In January 2023 Schlaudie Skate Co began the largest giveaway in Skateboard history. The idea behind it was to promote and support skateshops across the nation with an absolute ZERO catch giveaway. Since the fall of 2021, the skateboard industry has been struggling. In the fall 2022, as I watched shops across the nation declare their doors were closing, I felt we at Schlaudie had to do something to help! So, we created a giveaway FOR EVERYONE! Whether you were a current dealer of Schlaudie or not made no difference. The only thing you, as a skateshop, had to do was reach out to us and let us know you wanted to be involved. From there, we mailed you a free deck with the rules being:
Keep track of your in shop sales, with every "other" brand sold, your customer gets one entry. With every Schlaudie sold, your customer gets two entries. And the last rule was to help promote. The promotion thing is simple, it was for your own good! Let people know this giveaway is happening. Get customers into the store. We asked that you posted on your socials at least once per week and we even provided flyers for the shops to post around the shop.
On February 28, the giveaway came to an end. Most shops have declared their winners but we do have a few who are throwing parties this coming weekend and will declare their winners then. We think that's awesome. What a way to end the largest giveaway in history!
This week we sent out a survey to see how we did, how you did and how everyone felt about the giveaway. We have about 90% of the surveys completed and turned in but we feel that the results can be posted. Don't worry, we won't name drop any shops during this break down!
Most of our skateshops that participated are young, only being in business for 2-3 years with one just opening up in 2023. That means most started up during Covid 2020 which was one of the biggest years yet most difficult years the industry has had to date. 2020 was nuts for Skateboarding.
As the focus was to increase sales for the shops, we wanted to know whether sales increased during the entirety of the giveaway time frame. 80% of shops who participated saw an increase in sales in both January and February over the same time period in 2022. This is of course with the knowledge that one shop was not open in 2022.
Out of those who had an increase in sales over 2022, the shops averaged 75% increase in sales for the month of January. THAT IS NUTS!! 75% increase is higher than we expected to see.
For February, the shops saw an average of 75% increase again over the same time the previous year.
We wanted to know if this increase was a fluke, if the community decided to finally spend money or if the shops contributed any of the success to the giveaway. 80% felt that the giveaway definitely contributed to increase in sales. We are super stoked to hear that the majority felt this giveaway increased your shop's numbers. That is why we did it!
We asked about our ability to advertise and push the event on social media. This event was advertised through Facebook and Instagram ads as well as pushed on our social media weekly though new posts and multiple times a week through stories. We also made sure to repost and share any time any of the shops made their own social media push. We wanted to make sure everyone heard about the giveaway and made their way to the shops. 80% of shops felt that we did above average, with 20% feeling our social media presence was average. We thank you for the praises and even letting us know where you feel we can do better. This even is for you, the shops. We want you all to succeed.
One major part of the event was advertising and getting the word out. You could have been giving out a million bucks but if no one knows you are doing it, no one will participate. So, we asked for shops to make sure to post up at least once per week on socials, post up the flyers sent out and talk to the customers about it as they come into the shops. We are proud to hear that 80% of shops told everyone about this giveaway through all the means available. It really does help if we make a big deal out of it! We want the local community to know what is happening and we want everyone to have the opportunity to win!
At the end of the giveaway, 100% of shops got what they expected out of the giveaway.
But, we want to know now what could have made the giveaway better? We at Schlaudie wanted to know your thoughts. a couple shops stated they wanted a better graphic and felt that may help create even better sales in the future. One shop went so far as to say that we have great graphics and would have liked to see one of those be given away. So, I want to say the reason for the Support Your Local graphic being given away was because we wanted to push the community to support their local shops. With that in mind, we hear you! We will most definitely keep that in mind for the next giveaway. Another shop stated doing this giveaway yearly will help grow the event year after year and YES, we agree. As long as the world allows, we will be seeing this giveaway again next winter. But, maybe we start it December 1st next time and push it through to Feb 28, 2024? How does that sound?
The final survey we wanted to focus on was whether the shops would participate in the future giveaway and we are super pleased to have gotten a 100% YES from everyone. That is fantastic because we want next year bigger than this year and we can't do it without the assistance of local skateshops!
With an average of 75% increase in sales across the board, I think we hit the nail on the head with this. Sure, there are things we can improve on and there are things we WANT to do better with next year. but I think this year's giveaway was huge and I thank everyone for participating! If you did not participate in the Support Your Local Giveaway this year, do not worry, we are MOST DEFINATELY planning on doing it again next winter. All you have to do is let us know you want to participate! It's that easy.
We want to close this out with a comment made by one of the participating shops, with that, we wish you all a fantastic 2023 and want to thank you all for supporting your local community. Have a solid Spring everyone!
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"Thanks for thinking about the shops and trying to do something to help us all out, this didn’t cost us a dollar it was the first thing in my business that had zero catches or anything tied to it under the radar thanks for supporting skate shops even the small ones like we have" - A local skateshop