advanced theory and practice in sport marketing - Marshalls University

technology continues to grow, sport retail firms must decide whether they are
going to become a multi-channeled retailer. This may become mandatory as
competition among and between channel formats continues to be more
prevalent.
Sport retail management is the end result of the distribution process, and is
the focal point for the sale of the sport product to consumers for their personal
consumption. Without sport retailers, there is no sale of the sport product, and
sport marketing becomes useless. While there are many challenges, success in
sport retail management is probable if a sport retail firm has a solid retail strategy,
strong organization, sound application of the sport retail mix, and effective
and efficient merchandise management.
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
Mandy Cormier, Merchandise Manager
Norfolk Tides Baseball Club, Norfolk, Virginia
When I started in working in retail in 1998 for Lady Foot Locker I just
considered it a job to make some money while in High School. After I
decided where I was going to go to college my current manager wanted me
to stay with the company and transferred me to the Pheasant Lane Mall in
Nashua, New Hampshire. I continued to work throughout college and they
were always understanding about basketball and schoolwork. I became a
Shift Manager, which allowed me to be the manager on duty if the Manager
was not in the store. Soon after graduation in May I became the Assistant
Manager for the Nashua store, I still could not believe that I was still with
the company. After only being an Assistant Manager for 2 months I got a
promotion to Manager in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This was an enormous
step and big accomplishment. Even though I was excited to be close to home
the Boston cliental is completely different than New Hampshire.
My first week as manager was really difficult the staff at Cambridge were
already set in there ways and most of my employees were the same age if not
older. It was definitely a big change for me even though I had grown up right
outside of Boston because there needs were different than what I was used to.
In Nashua most of the customers were looking for technical sneakers for performance,
whereas in Cambridge they were more looking for fashion styles.
Since Lady Foot Locker is a corporate company I really did not have a say in
what product I would receive. I could always give my input, but we (the
managers) did not get to actually choose the items we would sell. With that
said we would make the best of it by contacting other managers to either
send them a style that has been sitting in the stockroom in our store, but they
could have sold out of it. By doing this they in turn would send an item that
we may have sold really well to replenish our stock. Basically the idea was to
produce as much money at the end of the say as we could. We would be
304 ADVANCED THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SPORT MARKETING