(Written 2011. Snopro's 1st year) If you have ever travelled to the US, you may have noticed the lack of CD stores, DVD rental shops and now even bookstores are diminishing. It’s happening here too! Customers value convenience now more than ever, the majority downloads music, stream movies, and traditional books are moving quickly to “E-Books” such as the Nook and Kindle.....
The one thing in common is it is all powered by the internet. We used to have to make time for “surfing the net” behind a desktop PC, not now with laptops, tablet PC’s and smartphones. More and more people have the power of the internet on tap in their pocket. So we are driven by ease and convenience in everyday life and this ultimately shapes the market. (Anyone want to start a chain of CD stores?)
How can this model be applied successfully to ski rental? It’s been said “Don’t sell a product, sell a solution”. The solution Snopro sells is to put the customer in the centre of the ski hire experience rather than the physical store. Traditionally the renter has to travel to the store, find a park, take the entire group in the store for fitting, lug the gear from the store, return to the store for any service or support then lug all the gear back to the store at the end.
Instead we put the customer in the centre, and deliver the equipment to the customer, fit the customer at their accommodation, return to the customer for any support needs, then pick up from the customer on completion.
So what is it we have in common with the way we purchase music, movies and books in this generation of technology? Simple, no shop! You simply book online or call and we pick from our warehouse to deliver the service and equipment to you without the overhead of expensive resort retail space. We can remain price competitive and offer the very best ski gear and service New Zealand has ever experienced.
Just don’t ask for directions to our shop!