Remington Model 11-87 ShurShot Turkey

Timing is everything in building your profits. This is especially important if you want to benefit from seasonal sales. Take turkey season. To take full advantage of the spring turkey sales you need to time your product rollout to the period when hunters are thinking about the season and ready to reach for the dough. And for turkey hunters, that may be earlier than you think.

Although opportunities for hunting turkeys have expanded across the United States, the window for sales has actually shrunk. You can hunt turkeys in all of the lower 48 and several Canadian provinces. The narrow sales window is partly due to hunters no longer needing to apply well in advance for turkey permits. They are readily available in over-the-counter options or unlimited applications.

Retailers also point out that many avid turkey hunters have already stocked their vests and no longer need to “gear up” as they did in the years leading up to the turkey boom. With these circumstances in mind, you need to have your inventory ready and in view when the time is right.

“For our store, turkey sales begin six weeks prior to the opening of the season and run strong until about a week and half before the season closes,” said Fred Jobe, manager for Rogers Sporting Goods in Liberty, Mo. “The greatest sales surge is two to three weeks before the season opener, especially with Internet sales. After the opener, there is a real drop in sales and you really begin to notice it one week after the opener.”

Even with a short window of opportunity, Rogers Sporting Goods keeps an area of the store stocked year-round with turkey equipment.

“We want customers to know that when they are ready to purchase a turkey product, they know we have it. It’s the mentality of shoppers. If they don’t see it they think we don’t have it,” Jobe said.

Sean Mahoney, owner of Mahoney’s Sporting Goods in Johnson City, Tenn., also dedicates shelf space to year-round turkey sales, and his reasoning goes beyond letting hunters know they are a turkey-hunting headquarters.

“We keep our turkey-hunting equipment out all year because there are always birthday presents to be bought and believe it or not, Christmas is almost as big of a sales season as is the normal turkey hunting season,” Mahoney said. “December is a great season for selling turkey calls, vests and other stocking stuffers. New turkey hunters also drop hints that they’d like to get into the sport and the gift buying takes off.”

Stock Hottest Sellers

Rotating turkey products in and out of premier locations such as end caps and near the checkout counter is common practice prior to the season. Even stores that keep a full-time lineup of turkey equipment on the shelves rotate their end caps and checkout displays with other products that require equal time. Spring fishing, summer sporting clays and, of course, fall hunting all demand time in the limelight when the season nears.

“We start moving our displays immediately when deer season closes in the fall. As soon as deer winds down, we tear down, but since deer season is big like turkey season, we keep a selection out for year-round sales,” Mahoney said. “Our turkey sales actually peak at the end of February or March 1, and there is a noticeable slump approximately one month before the season closes and it’s real noticeable at least two weeks into the season. Serious hunters already have bought new products and those that were going to buy have already done so by the end of the two weeks.”

To keep sales hot during the season you need to keep your prime display locations stocked with the year’s hottest products. Manufacturing representatives can keep you up-to-date on what they believe will be the best products, but don’t overlook the information you can glean on your own at the SHOT Show and, better yet, the National Wild Turkey Federation annual convention. At the events, it won’t take much investigation to discover what products are sure sellers in the midst of a convention center full of turkey-hunting fanatics.

Both events are held during the first part of the year, which will help prepare you for the gift-giving/Christmas/pre-turkey hunting sales.

Inventory is just an expense unless you let potential customers know you are ready to serve their turkey-hunting needs. This means using advertising outlets including newspaper, radio, television, direct mail and the Internet to reach your customers. Finding ways to get the message out in an economical fashion is always a challenge.

Rogers Sporting Goods has been in business for 28 years and heavy into the turkey end of profits for more than a dozen years. Jobe combines activities in advertising campaigns to increase traffic and save marketing dollars.

“We usually tie our spring turkey-hunting advertising together with our spring fishing campaign so customers know we are a one-stop shop,” Jobe said. “We’ll run a full-page ad in the local paper and back that up with Internet promotions that include daily updates.”
Do these concentrated promotions work?

“Take the Primos B-Mobile decoy. Using this approach, 50 of them wouldn’t last very long with this much promotion and I can’t begin to tell you how many hundreds we sold, but it was a bunch,” Jobe said.

In Tennessee, Mahoney follows a similar approach to marketing and agrees that decoys are hot items with turkey hunters. He also notes that portable blinds like the Big Game Eclipse and Escape were also hot sellers. Mahoney suggests you also stock items that are supported by strong manufacturing advertising and branding, since it saves you advertising dollars.

“Primos is our best-selling brand of calls and it’s strictly because of Primos’ commitment to print and television advertising, which results in an enormous amount of impressions.
Hunter’s Specialties runs a close second and also backs their product well with company advertising, which helps our sales,” Mahoney said.

Plan Now

Thanks to massive turkey restoration efforts and careful management, turkey hunting has come a long way in North America during the past two to three decades. Mahoney recalls working in the store during his high school years when there was one end cap of turkey calls. Now the display runs more than 40 feet.

Turkey hunters are looking to buy from you. The time you invest in planning your turkey inventory, displays and promotions now will pay nicely this fall and into next year’s hunting season.

This Feature Article is sponsored by:

MTM Case-Gard
www.mtmcase-gard.com

Sports South LLC.
www.sportssouthinc.com