Important core industry account Snowboard Connection in Seattle shuttered its store this weekend.
SES reached co-owner John Logic via email Sunday night, and he was nice enough to answer some questions for us during this tough time.
Why are you closing and what happens now?
John Logic: Sales were decreasing since 2009. There’s finally a critical point where the model is not sustainable, no matter how much you cut expenses. Our rent was a major hurdle. Despite a patient landlord, we could not get out of our hole. And the bank had lost its patience, too.
What are some of things you’ve tried over the years to make it all work?
John: Reducing rent, laying off salaried staff, cutting health benefits, closed an outlet store – the usual stuff.
We were super-fortunate to have open lines of communication with most of our vendors, and they – when they could afford to – were very helpful in restructuring our debt (extending terms, granting some relief and accommodations).
We had a women’s buyer, and when she left for Zumiez, our men’s buyer absorbed her duties. Eventually we dropped women’s streetwear altogether this past March.
In June, we closed our Bellevue store. We re-invested in the web two years ago, but for all the sales it makes I still don’t know if it made much profit. Wait, I’ll run a report. (Report is generating. 1989 fax machine sound coming from other room, off-camera.)
Ok, yeah, at the numbers we did, it paid for the web guy, a warehouse and inventory manager, and the rent on the warehouse. We couldn’t really break out of that level to where it was truly profitable. It moved inventory, but at a less-than-desirable margin. It was always about 15% of sales.
When did your business take a turn for the worse?
John: We enjoyed continuous growth for 18 years. From 1990 to 2008. Wow! That was a lot of fun! Our last year in our waterfront store was our best year ever.
Then, we moved to a new, clean, soulless space that was absolutely beautiful despite its soullessness (insert some comment about O.C. trophy wives here) and Tiffany – THAT became our best year ever – 2007-2008. Across from REI.
And then, the crash. It has been a struggle since.
What was it like to have a store across from a flagship REI location? In hindsight, do you wish you had located elsewhere?
John: In 2007, we moved across the street from REI, from their flagship store. We got along well with them, I think. Of course they are more reactive, chasing after brands that are getting traction in smaller shops.
That’s fine – that’s their buyer’s job. It’s up to the vendors to make the final call. Maybe they did hurt us. (I know that when LibTech went in there, our Lib numbers dropped. But that could have been some other reason, too. It could also be that as brands’ pre-season orders dropped, they expanded distribution, because to do otherwise would mean making tough decisions like laying people off or reducing SKUs that are only there for nostalgic reasons, or because of a girlfriend or whatever. Corporations are people now, so they can be wildly emotional, right?)
What is next for you? Would you like to do something else in the industry or open a new store?
John: I can’t say what’s next. Not because I’m secretive – I just didn’t know we’d be closing until a week ago. We were trying to solve this up to the very end. Who plans on failing? If you never plan to fail, it’s hard to know how to behave while you’re failing.
I still have some sticky shit to work out, as this all happened very quickly. The truth is yes, we failed. We owe the bank, we owe our landlord, we owe some vendors, we owe our friends. It’s crappy, no way around that. I’d apologize here, but that’s pretty cheesy. Hopefully I will be able to talk to each principal face-to-face someday.
How long was Snowboard Connection in business?
John: My sweetie, Lisa Okey, (Edison High 1979!) and I moved to Seattle from L.A. and opened Snowboard Connection in September 1990.
Thank you to everyone that supported us along the way, especially Adam Gerken, our General Manager and Captain since 2004, and Rich Carlton, snow and surf buyer since 1998.
Hire these guys!
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