An Athlete Warehouse Case Study of Commencing a Business

After reviewing the “Athlete Warehouse” case study where two siblings attempt to commence a business selling athletic equipment, Colin and Ed Power are settling on whether to open a sports store in the city of Grand Falls. The store name will be Athlete's Warehouse and their target clients are individuals between the ages 15 to 34 years of age that are engaged with any brandishing activities. The store will center in offering great quality athletic footwear and garments in addition to they will offer incredible learning and client administration to their purchaser. Colin is persuaded the store will be effective; in any case, Ed isn't so certain about it since he will put his retirement investment funds into the business adventure.

An approach to check whether the business bodes well is to play out a SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threads) investigation. Let’s begin with 3 strength

The first strength among the two brothers is both of them carrying a vast amount of knowledge on the sports field, Colin had the much-needed University Ph.D. degree, and ED has the professional experience by involving with a Hockey Club.

The second strength was the market, which was the center of the neighborhood. Their warehouse was surrounded by restaurant, saloon, dress shop, sports expert franchise, mostly it was in a commercial area, the more commercial place means more people, more people means more sales which turns out to be more profitable.

The final strength was that they were already pro in selling sports goods within the local schools and coaching through their track and field club, it means they already established themselves as a name of a trust.

Possible Weakness

Financial Weakness was their main weakness, despite being in a good location they ended up by losing $35000 in 1986, and later they found the shortage of cash for renovating their stores again.

Poor Brand Image: As a startup for every company they have suffered drawbacks, and I strongly believe that having a poor brand image was firmly responsible for that. It is quite hard to hold the grip as a starter within the top quality brand. I think there was a bit of unrecognizability when they started it, as a result, it was quite hard for them to generate sales activity which really caused them poor product and service performance.

Not having sufficient sports experts: Both of the brothers did not believe that the manager or the sales staff were capable of offering expert assistance with the selection of the goods, which was one of the biggest weaknesses of their losses in 1986.

Opportunities

Guarantees an income

Economically, Town of Grand fall was the primary service center for the retail trading area of at least 50,000 people, which means many shoppers came to the town from Springdale and Baie Verte to the west and Gander to the east. Which were guaranteed options for earning revenue?

Location

The warehouse was in one of the best locations in their neighborhood, though they ended up losing money in their first year, due to the great location it was a matter of time to recover all of their losses.

Transparent Customer

Ed,' said to Colin, 'according to his estimates there are at least 3000 people in this market area who are willing to pay good prices for good quality merchandise. These people are not being serviced by existing businesses. If we stick with quality lines of shoes and athletic clothes I'm sure we can make it.' It means as long as the quality is top notch customers are willing to pay any amount they want.

Three threats

Financial

Despite having a good plan for their warehouse, they experienced a fight with some unexpected surprise. Both of the brothers were unable to collect the salary of their own, instead of paying huge money to the full-time staff they considered hiring part-time sales staff.

Competition

They were not the only one sports warehouse in their neighborhood, there were already few of the well-established sports retailers who were backed by some of the big sponsors, so it was pretty obvious that they faced huge competition from their counterparts.

Missing Key person

Despite both of the brothers having enough experience on the sports field they ended up losing profits because they, the manager or the sales staff were capable of offering expert assistance with the selection of the goods. They should have hired some top quality sales manager to boost up their sale and marketing. The reason I choose this justification is, most of the startup companies face this kind of difficulties at the beginning, ED and Colin’s warehouse faced the same kind of problems. So before starting any kind of business a person or an organization should be ready to face this kind of drawback, they must have a positive mindset. They should focus on the future consequences, not the short term consequences before establishing a business.