Conceptualizing Your Store Brand Through Retail Design
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Conceptualizing Your Store Brand Through Retail Design
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This episode’s guest is Brian Hawkins, owner of Colorado-based Fixture Lab – a leader in proven fixture, design, and merchandising solutions for bicycle retailers. Brian’s path in the bicycle industry started from building bikes Wheatridge Cycles when he was 14 to handling advertising, marketing, research, event planning, and program development for multiple global brands including Giant, Liv, SRAM, Tern, Alchemy, Cat Eye, Project Bike Tech, Skratch Labs, and more….and of course to date, working with about 200 retailers in the bike, fly fishing, and running worlds.
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Conceptualizing Your Store Brand Through Retail Design
Tue, 6/22
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
store, bike, people, retailers, bike shop, fixture, brand, brian, bicycle, retail, riding, pandemic, customer, merchandising, business, story, beard, design, fun, thinking
SPEAKERS
Heather Mason, NBDA , Brian Hawkins
NBDA 00:10
You are listening to bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National bicycle Dealers Association.
Heather Mason 00:17
Welcome to another episode of bicycle retail radio brought to you by the NBA. This is President Heather Mason. Thank you for listening. If you’re a first time listener, be sure to check out the previous episodes do us a favor and leave a review. Today’s guest is Brian Hawkins, owner of Colorado based fixture lab a proven leader in fixture Design and Merchandising solutions for bicycle retailers. Brian’s path in the bicycle industry started from building bikes when he was 14 at wheatridge cycles to handling advertising, marketing research, event planning and program development for multiple global brands. Including giant live SRAM turn cateye project, bike tech scratch labs and more. And of course today working with about 200 retailers in the bike fly fishing and running worlds. Ryan is a man that keeps you smiling in every conversation, and I cannot wait to get into it with them today. First, a very special things to midsize for teaming up with the NBA for the month of June to highlight retailers of excellence. I have a super special place in my heart for men’s socks. They’re my go to socks for all my rides, runs and athletic pursuits. My daughter is a big fan and continues to steal mine out of my drawer. A huge fan you should be to to learn more about offering mint socks and your retail store go to their website which is freshly minted calm that’s freshly minted calm. Without further ado, but can’t keep the smiles aside. Welcome Brian to bicycle retail radio. Thank you for joining us. How are you? Thank you I’m really really good. Really good. For our listeners who don’t know, we record these podcasts via zoom and Brian is coming to me with just his face showing up on his logo. It’s a great backdrop. He’s always surprising me and always leaves me with a smile.
Brian Hawkins 02:08
So I thought if he needed a screen grab of the conversation that would be I might have to lean to the side. And I just noticed that my shirt flickers, which is disappointing, but Well, I think it’s excellent.
Heather Mason 02:21
Brian, you are just a continued supporter of NBDA and retailers nationwide. We just finished a project working together that you led Brian to address the theft and security issues that retailers are facing. And for those who weren’t able to attend that roundtable recording just a few weeks ago, it’s on the NBDA website. Man, Brian, the feedback we received those numbers that you presented in that roundtable were really shocking. Can you tell the listeners just a little bit about that security survey project we just finished?
Brian Hawkins 02:55
No. Yeah, I mean, it was super interesting to dig into that. Because coming from the design side of this equation and needing to design around any security measures that we need to take inside of a store. It just begs the question all the time, what we’re going to do so I wanted to dig into this for a long time. This was a great opportunity. So what we did was we created a survey of everybody that’s a member and non member who owns a bike shop in NBDA. And we had about 9390 Yeah, but I think it was 93 stores that responded to the survey. So not a gigantic survey, but the numbers were still pretty staggering to me. Because like out of the 93 stores, there had been a total of 82 break ins in the last 18 months. And 78 and a half people that responded to the survey said that after hours break ends are a huge priority for them. And I have to think back to when I started, you know, in the bike business a million years ago, gosh, nobody would have said that the break ins after hours, which that was just unheard of. But it’s really it’s an epidemic right now another thing that stood out to me was out of our small sample of retailers, there had been a total of $804,000 worth of product stolen and that doesn’t definitely not include the damage to the facility to the store itself. So you know, the numbers are what I feared they would be in really kind of sobering and I kind of my big takeaway was, you know, I will look at bike shops, any retail really with a little bit different. I’m moving forward in terms of protecting that investment that they put into those stores. Holy cow.
Heather Mason 04:52
Yeah, that number was staggering. I mean, I still in the way you presented it in the PowerPoint. It was like this flickering number and you know, only submitted by, you know, such a small number of bicycle retailers nationwide. But the webinar was great, Brian, you went into, you know, going through gates and plastic that, you know, you can put on your Windows to make them shatterproof. And it really is some great feedback for retailers and that so we really appreciate it that
Brian Hawkins 05:17
there’s a couple terms that I’m not going to explain now. Because we have to use this to tease people into listening to it. But, you know, we talked through target hardening, which I thought was a fun term, and then accepted. And I’m not even going to explain how I say that. But sceptered is the term and you have to listen to the discussion to hear what we mean. But it’s really invaluable stuff. If you’re a retailer. These days out there. I highly recommend you listen to it.
