THIS IS ONE OF THE FIVE AWARD-WINNING TOURNAMENT & OUTINGS BEST PRACTICES SPONSORED BY YAMAHA

Benji Boyter, the 2013 Carolinas PGA Section Merchandiser of the Year for Resort Facilities, is the PGA merchandise manager at Sea Pines Resort in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Last fall while working at my last facility, Kiawah Island Golf Resort, I created an events catalog to send to our clients months in advance of their event. The catalog featured apparel for men and women at three different price points, as well as gift items. It was done to simplify the process for our clients/guests for choosing merchandise for their events. For men’s apparel, I had about 16 styles of shirts to choose from and three styles of outerwear. For women I had 12 styles of shirts and two outerwear pieces. We also had various gift items, such as headwear and gift baskets from the resort. I chose the items based on popularity from our shops as well as featuring items where we get discounted pricing to help our margins.

Having the catalog simplified the process for the client and made it easier on me for placing orders and managing inventory. What I found in doing group outings is that it’s often best to limit the items to a few core products instead of trying to offer a ton of options. We had a lot of repeat group business at Kiawah, and the groups tended to want to do something different each year. This helped with that by putting the product in front of them so they knew what had been ordered in years past and what’s new for each year. Some groups wanted to order the same product each and every year and some groups wanted to do something different each year, so this was an easy way to keep track of that. To view the catalog, click here.

If you would like to email the author of this Best Practice directly, please email benji_boyter@kiawahresort.com

Editor’s note: The above comments reflect the opinion and experiences of the submitting PGA Professional and are not endorsed by PGA Magazine or the PGA of America.