Ruback Sporting Emporium
Austyn Ruback
Professor Frost
Aurora University

My main career plan after graduation is to become an owner of a very unique company that excels in making sports equipment more affordable and easier to trust. I want to open a brand new type of sporting goods store where you are able to test out all equipment you potentially want--before you purchase it. This is going to change the face of sporting goods purchasing forever. My plan borrows the best ideas of current leaders in the marketplace, but comes with out of the box ideas that capitalize on their weaknesses. Some of my ideas will be implemented immediately, while others will take time to develop as I build the business brick by brick. Looking at the big picture, it will pay off greatly because I know that the pieces will be able to be put together. It is a long process but it is all doable as long as I am motivated and have the right people around me to get this mega Sporting Goods store open for business. The first step of this process is to write a business plan that identifies my target market, develop the unique qualities of my business and ultimately convince investors to believe in my vision to change the landscape of this growing retail category forever. According to IBIS World’s market research the Sporting Goods industry in the United States has seen 3% annual growth for the last 5 years and in 2013 was a nearly $64 Billion market, with about two-thirds of those products being sold through sporting goods stores like Dick’s, Sports Authority and Cabela’s (IBISWORLD). It is also key to note that according to a study by A.T Kearney, even with on-line shopping making up about 40% of sales, physical stores are still the mainstay of this business with more than two-thirds of shoppers reporting they used a physical store to research their product before making the on-line purchase. Total purchases are made up of 50% sporting goods, 33% athletic footwear and apparel makes up the balance of sales. (National Sporting Goods Association) The most important thing I have focus on is developing my niche in this growing market and exploiting it. Finding a niche comes with answering these three questions: “Which areas your competitors are already well established, which areas your competitors are ignoring, and Potential opportunities for your business.” (US SBA) I will model my retail location after one of the biggest and best in the business, Dick’s Sporting Goods. What they do well is provide a variety of merchandise from a number of top manufacturers in a vast majority of the top sports. They merchandise it in orderly, departmentalized appealing stores and offer all their products on an easy to use website as well. What they don’t do is staff their locations with knowledgeable personnel and offer customers the ability to test the equipment prior to making a purchase. I intend to capitalize on these two key components and make Ruback Sporting Emporium the ideal shopping experience. My stores will be marketed to any and all sporting goods shoppers. Within our stores, there will be one, or several, testing stations for each sport. For example, when a sixteen year old baseball player comes in and wants to buy a $300 dollar bat, he can assure himself that it is worth the price by testing it out in our batting cage area. Not ready to fork out $1,000 for that new set of Ping irons? Then try them out in our Golf Blaster 3D simulators first! Want to see how those $200 basketball shoes feel when making cuts and jumps on a basketball floor? At Ruback’s you can do just that. Football, soccer, track and lacrosse will all have an open turf area to work. For every sport we cover, we will have a way for you to touch, feel and try the merchandise before making your purchase! Additionally our store department heads will be knowledgeable people in that particular sport. A prerequisite for the position will to be actively involved in that sport and willing to study trends and be trained by manufacturers in all facets of the equipment we carry for that given sport. The department heads will then be required to hold training sessions to transfer their knowledge on to the rest of the staff. Imagine bringing your 8 year-old son in for his first set of hockey gear and being expertly fitted with the right equipment rather than guessing from racks and racks of stuff you don’t yet recognize, shelling out hundreds of dollars and having to return it because you bought the wrong size or padding! Your feet hurt after running in your Puma 300 V3 Nightcats and don’t want to pay $100 for another pair? Our staff will listen to your issues and be able to recommend other options for you, and allow you to test them right in the store. These are all things ignored by my competitors and huge opportunities for my business, and I fully expect this to be a key component to our success. The next step is partnerships. I plan to partner with a life-long friend in this venture. I will run the operational side of the business, garnering partnerships with vendors and manufacturers to make this plan work for all of us. My partner will be in charge of marketing the business. He will have to decide what a good marketing strategy will be and what he can do to get costumers into our store. He will be in charge of building our website, forming social media sites and creating relationships with local schools and youth sports organizations to provide them with beneficial programs for their equipment needs. For example, we envision being able to provide football teams with properly sized equipment for the players they have, rather than them carrying 75-80 shoulder pads in hopes of having enough of the right size for the 50 players that need to be suited up. This will be part of our experimental “Fit To Play” program designed to save organizations money on equipment they don’t use, all while making sure every player is outfitted in proper sized equipment. The next partnerships will be location and financing. What I was thinking was that we could buy or lease a vacant building. Since we need a lot of open space, it is a lot easier and cheaper to remodel an existing store than build from the ground up. There are many websites that we can use to get a feel for what is available in our markets. We would use sites like Loopnet.com or Auction.com where we will look for either a two-story building or large retail building that will come to us below market value. In many markets, especially around the Chicagoland suburban area, there are a lot of old Walmart, Dominick’s and Menards buildings that are vacant, and these may be exactly what we are looking for. These buildings are large open spaces in locations with heavy traffic patterns and landlords currently collecting no rent for the space.
