axes, pads for old helmets, crampon parts of every conceivable type.  And of course retail their current line including their caving and via ferrata products.

Just a thought.

Alternatively, partner with a top-quality brand that's currently under-represented in the retail space. I'd nominate Trango or CAMP/Cassin. Too hard - at least around here - to demo Trango Raptor tools or try on CAMP's harnesses.

Gunkiemike wrote:

I'll take a shot at this...with yet a different approach.  Become THE SOURCE for the ENTIRE line of some otherwise hard-to-find gear. I'm thinking of The Mountaineer (Keene Valley, NY)  - they seem to be the only/best place to find parts and accessories for Grivel ice gear. When no one else has replacement frontpoints, or the various add-on bits for an ice tool, or the goalie-style facemask for a Grivel helmet, they've got it.  So maybe sweet talk Petzl into giving you picks for discontinued axes, pads for old helmets, crampon parts of every conceivable type.  And of course retail their current line including their caving and via ferrata products.

Just a thought.

Alternatively, partner with a top-quality brand that's currently under-represented in the retail space. I'd nominate Trango or CAMP/Cassin. Too hard - at least around here - to demo Trango Raptor tools or try on CAMP's harnesses.

Thanks Mike. This is the approach we've taken in the cycling world for 40 years and it has worked really well for us. Unfortunately it does come back to our collective lack of climbing knowledge. It will take years before we're comfortable talking gear...especially the kind of nichey, discontinued gear that we're typically able to move successfully in the bike world.

As far as the investment $$ goes, it's really not a factor. I've preordered $3000 wholesale bikes years ago that are now worth $2000 to a customer at best. Realistically, employees and friends-of will probably buy any climbing gear that sits for more than a year. The order I threw together is only about $700 anyway.

Everyone's advice has been great. Thank you very much!

Gunkiemike wrote:

I'll take a shot at this...with yet a different approach.  Become THE SOURCE for the ENTIRE line of some otherwise hard-to-find gear. I'm thinking of The Mountaineer (Keene Valley, NY)  - they seem to be the only/best place to find parts and accessories for Grivel ice gear. When no one else has replacement frontpoints, or the various add-on bits for an ice tool, or the goalie-style facemask for a Grivel helmet, they've got it.  So maybe sweet talk Petzl into giving you picks for discontinued axes, pads for old helmets, crampon parts of every conceivable type.  And of course retail their current line including their caving and via ferrata products.

Just a thought.

Alternatively, partner with a top-quality brand that's currently under-represented in the retail space. I'd nominate Trango or CAMP/Cassin. Too hard - at least around here - to demo Trango Raptor tools or try on CAMP's harnesses.

On this note, we really need better access to Totem Cams. If you can secure a supply of them you will have no problem at all moving them.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

Nope. Haha!

But I do trad climb, and there's no way I would encourage him to carry trad gear, because there's no way I would go to a place that only has one kind of cam to buy trad gear.

Think about it: let's say you're in the market for a pair of ice picks. How do you go about buying them? Do you go to a sporting goods store that you somehow noticed just started carrying a narrow selection of ice climbing gear? Or do you go online to shop? Or do you go to a brick and mortar place like Rock & Snow that you know has a wider selection?

Now think back to when you bought your first pair of climbing shoes. Did you shop around, or did you just find a place that sold climbing shoes and get the cheapest ones that fit?

Starting with buying ice climbing gear is silly because literally everyone who sells ice climbing gear sells it better than you, and people doing something specialized like ice climbing will shop around because they want something specific, especially for big-ticket items.

 I was making the ol “Do you even climb bro” joke with a twist. Not funny I’ll remember that.

 I call SDM1568 to find out what he’s got. If that’s a bust, the Mountaineer

 I bought them at REI. Because they were 2 sizes too big I returned them 2 years later totally blown out. I hear you can’t do that any longer.

 Ok if we’re being serious and I wanted to stock ice gear, The shop would have to be close to ice. I would carry picks, screws and points. Screws get lost and noobs bail off them, picks wear out or break and points break or loosen and fall off. I could see the need in stocking ice gear people may need immediately while on a trip. Other than that agreed. It’s hard to compete with the all other options out there.

Talk To IME in Salt Lake City ... They stock pretty much everything for  Technical Climbing