Heather Mason 05:48
Yeah, no, I remember those terms. Yeah, challenge for everyone listening now. You got to get up to speed on those target hardening. We went. All right, Brian. So there’s so much we have to catch up on here. And you’ve had such a long career that, you know, I’ve only just barely got a glimpse into who the Brian Hawkins is and who is fixture lab. So Have you always been passionate about the bicycle industry? How did you give us a little bit of your path here
Brian Hawkins 06:14
from way back in the very beginning. When I was a kid I grew up in Denver, in Arvada, actually, suburb of Denver, when I was a kid riding my bike was the thing that if you’d let me do anything in the world, I would do. And so I wrote more and more and more of through high school and early college. I raced to when I was a junior did just everything on the bike, I was out riding from our bad out to Boulder and over to golden all the time with my best friend. We rode to Albuquerque when we were 13. Just huge for me. So way back then, I was riding my bike back from a See, I think it was red zinger at the time. I wasn’t even the Coors classic yet, but we were riding back from Boulder. And it there was a downpour, there was so much rain. And we were riding in the rain on highway 36, which is a deathtrap right now if you want to ride a bike but, and this van pulls over to pick us up to give us a ride in the rain. And it was the wheatridge cyclery van. And they just picked up these two kids that were riding back from Boulder in the rain. And I got to know them. And one thing led to another and I got my first job at wheat Ridge, rough setting bikes in the back of their old old store, which was tiny and hot. And so that was my first job in the biz I worked, you know, basically side by side with Ron kiefel and Eugene kiefel. And I don’t know if they remember me at this point, but because it’s been a million years, but pretty fun. And I was so excited to be working in the bike business then. That was like a dream come true. Even though it’s just you know, opening boxes. Really?
Heather Mason 08:04
Did you keep racing and stuff. You know, you’ve got this job at Weybridge. Now. Are you still? Yeah, yeah,
Brian Hawkins 08:10
totally. I rode until I got you know, so busy with college and stuff like that I wrote a lot. And did. You know, I was never a great racer, but I was racing and having fun riding my bike a lot.
Heather Mason 08:24
Okay, so I just introduce you and you know, we’ve got these powerhouse brands that you’ve worked with. So how do you go from, you know, riding in the rain getting picked up? Tell me about that.
Brian Hawkins 08:36
It’s perfect. Like, if you had said, when I was a kid that I could, that there would be a career out there that combined getting to work with the leading bike brands in the whole world, and get to hang out with bikes all the time and get to know everybody in the industry. And I could design things because I’ve fancied myself as an artist. And I wanted to be an art director when I started my real career. So if I could combine the creative aspect of what I wanted to do from an art perspective, and work with the bike business, that would be absolutely ideal. And so what happened was I went to college to become an art director, designer, and then I got jobs in advertising. And I moved up quickly through the ranks there, becoming an art director and then a creative director. And then I ended up purchasing with a friend of mine, we ended up purchasing an agency back in the early 90s. That had 13 people in it. And we ended up growing that through the 90s to a pretty substantial business up to 40 people and something like $40 million in Billings, and we were doing advertising and marketing that kind of stuff for all kinds of different companies, not just the bike business, but along the way. I had leveraged my background passion into getting an opportunity to talk with avid at the time, the mountain bike break people. And in 96, I started to work with my company started to work with avid to help them with advertising. And I was so excited about that. And then honestly, one thing just led to another and I was super passionate about the category. So excited to be working in the category. Then I met skip Hess like cold it was just completely a cold call at interbike in 97. I remember what I said when I walked up to skip Hess at interbike. You know, he’s like the was the general manager of giant at the time, I guess. I said, You have no idea who I am. But you’re gonna want to. And so you know, one thing led to another there. And we ended up doing some smart thinking that he really appreciated and got the opportunity to help out giant so started doing marketing, advertising, brand management kind of stuff for giant.
Heather Mason 11:13
It’s so true when you’re super passionate about something, you know, people can see that and it resonates and they want to know, you’re right. They want to know what’s going on over there, even if they’re not sure. Right. Yep. Gosh, so I don’t think I’ve told you but my first experience with fixture lab is I was working for Eddie mercs. And this was like in 2014. And I was visiting Siena cycles in Longmont, Colorado. And I
Brian Hawkins 11:41
sent his order to him Siena, if you’re watching this thing, yeah, it’s on its way, don’t worry.
Heather Mason 11:45
I’m in his shop. And I’m like, where’d you get these fixtures? These are wonderful. And he’s like, Oh, it’s the coolest company. And the guy is so cool. And so now here we are, I don’t even know, years later. But how did fixture labs start? So how you’re doing all these advertising for all these companies, you’re making all these connections, you’re super loving what you’re doing, you can tell by the expression on your face, but how do you decide to start a company?
Brian Hawkins 12:11
Well, along the way, from the very beginning of everything that I was doing in the business, it was all about understanding a company’s brand and helping to tell that story. Strategically getting the story out there, whether that’s an ad in a magazine, or whether that’s, you know, I don’t know, a banner on a website, or whatever. Getting that story out was what I was really after, at the end of the day. And when I started along with skip at giant and all in the rest of the team at giant, when we started getting further down the path of getting close to retailers, you know, skip sat me down one time and said, You know, we’ve got to do more to help our retailers so that in the future, we’re not relegated to third place when it comes to, you know, the quality of the retail experience. And that resonated to me and just kind of started me off on thinking through how your store can be the best possible manifestation of the brand that you want to be. Because you’ve got all of the stuff at your disposal, that makes telling a brand story really great there, you’ve got people that are passionate working in the store, they can tell the story great, you’ve got amazing product in the store that’s sexy and fun to play with. And, you know, looks great, you’ve got an environment where people have walked into the space hoping to get a story delivered to them about this stuff, you know, probably ready to purchase. And they’re just waiting. They’re like, the scenario is just perfect. Unlike when, you know, you do an ad in a magazine or something where you’re just hoping that somebody out there somewhere is open to the message. And that your message resonates that one narrow message that you have to put into that ad and you hope that that resonates with them. The store is such an opportunity. So you take that and then my natural skill set, I guess thinking through dimensional environments, like how to build things, how to design, things like that. That was something that really worked well for me too. So you combine those things and when the opportunity came up to start to helping to think through what the retail environment looked like and how we could tell those stories better. I was like all over it.