When we start on this venture, we will be recent college grads with not a penny to our names, so we will need investors that are sold on our business plan and willing to take a chance on us. There is simply no way a bank is going to lend us the money we will need to secure the property, do the appropriate build out and purchase inventory.
My partner and I both have parents who know lots of people who have been successful in business and may be willing to back us. We will go to family members first to secure as much funding as we can in no-interest or interest free loans. We will look for those that really believe in us to get us in front of wealthier friends they have that we can make a presentation to. We understand that to get this off the ground, it is our blood, sweat and tears, but it will ultimately be someone else’s financial risk. This will come at a cost to us in both higher interest rates as well as negotiating away a share of our business and its future profits. With everything in place, we have to decide on just the right name. One of the biggest steps in having a successful company is to have a name that attracts the eye of the costumer. Our corporation will be named AJR Enterprises and we will be doing business as Ruback Sporting Emporium. In order to do this we have to get a DBA name which is a Doing Business As name. The US small business administration says, “Registering your DBA is done either with your county clerk’s office or with your state government, depending on where your business is located. There are a few states that do not require the registering of fictitious business names.” (SBA.gov) The use of “Sporting Emporium” will plant the idea in the minds of customers that it is more than just a store. With a slogan of “We provide the Ball and the ING for your sport” we will catch our consumer’s attention. There are a few basic areas that we need to get approved in so that we can start the building process. We need to get a Tax identification number through the state, and a Federal Employee ID as well. Then we need to obtain our business license, hire an architect and general contractor, and get permits for building out of the store so we don’t get into any legal trouble. As the store is being built we will put out jobs ads in the newspaper on billboards, through Careerbuilders.com, and on the side of our building. This will also help the marketing aspect of our store as people begin to wonder what is going on. As I look for and interview employees and department managers, my partner will find every way possible to get the name of our company out into the media. We will only be hiring people with personalities that will work well with customers, that have a keen interest and experience in sports, and have the desire to invest time in staying up on current trends. To that end, my research shows that we will need to be members of various organizations like Sporting Business Research, the National Sporting Goods Association and Sports and Fitness Industry Association, so that we keep ahead of current trends in the business and stay relevant to our customers. When our company becomes successful we will start to expand and build many more stores but we have to prove ourselves in this economy before we can jump the gun and build more than one store. This Emporium is going to be the next big thing. Having the ability to test your equipment before buying it will be extremely appealing to customers, there will be no one that will be able to resist buying from us. Everything will be top of the line and we will assure you of your safety when you step into our store. The products will include anything between sporting socks and winter jackets with all the apparel you expect from your current store of choice. We will represent nearly all sports in the emporium and maintain inventory year round so we have everything customers need, when they need it. The Ruback Sporting Emporium will change the face of sporting goods purchasing forever.

Work cited
United States Small Business Administration “10 Steps to Starting a Business. By N/A. Business USA, n.d. Web.
Division of DAS, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. A.T. Kearney, By N/A, Market Research 2014, “On Solid Ground: Brick and Mortar is the Foundation of Omnichannel Retailing” IBIS World. By N/A Sporting goods Stores market Research Report, NAICS 45111, August 2014