Outpost Sunsport, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, has the distinction of being both 8 months old and 50 years old, at the same time.
Longtime owner Randy Morgan, who wanted to retire, sold the store in October 2022 to a three-person ownership group headed by Riley Siddoway, as the store was celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Siddoway, who also owns Uphill Pursuits, a ski shop in Bozeman, Montana, is planning no changes to Outpost Sunsport, preferring instead to use what works.
“When I was looking for another business to purchase, at first, patio furniture did seem odd, but I quickly understood why it was part of the summertime business, instead of being a ski shop only,” said Siddoway. “It really diversifies things for us.”
Siddoway, who is both owner and president of the company, said the most important retail consideration this year will be to double or triple the effort to get customers, unlike the times during and immediately after the pandemic, when many had a lot of time on their hands and money to spend.
Business, he said, is no longer falling into retailers’ laps.
Riley Silloway, left, the new owner and president of Outpost Sunsport, with previous owner Randy Morgan, who has retired
“The years 2021 and 2022 were two of the biggest years that Outpost has ever had,” says Siddoway. “We are taking them out of the mix and comparing our sales to 2019. In 2021 and 2022, they had a lot of time to spend in their backyards and having something to sit on was nice and important. Now that the Covid driver is over with, they have all kinds of other opportunities to use their time. Patio furniture remains an important part but it is only a part — now they have vacations and softball and hikes, they can go to movies and Fourth of July parades and they can leave home.”
Outpost Sunsport also has to deal with the weather, which prompts an annual question: When do you put away the skis and bring out the patio furniture?
“We had a good winter snow in the West this year, but the downside to that is that winter lasted so long,” says Siddoway. “By March 1, winter was not over. I didn’t start thinking about it until almost Easter and then really probably only by May 1. The ski side was great and that is over with now; the store is in full swing with patio. We will go as hard as we can until September and transition the patio back down to the basement and the ski will start to come back. It depends on the weather — we will have five months this year as opposed to seven or eight months.”
The climate means that ordering — and timing buys — can be a challenge, which means that more can be left over at the end of the season. But in terms of choosing merchandise, Outpost Sunsport is miles ahead because it has decades of data on what works.
“We know what works and what doesn’t, especially what works in the West and what different climate and different color preferences we have,” says Siddoway. “They like a lot of color in Florida but in Colorado, we have more beiges and grays and light browns. There are customers who like bright colors, but they are in the minority. Brands that work have particular collections that have sold well. We keep doing that, which has worked really well.”
From a marketing perspective, Siddoway looks beyond the usual to such things as sponsorships, but only as long as they pay off.
In the past, Siddoway has done such things as sponsor a hole at a golf tournament. Now, he may agree to contribute, but he would also want to set up a patio set at the tee, to show the product.
“I’m doing more targeting in terms of events — and whatever event we are at, we want customers to be able to interact with the furniture, to be able to sit in the furniture and talk with them about it,” says Siddoway. “We don’t want just a passive banner; we want to have a more interactive one.”
Another target is garden tours, which happen every year. Similar to a Parade of Homes, a garden tour is an opportunity to put patio furniture on display — and then offer it at a discount to the homeowner where it was displayed.
On the side of the tried-and-true, Outpost Sunsport partnered with a high-end furniture brand to send out a direct-mail piece to 5,000 residential properties valued at a minimum of $1 million, and is exploring doing TV advertising for the first time. For its part, Siddoway has found out that social media works well, but with ski equipment, not patio furniture.
To set the store apart from the competition, Outpost Sunsport works to have a wide variety of products that people can see. Close-by and somewhat similar competitors concentrate solely on skiing in winter and patio in summer, but can’t be as nimble.
“We can make sure we have collections they don’t; we can showcase things that customers are not going to see anywhere else,” says Siddoway. “With big box, people will go there and buy and realize they have to replace it every two years — ours can last ten years. We can show them an investment with us can be a lot better over the long term.”
This year, Outpost Sunsport has the advantage of having fresh inventory, with special orders down from 12 months to just four or five weeks. With that, and with more people getting out now and freight charges on the downswing, the store can go back to calling on commercial accounts, such as restaurants and breweries, along with residential customers.
“We are getting back into the climate where everybody is trying and having to work for the business again, all of it,” says Siddoway. “We are making sure we are delivering value to the consumer.”
Siddoway says that value isn’t often seen online, which he said has a poor representation of color, can’t be sat in and can’t be pictured in your backyard. Instead, most higher-end consumers would rather have someone with expertise show it to them — and deliver and set it up professionally.
What advice does he have for struggling casual retailers?
Meet the consumer where they are. Put up signs so they know what kind of business you are in. Offer products that are tried and true. Deliver the goods — and be willing to haul away and throw away the old furniture.
“Don’t discount the power of person-to-person marketing, any way you can get in front of people,” says Siddoway. “Go with out-of-the-box thinking of different ways to interact and market and make it as local as you can. The only pictures I want (for advertising) are pictures that are local — it resonates more than a stock photo from who knows where. If it looks like Fort Collins, it is more relevant to them. It makes more sense to people. If you can see the mountains, you can picture it in your own backyard. The trees, the view looks the same and it is not hard for people to picture it.”