Heather Mason 14:42
I think too often like we forget that our store is our brand like we are like it’s not the brands that we sell. It’s the vision that we have for our store and here you are having an active role on helping someone make that reality right.
Brian Hawkins 14:56
I did I you know you reminded me of something that I wanted I’ve been meaning to do a blog post about this, I want to do a blog post that is your brand is like a beard. Your brand is like a beard. Okay? Okay, so my concept is, and I haven’t flesh this out completely, but my concept is, every store has a brand, whether you want it or not. And you might consider, it’s kind of like a beard. Like, if you’re gonna have a beard, you’re gonna have a beard. Now it can be manicured and good looking. Or it can be hideous and disgusting. But you have the beard, and you’ve got to deal with it somehow or another. So the question is, what kind of a brand Do you really want to be in? Do you want to pay attention to that? How do you want to show up for people, you have a brand you can’t get out of it, your store has a brand, it’s either the crappy shop that forgot what it was doing in the 80s. Or it’s this very forward looking, progressive shop that just pivoted like crazy during the pandemic and is gonna go, you know, crazy in the years to come.
Heather Mason 16:00
I am so connecting with you on this one. I was just somewhere the other day and I was looking at these two guys and ones one guy was like, really unshaven, and I was like, oh, oh, you need to get that together. And then my brother and he uses a beard brush, like total difference. There you go. So
Brian Hawkins 16:16
I was watching people with beards. And I was like, oh, man, dude, you’re telling a story here that no one wants? And I bet you don’t. But you know, and then there’s others that do have a beard makes them you know, they’re a super sexy beard on Ryan Gosling. That’s, that’s really Samsung Pro.
Heather Mason 16:35
Alright, I’m with you on this. Alright, so but why not just hire an architect? Like, why should like you’re talking about the dimensions of a space and how you can see it like, what is wearing, you know, why not go that route?
Brian Hawkins 16:48
Why have you shared a little bit about some of the topics you might like to talk about with me. And I was excited to see this one on there. Because it’s, it’s a thing that we bump into all the time. The fact is, you should hire an architect. And what I do doesn’t get in their way. In fact, it enhances what your architect would do with your space a lot. Because I’m not an architect, I, you know, we do things that are architectural. ly design spaces that are very accurate and fulfill a lot of needs, including the code that’s necessary to be consistent with, you know, in any given place for anything, I will help with that. But the architect has a spot in the mix that you can’t replace. They’re the ones that actually build the plans that the city is going to accept as a permissible plan. The architect thinks through things like, you know, like loads on an hv AC system, and maybe the power consumption or, I don’t know, drainage or power of substructure is going to be built on something. And that’s above my paygrade. At the same time, understanding the needs the very specific needs of a bike shop, of a cycling retailer, and the service area, how much room things take the way that bikes need to be merchandised. And how much room that takes how to create a flow that works for the average store, you know, through that space. 99 times out of 100, the architect is when they start working with me in the process. They’re like, Oh, thank God, like, we don’t even know what we don’t know quite yet. But you you know these things. So let’s work together to get this stuff ironed out. So the combination of the two is really where the magic comes from Really?
Heather Mason 18:42
Yeah. All right. So I’m on your website and fixture lab.com. Everyone to check it out. He has an amazing blog on there. It sounds like you write the articles yourself based on the beard things. But it says right on your website, the steps to working with you. And step one is just to pick up the phone and call us. But what does that look like? I’m imagining you know, I’m a retailer. And I want to, you know, it’s perfect timing right now to review my store. Do you do I send you photos? Like what is the process? How does it work?
Brian Hawkins 19:13
Let’s see thing, one that I would say, very consistent with what we’ve been talking about so far is if you believe you’re at the point where you’re going to do a new store, you’re going to remodel an existing store, and start to really reflect on who you think you were or what you think your brand is all about. And start to hunt for examples that look like they say that like they express that kind of a brand and it can be anything under the sun, but just start thinking that way. early in the process. It’s super helpful when someone calls me at the very beginning of a process. It’s very handy to have pictures of the store or video of the store so that I can see what we’re working with floor plans of any kind that we can get our hands on or great at the very beginning of a process that I can see the, the scales it, see how things connect kind of, you know, head off any problems at the pass? That kind of thing. What I’ll typically do is, you know, have a quick discussion about what they’re shooting to do, what kind of a brand Do you want to be? What the timeline is, what their budget is? a budget is a great thing that people are usually lost on to, if you haven’t built a store before, how the heck do you know how much things cost?
Heather Mason 20:32
No idea. Right?
Brian Hawkins 20:34
Right. Yeah. And, and I empathize with that, like, I would be really lost if I was in their shoes. So one of the things that I provide, actually, through NBDA, or as a service to MBDA, retailers, is a quick budget discussion. To help plan that out. I have lots and lots of experience on working through budgets on things, and in the early parts of a store building remodeling process, it’s really tough to estimate some things. But that doesn’t mean you can estimate anything, I can walk you through in the course of an hour enough that you’re going to have a pretty darn good idea of what your budget needs to be. And that will, you know, that’s gonna intimidate some people and say, Okay, we’re gonna have to hold off. And until we have the right budget in place, or others, it’s like a sweet Game on. And then they can use that information that we give them to help track their budget throughout the process. And, you know, they’re off to the races in the peace of mind knowing that, for the most part, you’ve thought through everything budgetarily that you need to that’s a huge step.
Heather Mason 21:42
So many little pieces doesn’t have to be a complete remodel, like I noticed on the website that you had some what looks like really handy wheel displays and pedal displays. Can people just get fixtures from your back?
