Native Skate Store
Shop Name: Native Skate Store
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Age of Shop (years trading): Our shop opened in 2003 (10 years)
Brands Stocked: Adidas, Alien Workshop, Almost, Altamont, Baker, Blind, Blood Wizard, Bones, Brixton, Chocolate, Cliché, Converse, Creature, DC, DGK, Death Skateboards, Deathwish, Diamond Supply Co, Emerica, Enjoi, Fabric, Fallen, Flip, Girl, Huf, Independent, LRG, Lakai, Mighty Healthy, Nike SB, Palace, Penny, Plan B Polar, Powell Peralta, Real, Santa Cruz, Shake Junt, Spitfire, The Hundreds, Thrasher, Vans and that’s only about half of the brands we carry.
Website/Social media platform: www.nativeskatestore.co.uk
How do you use social media to you advantage to promote your store?
We’re always posting stuff up on our social platforms. We mostly use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, It’s a great way of interacting with our customers. We post up new products, news, video clips and run little give-away competitions to keep in our customers line of sight.
How are you celebrating your 10 year anniversary?
By working harder than ever before 😉 We’ve got a bunch of limited collaboration pieces in the works with a variety of brands that we’ve been working with over the years. Some cool stuff, really stoked to be able to team up with them all.
What particular product has been the best seller? What’s working and what isn’t?
Best selling product of all time for us here is Bones Reds Bearings. They have been the staple here both in-store and online since day one, it’s ridiculous how many sets we sell of them. Right now what’s working is Nike Janoski’s, Huf, Diamond, The Hundreds and Penny Cruisers
What is your best selling accessory category?
Best Selling accessory category for us right now is socks, specifically socks with leaves on them. Both DGK and Huf socks are flying out everyday.
What percentage of your sales are from online business compared to your in-store sales?
I’d say we average at 65% online, we still have a healthy core store. The store is driven by the website also though and I’d say that 70% of the business done in the store is actually done on the site the night before. Customers just come in and ask for an item now or order online to collect in store.
What are the benefits of having a physical shop over simply having an online store?
There’s loads of benefits of having a physical shop, it’s good for customers to be able to come and try things on and check things out. Our Newcastle Store has a really good community feel to it. It’s a hub for everyone in the local scene, come by, meet up and check out a video etc I wish we had something like this when I was a kid.
What makes your store different and in what ways does your store excel beyond your competition?
We carry an insane level of stock, everything on the website is in stock. We also ship next day if you order before 3pm in the UK and constantly get deliveries of the latest product so there’s always something new in to choose from. We get thank you emails from mothers all the time, I guess our customer service is top notch too.
What trends do you see upcoming?
Clothing wise we see jeans loosening off a little and streetwear brands dominating. On the hardware side we’re definitely seeing a shift in board sizes, people are looking for a 8.0”+ now and we’re selling a lot of different shapes these days. Particular standouts for us are Welcome Skateboards. Their boards don’t stick around long when we get a delivery.
What kind of advice can you give other independent retailers who are trying to compete against the big megastores?
Start work early and finish late. Try and not focus too much on the competition and what they’re doing. Try and not just go heavy on certain brands and what you personally think’s cool, I see a lot of our competition all selling exactly the same 2 or 3 shoe brands and 3 or 4 clothing brands and not a lot else. We try and work with as many brands as we can and support them as best we can.
Which up and coming brands do you hope to stock in the future?
Right now the new brands we have our eyes on are 3D, New Balance and Dill and Ave’s FA outfit.
What are you doing to pull people into your store?
We’re constantly staying up to date with the latest in skate shoes, street-wear and hardware and have various local events going on. We’re also opening a small skatepark shop in a local indoor park real soon. I see this as more of an advert for the main store and website if anything. It’s really cool as I used to skate around the industrial estate it’s on a lot back in the day.
How’s the skate scene in your local area?
The local scene’s strong, there’s a lot of talent round here these days. We’ve recently been shooting a scene report for Sidewalk Magazine. It should be in the August 13 issue, look out for it.
What have been the best three selling categories for you in the last 12 months?
The last 12 months our best selling categories have been Decks, Skate shoes and T-Shirts
Please tell us of any upcoming initiatives your shop has planned? (events, signings, re-vamps etc…)
Right now we have a DC competition lined up for August 11th, a local King Of the Road inspired video competition called ‘King Of The How Man’ and we’re launching our new website www.nativeskatestore.co.uk real soon too. We now also ship to Europe so we’re spreading our wings a little. Excited to see how it does in Europe, I know the traffic we get from certain countries is phenomenal so it should be good.
