Amid shutdowns of all recreation facilities and gyms, running and walking outdoors or on a treadmill is about the only physical outlet left in America. That’s the good news for run specialty retailers and to help them take advantage of this one silver lining, Upper Quadrant, a backbone enabler of marketing and technology best practices for run specialty, has put together a collaborative space called the Run Specialty Toolkit.
The Run Specialty Toolkit is composed of resources, tips and recommendations that retailers can apply to their business – images, process maps, email templates – to navigate this dynamic environment. The toolkit is the result of a movement where many organizations that care about the future of the industry are coming together to share.
Detailed tools in the toolkit can be found at www.upperquadrant.com/run-specialty-toolkit.
Basically the toolkit is designed to help run specialty retailers launch immediately into the virtual world and continue business within the boundaries of stay-at-home and social-distancing rules. Some of the helpful articles created thus far are:
- Virtual Event Experience presented by Raceroster
- Virtual Fitting Step-by-Step designed by Runhouse
- Tech Tool Options and Offerings
- Instagram Shopping Set-up.
Upper Quadrant plans to continue adding helpful tips and information so it can continue as a valuable resource.
Retailers who have already put some elements to use are seeing results. Pacers, which adapted the Virtual Fitting template and scheduling process, has found a new way to stay engaged with customers. Pacers booked more than 100 sessions shortly after implementing the process. Pacers and other retailers are now looking into how to adapt the core of this process to other items such as apparel and bras.
Under the #keeprunning banner, anyone with great ideas or collateral to contribute is encouraged to do so by reaching out to Upper Quadrant via their website. By working together, we will all emerge intact and even stronger after the crisis ends.