Brian Hawkins 21:54
Yeah, you know, there’s a whole part of the story that I didn’t even get to and that was taking on the store design is where we know that came out of that brand management and talking about your brand thing, the fixtures themself came from a lack of anything out there in the market that was going to serve a bike shop. Yeah, you know, if you need to show set of wheels. And if you don’t want to use what the you know, with the suppliers fixtures are if there are any, which there are fewer and fewer of but if if you don’t want to use those fixtures with a big logo on it, then you’re kind of stuck, you don’t have any options other than creating something yourself. So I started to invent different ways to do things with fixture lab. And those solutions really, you know, really caught on. So how to show wheels or pedals or handlebars or things like that, that are kind of weird. And you know, you can do workarounds. But that’s where fixture lab was born out of was people kind of clamoring for something to do a better job merchandising those items. Now, I’ve lost your question. But
Heather Mason 23:09
no, no, I remember, pedals were always so hard to display in the store. And, you know, one of the first things I think I saw at CES was just the way that he had the wheels and the pedals displayed. And that’s how I was like, Oh, my God, these fixtures are amazing. So retailers could just order those from you, Brian, like, they don’t need to do the whole design. But they could.
Brian Hawkins 23:27
Yeah, thanks for bringing me back there. Absolutely not like the scene is a great example. Like he just placed an order the other day for a few little odds and ends that he’s just working on one little area of the store. So just like any place that you would go to online to order something, ours is a bit different, because you kind of I really have to walk you through placing the order, because so many people would miss order, you know, it’s just people don’t know fixtures. So I mean, it’s great because I get to talk with everybody who’s going to place an order and make sure they get exactly what they need. But you don’t have to be doing a big remodeling project, you can be redoing a sock wall. And just want solutions for that. In fact, some of those are really, really fun, because it’s very limited in scope, it can be quick to pull off. And you can make a big difference. You know, in a really short period of time.
Heather Mason 24:18
I had a feeling that you were going to mention that you do talk to almost everyone who places an order because everyone I speak to mentions you but like if I mentioned you by name, they speak so highly of you amazing feedback, and they just want to take a moment to talk about working with you and tell me that it was that great. It’s almost like you leave this like magic with them. Like what is it? What do you got over there? What is what?
Brian Hawkins 24:42
Yeah, I don’t know why you’re lying there, but I really appreciate that. No, yeah, I’m still super passionate about what I’m doing. I love what they’re doing. I love getting to know like the people that I get to work with are just My people like I just, and you can joke with them, and you can make a real emotional connection with them pretty quickly. And I just, I get into helping them out. And I think they sniff out the fact that, above all, you know, I need to make money in order to stay open. But above all, I really want to help the store to do what they want to do. And I want them to make a mark for themselves. And I think that that just comes through, that’s got to be what it is. Yeah, I think because I’m not really good looking or anything. So
Heather Mason 25:34
Oh, my goodness, what it me, like, I’m just thinking it put myself in your shoes for a minute, you know, you’ve retailers that have specific visions, and maybe haven’t been able to achieve them are calling you because they want to change, right, they want to make a change, or they want to upgrade, you know, the way their store looks. And you get to play a part in that. And that’s such an amazing opportunity.
Brian Hawkins 25:55
Amazing, yeah, it’s like one of the, I would say probably the most gratifying thing that I do is help a store from nowhere from step one, through thinking of how to think about the space, how to reorganize things, what their brand, you know what that story might be, and how that has to manifest itself in the store. And there’s a lot of hard work that goes through that you have to go through the process and a lot of money that goes through their hands to try to get that stuff done. But on the other end of that, when, you know, we make that transition from looking at a 3d model of the store, and then I walk into the physical environment that feels just like the model that I built that we talked through, and the dealer is so excited. And you know, they’re giddy, like, this is the store that they always wanted to have. And there’s, you know, their friends are giving them such positive feedback on everything. That’s super exciting to walk through with them.
Heather Mason 26:59
And I’m just, you know, just gonna take this one step further, at the end of the day, you know, it’s proven that, you know, when a customer sees a store that’s neat and organized and presented in a certain manner, it’s going to increase your revenues or profits are going up. You know, I’m thinking back to the day when we had slat wall and it was just striping things, you know, helped. I mean, we’re going we’re taking this a lot further than that. But it makes a big impact. And it leads to
Brian Hawkins 27:22
profits. Right, exactly. And we’re not beyond that slatwall example, by any means, you know, like, there’s so many shops out there that are struggling with how the heck do I make my slat wall walls not look like crap all the time? And how do I encourage my employees to do the stuff that I talked to you about and, and those challenges? So there’s a lot of learning that I’ve done along the way that I can impart that helps out a lot. Another thing that came to mind when you were talking about that is that for sure, one of the topics you wanted to talk about probably was post pandemic or pandemic retail design. Because, oh my god, in the last year, things happened. I mean, everywhere, up and down. Just anything you can think of things happen that you would swear would never happen.
Heather Mason 28:15
Oh, no. Yeah, let’s talk about that. Yes. Okay. Okay, so
Brian Hawkins 28:19
let’s talk about that. How about a large I won’t use names because I don’t know what they’re comfortable with me sharing about a large cycling retailer with four stores that entirely shut their organization down in terms of anybody walking into the store for months on end. Like they just decided to protect their employees. That was nobody in the store. So all they could do was deliver product to customers or meet them on the parking lot. Talk to with them on the phone. Okay, that alone is like before last year, you would say no, that’s never gonna happen. I can’t I cannot be done. But these guys pivoted and they frickin did it. And had their best year ever by a margin of like, you know, the astronomical numbers. And I was because they were so good at their organization was prepared to have to do something like the pivot that took place there. And man was really hard on everybody. It’s really hard on. Still it’s hard on everybody in the business. But you know, the really great pros out there took advantage of those situations in the veranda with them.
