Special Gifts Section

The Perfect Gifts (From page 25)

square feet [of retail space] and crisscross merchandising, we have to get items in so people see things. We’ve reorganized our website, we run specials on social media. Clinton is a small city; we’re a communityowned team. If we come out with something new and our fans don’t have it, they want to get it. We came out with a bunch of Nike dri-fit tops with numbers on them. We’ve done well with them. We’ll use social media, put an ad in the newspaper, there are a couple of baseball card fanatics…we’ll put it on our pages.”

Williams said social media is a great way to stay in contact with fans from out of the area. “With many of our fans not being local, this is the best way for us to keep them up to date on all that we have to offer and special promotions and sales,” she explained.

At Heads and Tails, they use social media to catch fans’ attention and bring them into their store. “We have a really good team in the store. None of us have a retail background. We’re sports fans. We have a big ‘feature wall’ up front in the store. We didn’t change the layout of the store because there wasn’t much we could do with it. The feature wall is for hockey and pro football. Whatever we know will be a fast mover will be on that wall at all times,” Sherman said, “Merchandising for us more than ever has been done through social media. We have a social media intern—a 21-yearold from University of Tampa. We want the youthful approach to social media. People do come into the brick-and-mortar location in order to get the product they see on our social media pages. Our website allows for purchase online, pickup in store—we have a lot of folks who do that.”

Carrying a mix of classic and new gifts to appeal to longtime and brand-new fans, and utilizing social media to promote these offerings, ensures strong sales in the gift category for sports fan and minor league retailers. ❖