Bridging the Gap from Online to Offline with the Markets!

In today's digital age, online shopping has become a standard way most people shop, making it more convenient than ever to browse, research, purchase and receive anything without even leaving the comfort of our own house. We have used this to our advantage, however, with every solution comes its own set of limitations. We are here to talk about our way thinking through these setbacks and exploring possible avenues for the future.

The Problem With Being Online Only

Online stores are great and all, but they all usually come with one significant problem for a majority of customers. This is of course, being able to feel products, pick up climbing equipment and try it on, for example, trying on our range of climbing shoes to find that perfect fit for your foot or fitting yourself in our incoming apparel line. This is especially true when products may differ from their physical appearance like colour. We have tried to fix this by always having accurate product photos and sizing charts, however, this can't always fix it for everyone everytime.

Possible Avenues

With this problem staring right at us, we decided to start brainstorming potential avenues we'd like to explore which could help us:

1. Connect with local customers
2. Raise brand awareness
3. Offer a hands-on shopping experience

We started with listing off the craziest ideas which we have no way of implementing at this stage like large retail stores or moving into our local favourite climbing gyms, then began diving into the more realistic and creative ones; and, that's when it hit us, the markets would be a perfect place as it aligns with a lot of climber's demographic (at least in Brisbane) and it is quite unique!

A Test Run At Riverside Markets

After finishing piles of paperwork worth of market research, legal requirements and advertising planning, we landed on the Riverside Markets as our very first test run. Now all that was left was ordering some stock and spreading the word to all of you!

It quickly proved a success amongst all of you and we're very greatful for all the people we have met as a result and everyone who has supported us in the meantime.

Where To From Now

We think that consistancy is key for a place like the markets, so we will be dedicating our Sundays for the next little while to the Riverside Markets from 8am-3pm every week so you know where you can find us!