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Heather Mason 30:28
So give us some considerations like tell us, here’s the
Brian Hawkins 30:32
big thing, like, before last year, we were encouraging you to take a little bit more product off of your floor anyway. Because in there’s a whole presentation that I do, that’s about being the best, you know, the bike shop in the future, and I go into where today’s model of a bike shop retail bike shop came from, and how it got to where it is. And the mentality of stack at high and let it fly is really, it really comes from post World War Two, when suddenly, you could have anything you wanted, essentially in a store. And you could have as much as you wanted, and oh my god, every retailer in the country was like, give it like, bring it on. And consumers were like, Oh my gosh, look how much that store has, that’s amazing. I’ll go to them forever.
Heather Mason 31:24
That’s the best store because they have everything, because they
Brian Hawkins 31:27
have the most stuff. Yeah, but that doesn’t work anymore. Like when I talk with retailers about, like, if I were just to ask them, send me pictures of the coolest bike shop out there or send me pictures of the bike shop you’d love to be, they don’t ever send me pictures of crowded stores with a bunch of crap piled up everywhere. always send these unattainably simple stores that you see like for products on the wall, and a bike here and a bike there. But no stacks of bikes, you know, no bikes hanging off the ceiling. They don’t want to be that. But still there’s this mentality built into the model that’s come down. And and for great reason that, you know, it served its purpose in the past. But nowadays, it’s a different deal. So before pandemic, I was already encouraging you to curate the display more particularly the merchandising, to remove some off of the floor and allow the product to breathe and allow the stories to come out. As opposed to just stacking it up as high as you can get it. So I guess my message if there is one about what’s going on right now is Gosh, live it up. Right, you have an opportunity now, um, you know, maybe it’s not the category you want it to be in, or maybe it’s, it’s exactly the wrong category, but you probably have some space that you didn’t have before, because you’re just having problems getting things, live that up, let the stories breathe a little bit and take more room for things that make an emotional connection with your customer. Because that’s go back to that your brand and how great of a manifestation it is making that emotional connection. That’s gold, it cannot be replaced, and have in the retail store. And now, thank god people are able to go into stores and see all this stuff again, you know, take advantage of that opportunity. And, you know, let everything sing.
Heather Mason 33:31
Now you can create a story. So are you almost suggesting, like we see like the simple bike with the bags on it, or when you’re talking about creating a story in that regard, right?
Brian Hawkins 33:41
Well, there’s a million different things that I could mean. But simply like your example of simply setting up a bike with, you know, if it’s, you could set it up with all the bags necessary to make for that expedition that you’re going to go on. Fun could be just maxing it out with all of the accessories of any kind could be merchandising at with American next to the bike itself. So you can tell the story of you know, the kind of person that the way that this person looks when they’re having this cycling experience could literally be telling stories like it could be telling the story of a customer and the greatest ride they ever had, I don’t know. Might be a TV screen that shows people riding in interesting ways.
Heather Mason 34:31
I’m just thinking of a TV screen. I think you’re getting that from me. vibing off that.
Brian Hawkins 34:39
I heard you I felt you. But yeah, any way that you can tell a story, and I could talk for hours about just that little aspect of it. But stories are way more memorable than anything else, like the human brain and us as humans are meant to take in stories. That’s what we crave, really. And that’s what’s most memorable. And that’s what creates the most emotional connection. So any way that you can get a story out at retail of any kind, and the more, the better, the better off you’re going to be.
Heather Mason 35:14
So this doesn’t have to be a time of like doom and gloom, because we can’t get bikes, or that we could actually flip this story and create this as the best time to take your store to the next level, and like totally re merchandise and get in there and mix things up a little bit.
Brian Hawkins 35:31
Yeah, I do not want to discount the challenges that stores have these days, you know, because it’s serious, like, Oh, my gosh, the stuff the you are having to deal with. And doing an amazing job with is incredible, right, but do like take the time, this last year, during the height of the pandemic, I worked with a store here in Denver, actually, that was it’s a flyfishing store. And we had, it was a phenomenal time for us to work on this store. Because they were already going to have to be closed pretty much. And we were able to use that time. And, you know, just make things happen the way that they needed to happen. And on when they were able to open towards the end of, you know, the lock downs and all that, man, they had taken full advantage of that time. In God willing, we don’t have that opportunity again, you know, like things are gonna get locked down. But you probably have opportunities around the store now where you don’t have an overabundance of one particular product, and you can use that space to your advantage. So I can help you think through that, if that’s what you’ve got on your hands.
Heather Mason 36:46
And I’m just I’m hopefully you might have kind of your pulsara cents on this. Is there any thing that consumers might be expecting as far as store layout, as they come back into the retail, they start visiting stores? Again, is there anything that consumers might expect to see in this new norm, I guess,
Brian Hawkins 37:06
it’s kind of shocking to me honestly, how quickly things have snapped back to, you know, when you go into I’m not even talking about bike shops, but any kind of retail, it’s crazy how quickly things have gone, gone back to at least in my area, where have been, where people aren’t wearing masks again, and my expectations are kind of going back to the original, the old fashioned retail model. So I’m excited about that surprised about that. But one of the big things about post pandemic and people’s concerns about, you know, distancing and, and that kind of thing, it’s really the same concern that we’ve had all along. From a different, it’s been forced from a different perspective. I don’t do it for every store, because it’s not necessary. But many, many times we have done essentially what we call a heat map of a floor plan. And what I do is I overlay, basically colors, like a heat map on to the store where people are going to concentrate, you know, so around a cash wrap, there’s no way that you can get around the fact that people are going to go to the cash register and be talking with people, they’re going to be clustered there to some degree, the service writing area or the service, the area where you check out for your service that’s being done on your bike is another area that gets a lot of traffic. There are some areas and it depends on the store what that’s really like. But if we map that out, my goal is to spread the people out. And it’s not having anything to do with pandemic, it’s just good flow. Yeah, it’s like don’t create a design where everybody has to funnel through one little tiny piece of this store. Because on a really busy Saturday afternoon, that is gonna be a nightmare. Nothing to do with the pandemic, it’s just a nightmare to be clogged up with bikes in your hand and stuff in your arms and all that. So we want to avoid that anyway, right this year has caused a whole different level of making that happen, really forcing that to happen. And their stores that I work with now that have pivoted during pandemic during the lock downs. And when they could only have X number of people in the store and could only have them so far apart. Now they’ve pivoted and they’re really embracing some of the changes that they made, and they’re going to keep them. Like it changes the way that the line forms for people going to the service department because it just that helps them to do business better. It’s more efficient to not have everybody clogged up in one little spot there to spread people out a little bit more. And now more than any other time in history, people kind of intuitively understand it. Like, take advantage of that too. Now’s the time if there was ever a time to adjust things, and have everybody just go with the flow. Now as of right now,
Heather Mason 40:02
alright, this is a little off, because because as you’ve been talking, I’ve been listening and just thinking back to this general retail merchandising like one on one, isn’t there like a rule of thumb like just outside of COVID? When a customer walks into your store, what is the rule? Like they naturally look to the left first? Or isn’t there some? Why are you laughing? It’s not true?
