We might be at the height of summer but now is the time when people generally think about their next skiing holiday. We talk to powder afficionados Zack Starke and Jason Jeffery of The Ski Lodge in Barry who claim there’s no business like...
SNOW BUSINESS
What are your backgrounds Zack?
ZACK Well, I’ve skied from a young age and it has been a major driving force in my life. I’ve managed The Ski Lodge since 1996 and I’ve been lucky enough to indulge my love for skiing and have also been fortunate to have travelled to some fantastic winter locations around the world.
JASON As a snowboarder I’ve travelled all over the world from Canada to New Zealand chasing winter! Career wise, my background is in product and graphic design. I spent a bit of time travelling and settled for a year in Australia, and on my return to the UK started working at The Ski Lodge.
What are your roles in the business?
ZACK As store manager, I oversee the day to day running. I like to have a very hands-on role and you’ll find me on the shop floor interacting with customers and staff on a daily basis. I am committed to delivering a high standard of customer service to all of our customers. There are many aspects to my role from sales, through to product buying and human resources management.
JASON My role as creative and marketing manager sees me taking care of all the visual collateral and marketing material produced through the season as well as in store point of purchase, store interior design and layout through to designing and delivering our new website. I also plan and implement all marketing activities across the year and I’m involved in the product buying process. It’s a pretty diverse role.
Who started the business?
Barrie Hill established the business in 1986.
Why Barry?
At that time, snow and action sports were exploding in popularity and with the UK and particularly south Wales enjoying a big increase in participants, it made sense to provide those enthusiasts with a retail outlet where they could get their hands on the latest kit, right here in south Wales.
What do you stock?
We pride ourselves on providing a huge variety of products for every type of skier and snowboarder. Some of our biggest brands are also exclusive to us in Wales, such as high end performance ski outerwear brands like Spyder, Killy and Degre 7. We stock many of the world’s leading brands for both equipment and clothing like Salomon, Burton Snowboards, Atomic, Quiksilver, Roxy, The North Face, O’Neill, Animal, K2, Bonfire, Nitro, Oakley, Rossignol and many more.
Who are your customers?
We have a large number of loyal customers who have shopped with us for many years. We have customers that travel to us from London, the Midlands and the West Country. We like to think we cater for every snow enthusiast, from those lucky young individuals heading out for a season through to families taking their annual ski trip and people who are new to the sport. This is an area we feel a great sense of pride, in guiding people through the minefield of items available, offering guidance on what they need and, more importantly, those they don’t for a successful trip.
Our price range is quite diverse, and so we cover a variety of budgets – skiing is a lot more accessible than it once was and kit is now available to all budgets. We also work very closely with a number of schools in helping introduce pupils to winter sports. For us, it is simply about passing on our passion to our customers and supplying them with the very best kit available.
Why do customers shop with you?
We’re a dedicated winter sports store and we’re extremely passionate about what we do and have well over twenty years experience. Not only do we feel that we offer the very best range of products available, but we also pride ourselves on our first-class customer service delivered by a team of enthusiastic, highly experienced and informed staff who are happy to guide all customers through the products, answer any questions or simply exchange ski stories, triumphs, challenges or have a natter about favourite resorts.
Why is this a good time for customers to visit you?
Right now is the best time to buy new kit here at The Ski Lodge. Not only are the products as technically advanced as they have ever been, but we are also currently in sale and as we are a specialised store have a great range of products still available this summer at greatly reduced prices. Couple this with the highly publicised strength of the euro increasing the cost of renting and purchasing in resort for the UK visitor and it makes sense to buy now in the UK. Skiers and snowboarders looking to get the most out of their money should really take advantage of the reduced prices available at this time of year in preparation for their next trip to the snow.
Any new and exciting developments?
It’s always exciting, we are looking forward to another great season of snow in Europe, but the biggest area of change for us is our website. This season we are launching an ecommerce website where customers will be able to buy online. This is extremely exciting for us as it allows the Ski Lodge brand to expand across the UK and open up the store to an even larger customer base as well as enabling us to stock any even wider range of products.
We will also feature news blogs and offers to our customers to keep them at the forefront of what is happening at The Lodge.
