The corporate customer tends to pick up more logoed products, whereas residential golfers tend to be attracted to the premium brand products from the likes of Hugo Boss, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.
One of the unique selling points of our shop is that we offer golfers a lot of brands they won't see in their local pro shops. We have reduced our logoed business this year and made a concerted effort to target residential golfers, which has been a great success; The Belfry's residential business has increased by about 120%. We have also made ourselves very competitive with some special offers. We have not necessarily lowered our prices but we have packaged items up in an attempt to increase the average spend of customers.
We have also made sure our branded products are merchandised in a really attractive way, so when customers walk into the shop they are drawn towards the displays. We have done this with both soft goods and hardware. We stock nine premium hardware brands, and while some of our competitors have gone searching for cheaper brands, we have stuck with the premium brands, but perhaps taken in some discontinued product lines, so we can reach lower price points while maintaining that element of prestige.
Less is more
Over the past three years we have reduced the amount of stock on display in the shop, and instead we replenish displays often. The shop floor is a lot tidier and cleaner than it has ever been. Less is sometimes more.
We have also made an extra effort to clear old stock from the stock room at attractive price points, and so our stock holding now is lower than it has ever been, which provides us with a strong base for coming out of the recession.
Our retail revenue might be down slightly this year, overall. We are very big with custom fitting, and while we have maintained our sales of custom-fit irons, we started to see late last year that customers were buying less custom-fit woods. In a normal year we would expect to reach a high of 75 custom fits in a week, whereas this year the high has been about 55, although the average spend of golfers has remained the same. Ping will remain our top-selling hardware brand this year, particularly with the introduction of the G15 and i15 ranges - 2008 was a fantastic year with the success of G10.
On the hardware side we concentrate on providing excellent customer service, custom-fitting and the prestige brands. We are not like a normal pro shop, that might custom fit one or two brands: we custom-fit nine brands - we probably offer the largest custom-fit facility in Europe. We have 21 golf pros, including 10 trainee professionals, and in addition to that we have 18 shop staff.
On course
Our green fee revenues in 2009 are probably going to be like for like with 2008, while the number of rounds played will probably end slightly up on last year - we were four per cent up in August. For the whole year I am expecting our rounds to be up by one or two per cent but the overall golf revenue will probably be flat.
We have invested more than £3million in our courses over the last three years. This includes major redesigns to a number of holes on The Brabazon and we have also turned the PGA National into an inland links. The courses are now in the best condition they have ever been in and thanks to this quality, I am positive we will be very busy during the first quarter of next year even though it's winter golf.
A lot of our competitors have had to reduce their course maintenance expenditure this year, and so the quality of their golf courses has dropped. With golf courses you are dealing with nature, and if course investment is cut-back then the quality will deteriorate and it cannot be turned around overnight. The Belfry's owner, Sean Quinn, has insisted we maintain our level of investment in the golf course.
There are courses that used to charge £100, and now they might be offering deals at £50, but the reality is that its quality is only worth the £50 green fee.
Golf course expenditure is going to be a big issue in 2010. As a golfer, you get what you pay for.
