Big Drop Surf Shop

Shop Name: Big Drop Surf Shop

Location: Swansea, Wales

Age of Shop (years trading): 17 years

Brands Stocked: Globe, Dakine, Protest, Sex Wax, Go Pro, Roxy, Mi-Pac, FCS and many more.

Website/Social media platform: www.big-drop.com, www.facebook.com/bigdropsurfshop.com, Twitter: @bigdropsurfshop

This cool, family run independent shop in Swansea runs an online store too. You can browse online or pop into the shop for one-on-one advice.

How do you use social media to you advantage to promote your store?

We have started to use Facebook and Twitter but we often find that you can spend so much time updating them on the computer that time flies by and we have lots of other things to do.

What particular product has been the best seller? What’s working?

We had a good summer, over this season our best sellers were items like flip flops, t-shirts, leashes, waxes etc. However at the moment we are in between seasons so soon it will be beanies, winter suits and winter surf accessories.

What is your best selling accessory category?

Clothing used to sell really well but we find that everything is more ‘core’ nowadays and our hardware sells the best.

What are the benefits of having a physical shop over simply having an online store?

We have an online store which we ship to many countries across Europe. However, many of our online sales come from people who are local. Having an online store means that people can see what you have then come into the store to buy the item. Many people still like to buy in store and get one-on-one advice. Having a physical store also means that we can see what people are looking for and find out what they want. This helps with our buying as we then know what is going to sell well.

What trends do you see upcoming and what are your latest brands that you stock?

‘MI-pac’ backpacks are popular along with Sex Wax, Globe (mainly hardware and shoes) and Protest

What makes your store different and in what ways does your store excel beyond your competition?

Our experience in the industry helps to make our store different. We surf and skate and so we help our customers with our own first hand experiences as we know and test our products.