SPRING 2016
Western & English Today
19
RIDING THE WEB WAVE
I
f there's a top trend in the Western boot
industry— other than crossover fashion
and a more conservative price point— it
might be an increased market for Internet
sales.
"Our customers have lots of websites,
and that business was huge for Christmas,"
Smoky Mountain Boots president Bob
T orp says. "We probably did about four
times as much Internet business through
our customers as we did the year before."
So much that T orp plans to rearrange
his warehouse shipping area and put in an
aisle that will handle only Internet sales
to ship to a store's customer (at a service
charge) or directly to the store for pickup.
T e bad news for the increase of online
sales?
"It was at the expense of the retail stores,"
T orp says. "We found that business of .
T e Internet business has really changed."
Rod's True Western president Scott
Hartle points out that men's and women's
boot sales are evenly divided for store pur-
chases. "It's about 50-50, but for Internet
sales, that goes up to 85 percent women
and 15 percent men."
T e other downside of Internet boot
sales is the number of returns, T orp says.
"Returns for goods sold on the Internet
is like 20 percent. Returns we have for a
regular customer is 1 percent."
But, T orp adds, website sales are the
wave of the future, so he recommends
stores begin an Internet presence.
"You want the business," he says. "It's just
coming at you from a dif erent way."
— J.D.B.
liberty
boot
macie bean
nocona
old gringo
rocky
durango
sonora