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Small retailers square off with chains in Lowcountry
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
The tug-of-war between independent retailers and national chains and superstores over the American consumer is not a new thing, but one local businessman thinks the challenge is not as tough as it seems.
James Kirwin, owner of TrySports in Mount Pleasant, is an Irish banker-turned-Carolina-retailer who thinks most small businesses can successfully compete against their larger rivals.
“I actually think it’s easy to beat the big-box stores,” Kirwin said. “The big-box stores are so bad at what they do there’s a huge opportunity for small businesses to take on these guys and beat them.”
Other independent retailers in the area aren’t sure the task is so easy, but agree with Kirwin that small businesses stand their best chance of competing against chains by focusing on niches and excelling in customer service.
Mike Maschek, owner of East Cooper Sporting Goods, believes good customer service and unique products are his first line of defense.
“I don’t think anything is easy,” Maschek said. “By not having one of those big-box stores here in Mount Pleasant, I think we’re able to compete. I think if they were close by, we’d have some turmoil and would have to re-think what we do. I just think it’s important we don’t lose focus on the customer.”
Big-box challenge
The big-box challenge was only part of the reason Howard Fulwiler recently closed R & M Sporting Goods at Citadel Mall, one of the stores that opened with the mall in 1981.
“Of course, big boxes are part of the equation, and in the mall you’ve got high rent,” Fulwiler said. “Putting a store 10 times our size next door didn’t help.”
The opening of Dick’s Sporting Goods at the mall in 2005 was not the only thing he has had to compete with in recent years, Fulwiler said.
“People come in and try our racquets, and then they buy them on the Internet,” he said.
Lee Allison, owner of Doolittle’s pet store in Mount Pleasant’s Patriots Plaza, said her store differentiates itself mainly through the natural pet foods it sells. Doolittle’s relocated in Patriots Plaza after the national retailer PetSmart took a spot in Doolittle’s former location, Belle Hall Shopping Center.
“We’re really different enough from them. We may have a few toys that overlap, but really none of our foods do,” Allison said. “We don’t try to beat their prices because we can’t buy on the volumes that they do, but we’re very similar on things that we do carry in common. With big-box stores, there’s this assumption that everything there is cheap or cheaper.”
Kirwin said he doesn’t try to compete on price but rather on added value for the customer, including a five-step custom-fitting process to help customers choose the right athletic shoes.
Store opening a dream
The store is a dream for Kirwin, who spent time managing human resources as a banker and later ran his own human resources management consulting company. As he became more interested in sports, he promised himself that one day he would open a specialty retail store focused on the niche markets of running, swimming, cycling and triathlon.
He wanted his store located in a climate that was conducive to those sports and looked at places such as Spain and Portugal, but decided an English-speaking country would be better. He discovered South Carolina after his wife’s sister moved to Charleston from New Jersey.
Kirwin opened TrySports in February 2004 in a strip adjacent to Mount Pleasant’s Towne Centre. He recently received several awards in the specialty store category from Runner’s World magazine, including No. 1 specialty store in South Carolina, No. 2 in the South Atlantic region and No. 12 in the nation. A second TrySports opens in Charlotte this month and Kirwin intends to grow the company further.
As TrySports expands, Kirwin said he hopes he can avoid becoming like the larger companies.
“We’re on a growth path and one of the strategic challenges that we have is, if we get too big, falling into the same kinds of traps,” Kirwin said. “The bigger an organization becomes, the more bureaucratic it becomes. They’re big into what I call policies. Customers don’t want to know about policies, but they want to have problems solved.”
Customer service No. 1
The first and most obvious area where independent retailers can surpass their giant competitors, Kirwin said, is in the area of customer service.
“It isn’t rocket science. There are a lot of basic principles involved,” he said. “The difference is not talking about them but doing them. A lot of the big boxes talk about their service. Most say they’ve got great customer service, but few actually have. It’s what they do, not what they say, that actually counts.”
An excellent staff is another thing Kirwin sees as key in the success of a small business.
“You need to invest in your staff, the experience and quality of your staff,” Kirwin said. “Which means you probably have to pay your people well. The others probably say, ‘How can I get my staff as cheap as possible and keep the overhead down?’ I want to find the very best staff possible, and if I have to pay a 30 to 40 percent premium, that’s what I do.”
Filling a niche is another tactic Kirwin feels a small business owner must do to keep his share of the market.
Tom Lauria, area manager of the Small Business Development Center in North Charleston, said Kirwin is absolutely right.
“Big stores try to be all things to all people and a lot of times a small business can focus on a certain niche, and that’s where they can be very successful and outperform the big-box supplier,” Lauria said.
“We generally advise small businesses to find something that the big-box retailer doesn’t do well and then focus on that and make it part of their sales pitch and selling point.”
Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation, said one advantage independent retailers have over chains is that they are rooted in the community.
“The advantage mom-and-pops have is they’re embedded in the community, and they need to leverage that,” Krugman said
TrySports sponsors local athletic events as well as swim teams, track clubs and other local sports groups, Kirwin said.
“I think if we were challenged by a big-box store, we would find ways to compete and fight back, and I feel that there is opportunity there for every small business, whether it’s a restaurant, a bookstore or a coffee shop, but you have to get out there and do things,” Kirwin said.
Despite fresh challenges from e-retailers and national chains, small businesses still make up the vast majority of members in the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce, said Philip Owens, the chamber’s senior vice president for business development.
“Most of the members are small in scope and independently owned,” Owens said. “They are not chains; they are small companies owned by individual people that fight the fight every day.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
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