Brian Hawkins 40:24
Because that’s such a dumb question. Fine. There are like, you can go to a retail design textbook. And they’ll tell you, you know, a certain percentage of people look right or left, typically left when they walk in the front of the store. But left out, right, yeah, but you know, like, if you had 100, bike shops, that were all going to be the same. In every other way, in every way, if they’re all going to be the same except for the direction that we set things up on a few of them, you might understand, you might be able to get that behavior to exhibit itself. But the stores that I deal with are all so stinking different, like they’re all. Like, you might be doing good if the bathroom isn’t what’s staring you in the face, when you walk in the front door, you know, like, it’s just challenging you, you might have a wall on the left hand side, that just prevents you from showing anything significant there. So you have to embrace what the store offers. Yeah. Again, understand the brand that you want to be and go with the flow. There isn’t more valuable than a rule of thumb, about which direction people look when they walk in the store is really taking a step back and looking at the store through their through the customers eyes, walking in as the customer walking in as the customer. And you know, that’s gonna go a lot further than that just no more,
Heather Mason 42:00
no more, I’ll try to avoid any worse. Alright, so I’m not much of a designer, although sometimes I think I am, you know, I’ve watched the home and garden or, you know, I’ll get some ideas from Pinterest, but you have any tips for bicycle retailers to like, avoid at all costs, like examples of don’t do this in your bike retail space.
Brian Hawkins 42:24
I mean, we already talked about the one that I bump into the most. And that is trying to cram too much product in believing like, okay, one thing that comes up on a frequent basis is retailers feeling like, if you hang bikes from the ceiling, they’re not in the way, you know, like,
Heather Mason 42:47
they’re up in the sky, though there,
Brian Hawkins 42:49
go back to the scenario that I just talked about, you walk in the front door is the customer. And I’m going to become the retailer here for a second. And he says, Okay, so I’m walking through the front door. And if I need space, and if I need X number of bikes, on the floor, doing air quotes here on the floor, which can mean anywhere in the whole store, whether it’s hanging from the ceiling or not. If I need more bikes on the floor, then a good way for me to do that would be to hang them from the ceiling, because they’re not going to get in that guy’s way when he walks in the front door, he’ll be able to see right underneath them and see the rest of the store. Problem is, and I could show examples of this, like from pictures or from a model or something that I could build, the stuff that’s hanging from your ceiling absolutely gets in the way. And think about sign like if your service department is at the back of the store, and you’ve got a sign above your service department that might be I don’t know, eight or nine feet off the ground. If you hang bikes towards the front of the store that hang down, even if they’re an eight or nine feet off the floor. Visually, they actually get in the way of that sign back there. So you end up covering up things not to mention the fact that it feels cluttered. It’s not merchandising, it’s just storing bikes, it feels like the ceilings gonna come down on you. It doesn’t make the shopping experience engaging. It just shows that you’re interested in storing bikes. So I end up encouraging people all the time to pull the bikes off the ceiling, because of the benefits that it offers to the whole impression of the store.
Heather Mason 44:31
Yeah, if I think anything up high, it’s just hard to get to. Like it’s just creating another problem when you need it.
Brian Hawkins 44:37
Yeah, we always, I’m always talking to retailers about using the vertical space wisely. Which doesn’t mean hanging bikes from the ceiling. And you know, a lot of the times it doesn’t mean putting tires on a wall 25 feet off the ground, but creating things that kind of strategically draw your eye From the floor up to take in a product or a category or something, because another mistake that people make is the same store that’s hanging stuff from their ceiling is probably also putting all of their bikes on the floor at one level, as opposed to raising some up to get some attention. Because once you start to raise them up, then you visually start to bump into that stuff you already put on the ceiling. So it happens a lot. And if you have just a sea of bikes on the floor, and then bikes hanging from the ceiling, you don’t really get to take in any of the product visually. Because when you look across a store, alright, I reserve, there’s some I just thought of, and I don’t want to lose my point now. But let me come back to when you see a sea of bikes, you’re not able to take in any category or any bike and you’re not able to fall in love with anything. It’s just black. It’s just one big with a bunch of spokes and reflections as opposed to a few bikes on the floor. And then some bikes at the next level level up where you can see that they’re featured. And if nothing else, you know that there’s something special going on on that display, and you need to go check that out. Because it may be something that you’re interested in maybe a story that you want to take in. And then you know you can even go higher than that if you haven’t hung bikes from the ceiling.
Heather Mason 46:24
If that bike on display, alright, don’t lose it, don’t lose it, what do you got? I want to make bike shop camouflage. Please tell me more.
