Pete Brownell
Well, Brownells has been around 85 years. We’ve seen trends fluctuate from peaks to troughs and back to peaks. This cycle is bit different. Through the pandemic we had what I’d call a “triple up”: we had scarcity, we had personal concerns, we had a huge financial number sent to people from the government.
That put money in all our pockets and helped create all that demand.
Now, we have what I would call a triple-down or triple-trough. That’s pulling everything back below the mean of an industry that’s been growing over the last 6-7 years.
This triple down is fraught with change.
New entrants coming into the marketplace drove demand. So did the idea in the minds of consumers that things were going to be scarce.
Now, none of that’s there. None of that’s driving any market segment or giving any tailwinds at all.
We’re also facing these new tariffs. It’s an unbelievable shift in the way we have foreign policy going on right now. Things are hard to predict, because no president in my grandpa’s lifetime, or my dad’s - or my lifetime - has addressed foreign policy the way this administration has with tariffs.
That's really been causing a lot of confusion.
And that’s the background to why I believe this market is values - plural - driven. It’s important thing to understand what’s different from a historic trend.
Historically, we’d see 18 months of pandemic, and we’d see 36-months of sales decline and then we’d be back to “normal.” New products, new accessories, new editorial content would reinvigorate people to get back into the sport.
This one's different.
This is where you really gotta be focusing on the value you’re providing to customers. And it’s not just quality product that will drive it.
Quality relationships are also driving it. You’re reputation is gonna be the one thing that will pull you through this slump, this getting back to normal or whatever you call it, as a retailer. The essence of my piece is trying to help the industry understand that reputation will drive you through this downturn. Focus on your relationships you have with your customers, and do it right now.