Brian Hawkins 46:34
I want to make a jumpsuit that’s printed with reflections and spokes and wheels and rubber and stuff. That’s just like, all over the place. And I bet you that if we stand in a store wearing the jumpsuit, that is bike shop camouflage, you would be invisible.
Heather Mason 46:51
Coming to a shop near you
Brian Hawkins 46:56
probably saw it on fixture labs website first, but we’ll see how it goes. You know, I don’t know what the market is. I don’t know who wants bike shop camouflage? There we go. We’ve got one customer,
Heather Mason 47:10
you got one customer who’s got a thing. Perfect. Okay, what about some of these really unique things I’m hearing about fake grass on the wall indoor pump track bike lanes and store for people to ride around? Like what do you think about some of these unique items that are you know, popping up in stores? We heard about some of these things?
Brian Hawkins 47:31
Yeah, absolutely. That’s the stuff that I helped them dream up. A lot of the time, if I’m able to do it, you know, I think the big thing there is to try to there’s a couple things fighting for the big thing that the one of them at least, is make sure you take care of the important parts before you take care of the fun parts. You know, like so many times starting a process, the store is enamored with building a shower for their guys to take a shower. Or they want to have fancy feature throughout the store. Like I don’t know, I track throughout the store, or some other thing that is really, really fun and could be extremely cool. But they haven’t figured out whether that gets in the way of them doing business. To begin with, like, it may be a great feature if it doesn’t get in the way. And it helps people to engage in the stories that we’re telling. That’s awesome. But a lot of times it’s not, we haven’t thought through how it impacts the flow of the store. And that track that you might want to build inside the store may be a terrible idea in terms of everyday business, but really fun to pull off. And that’s why you know, that’s why it might get done. So what I can help you with what fixture lab can help you with is strategically making sure that the opportunities for the fun things that really make a statement fit in real seamlessly with what the store needs to do in everyday business. And we’re not putting an extra challenge on an already challenged space by doing something like that. The other thing is, think about when you want to dream up a feature like that for your store, think about go back to that brand that we were talking about like don’t make the mistake of thinking that your competition is another bike shop in town. Because you and people are not really thinking that way as much as they used to your competition as a cycling retailer is every other retailer that’s out there. And if I don’t spend $100 on bike stuff, I might spend $100 at Banana Republic. Or I might go buy plants or go you know, to a fun store at the mall that has some engaging things. So be looking At all retail, think about the brand that you want to be and the messages that you want to deliver, and then strategically come up with what those fun things that you want to do on the store are. So the grass on the wall is a great example of, you know, this store is a an electric bike shop, you know, so there’s kind of a green type of message, like give up the car for a bike and that kind of thing. And it’s a fresh new kind of outdoorsy brand. So putting grass or something that looks like turf or grass or something like that on the wall could be a really cool statement for that store. As long as it doesn’t get in the way of you being able to merchandise that wall, if that’s what’s necessary. So just, you know, watch for those things.
Heather Mason 50:45
I feel like if I called you out, if I, if I still had a store, and I called you up and I gave you, you know, my vision you would it, it would be like a loosely formed vision, but you would take it and like help me shake it. And next thing I know, my like shot would be in photos and people be like, look at that cool design. Is that how it works? Like? I’m feeling like, right? Like,
Brian Hawkins 51:05
yes, it’s just that easy. It’s just that easy. Honestly, there’s a little bit to that, like, if we get the opportunity to engage with the store, talk through the things we’re talking about. If I listened to them, well, they listen to what I’m saying about how to do things. At the other end of that, it’s pretty reliable. When that store environments finished, whatever we’re doing, that it’s going to be something that’s kind of remarkable. Yeah, because you go to a place that you weren’t going to yourself. You bring in an outsider, whether it’s me or another store designer, or an architect or whatever, you’ve gone to someplace outside yourself, you’re kind of opening up your horizons a bit. And you can do some really, really, really cool things.
Heather Mason 51:57
I challenge all retailers to call Brian and just have started conversations like I and then send me the photos later, I can’t wait.
Brian Hawkins 52:08
I do talk to everybody. That is cute. I gotta fix that. Because as we speak, like I guarantee you there are people there retailers that are listening to this podcast, that are saying, Brian, why are you wasting time doing that podcast? I’m waiting for that thing from you. And I’m like, so I assure you, everybody that I’m getting to your stuff now? I do I ended up talking to everybody on a mix. I’m super excited to do it. Because there’s just so many fun things that I want to get done out there. And, and so many fun people that do it with so I’m gonna go as hard as I can.
Heather Mason 52:51
You’ve probably worked with hundreds of retailers, you know, in the fishing and running and cycling world. Is there any one store design experience that stands out to you? That’s memorable? No, no, no.
Brian Hawkins 53:06
No, I don’t think there is one that stands out. Like there’s a bunch that stand out for different reasons. I think the thing that stands out the most is what we already talked about, which is the evolution from looking at this thing on a computer screen in a 3d model or from, you know, napkin sketches at the very beginning to walking into a finished space. Whether that’s a 2000 square foot store or a 30,000 square foot store. That’s thrilling no matter what. So I think that that’s the big thing that I you know, that’s the one thing I take away from most places. It’s just the metamorphosis that happens.
Heather Mason 53:49
Yeah, I don’t know if I could choose one either. I’m with you on that. Alright, so any trends, any conversations, anything retailers are calling you up asking you that you’ve heard a lot recently, or just maybe a renewed interest now that we’re coming, you know, post COVID?
Brian Hawkins 54:05
You know, I wouldn’t say that the discussions have changed. I guess in light of COVID, I would expect them to have changed more than they have. But there, it’s still pretty much the usual suspects of what a store needs to accomplish, or dealing with maybe some more space issues now, like we’ve already talked about. But it’s the same challenges. I would say that shops are looking for more and more, they’re more willing to commit to a path that makes their store very unique. As opposed to just doing what everybody else is doing. You know, I think that that’s pretty fun. They’re able to search out, you know, they’re, they might come to me with Pinterest boards or lots of other visual examples. And there’s some really, really fun stuff that’s happening out there. And it’s it’s really cool to see retailers Thinking about that kind of thing. And it’s super fun to be able to figure out with them how we actually pull that off in their environment.
Heather Mason 55:07
I love how there can be so many bicycle retail stores, and they can be so uniquely different, like we can walk into so many, and they could, you know, just really put their own stamp on what, you know, why their own brand, the beginning of the conversation.
Brian Hawkins 55:21
Yeah, I mean, it’s the same with any retail industry that’s out there, like there could be, you know, a million different ways to pull these things off. And I really thrive on the opportunities to help people figure out a new and a different twist on the stuff that they want to do within their own brand. That’s really fun.
Heather Mason 55:45
When we start a business, we get, you know, the Small Business Association, or we get a person to help us with a business plan, we get, you know, people to help us with securing the vendor relationships, but, you know, I mean, I thought I could just buy a gallon of paint and order a couple racks from kbp. And I’d have a bike shop, you know, but we could hire a professional to help us and it could be, you know, so much more. So,
Brian Hawkins 56:08
you know, even if the consultation is only as much is helping you understand what color to buy in that paint or, or where to put that rack or whatever. You know, that like someone in the biz that does this a lot can help you through making those important decisions. So you don’t, you know, you don’t waste any time and money doing things that don’t work for you
Heather Mason 56:33
end up with a powerful color. Maybe, okay, excellence in bicycle retail, that term in regards, I guess, to merchandising fixtures or whoever you want to approach it, what does that mean to you excellence in bicycle retail,
Brian Hawkins 56:51
I would say that I’m gonna sound like a broken record, I think the retailer that exhibits excellence, is one that truly understands what they’re all about as a brand, you know, understands their corner in the market, and commence the resources that they need to, in a very strategic way to make them happen for themselves. That doesn’t, that’s not necessarily an argument for hiring me or anybody else. It’s just like, understand what you’re shooting for, and strategically attack that as opposed to just letting it happen. You know, not letting the the buisiness of every single day Oh, my gosh, it’s so hard. Like I say that, like, it’s easy. But I understand from working with retailers all the time, the challenge is on you, the ones that are really exhibiting that excellence that you’re talking about, kind of get to the next level above the everyday fray and pay attention to them with their communicating out there.
Heather Mason 57:55
I love that. I love that it’s so true. And you don’t sound like a broken record. But you’ve hit that point home. And I do appreciate that. And, gosh, I can’t believe you know, big your show is coming up. And I’m so thankful that you’re gonna come join us there. And the topic is maximizing your design spend. So I’m really excited to hear that presentation. I think it’ll be very timely and perfect for retailers. So thank you for that. That’s an
Brian Hawkins 58:20
unfortunately, I just said everything I was going to say in that presentation. So you know, there’s no need for anybody to go to the bigger show. I guess.
Heather Mason 58:31
we edit that out.
Brian Hawkins 58:34
No, we’re going to talk about I’m going to talk about a lot of the some of the same topics because maximizing your spend means not wasting money on things you don’t need to waste money on in any any different aspect of this process.
Heather Mason 58:51
I can’t wait. I’m excited. It’s gonna be fun to see everyone in person. Yeah. So Brian, thank you for coming on. Oh, my I could just keep chatting with you. This is wonderful. You want to go for another couple hours here. fixture lab.com. Do you want to share your contact information outside of that? Or can they find everything right online?
Brian Hawkins 59:11
Well, they can find them. That’s the most memorable way to do a fixture lab.com the phone numbers 303-777-2014 you’re going to find everything you need to when you go to the site, you’re going to need to talk with someone about what you’re planning for the store or for the fixtures that you need. So just give me a call and we’ll go from there. It’s a fun process We’ll begin with Yeah,
Heather Mason 59:36
yeah. And you know, I have spent some time on the website picture lab comm just to get some information going into our conversation today. And I have to say if you have not visited the website, check out just the blogs that are on there. There’s some really fantastic stuff you can get just from that. And then you’ll see that really cool wheel display and the pedal display that I was referring to earlier. I think it’s great and Brian’s smiling But, I mean, I mean, of course, I think it’s great. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is great. So that is it. I invite you to connect with me and come on bicycle, retail radio, share your story with our listeners. Lots of love for our industry. There’s lots of great webinars coming up. Join us at the big gear show. There’s great resources on the NBDA website like the security survey recording that we were talking about earlier. If you’d like to support the show, don’t forget to subscribe and share your favorite episode. We appreciate your support. Thank you for listening now go be great. Alright, so that is it. I invite you to connect with me and come on bicycle retell radio, share your story with our listeners. I invite you to contribute to our outspoken blog, or become a feature on our member spotlight. Lots of love for our industry. There’s lots of great webinars coming up and lots of member networking meetings. If you’d like to support the show, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. See you back here soon.
NBDA 1:01:02
And with this we go. This has been bicycle retail radio by the National bicycle Dealers Association. For more information on membership, and member benefits, join us at nbda.com
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The NBDA has been here since 1946, representing and empowering specialty bicycle dealers in the United States through education, communications, research, advocacy, member discount programs, and promotional opportunities. As shops are facing never-before-seen circumstances, these resources offer a lifeline. Together, we will weather this. We at the NBDA will not waver in our commitment to serving our members even during this challenging time—but we need your support.
Now is the time to become a member as we join together to make one another stronger. Whether you’re a retailer or an industry partner, your membership in the NBDA is one of the best investments you’ll make this year.
Learn more about the benefits of being a member and join now.
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