Setting up a tack shop

[Alewis]

Hi everyone,
I am new too this but thought I would ask you all a question too help me along the way.
what are the pro's and con's off your local tack shop? Is there something they do particularly well? Or something that you feel could be improved?

your help would be really appreciated

 

[gina2201]

After visiting a local one recently the lack of choice was a bit of a stumbling block, I was actually looking for jodhpurs rather than tack but very little variety or colours. Now I appreciate a small singular shop cannot compete with or stock as much as the mail order chains etc but anything other than black, beige or brown would be nice.

I also noticed some Toggi country boots I liked the look of however didn't have my size, on looking online later I found them £30 cheaper, again I understand overheads for small businesses having run one of my own (not tack shop) but with a variance of price if they were perhaps £10 difference I would consider buying from the shop for convenience and could wear them that day, but with a difference of £30 I cannot justify it.

I do like local shops for being able to see, feel and get an idea of the quality of items before buying which online you can never be 100% sure of however.

 

[MerrySherryRider]

I go to my local tack shop regularly to buy feed and essentials, but they have such a great selection of clothes and really well displayed, that I often end up buying something.

I don't buy much horse equipment and tack because usually I can get a better quality brands on line. Although, the tack shop owner will order anything you ask for and the prices are very competitive with on line sales.

I'd like to see more specialist merchandise and after a 10 mile drive after mucking out, to get there, coffee and a cake would be very welcome.

 

[L&M]

Sadly I don't know any tack shops that can offer the range and low prices on line - as I hate shopping the net is often my best friend!

However I would venture in for something like a hat fitting for my son, so maybe an idea to ensure you are quailfied to offer this service.

The other thing which would attract me in is one that had a second hand section, to buy, or to leave any unwanted tack for sale.

Good luck!

 

[Alewis]

Thank you everyone for your answers will defiantly take these on board! We don't really have any local tack shops around where I live! On a plus side I can make cakes so that may be a very good idea

 

[WandaMare]

I would go for things which are difficult to buy online because its not easy to compete with online retailers for price. So a good selection of footwear, hats, saddles (maybe second hand) and other things which are tricky to buy without trying on beforehand.

I used to regularly visit our tack shop to look at local ads, eg freelance grooms, housesitters etc. but they have taken this away now so I don't go as often! So I would definitely say get a good horse community board up with local events and ads because hopefully this will draw people in and they will buy a few items while they visit

 

[Hackie]

My two favourites have in house saddlers and one of them also has an in house tailor. This means you can get your tack made (I rarely buy any bridles or saddles off the rack) and they offer services such as saddle fitting, repairs and alterations to gear etc. They also made their own rugs (and did rug repairs), and offered rug washing services, cliper blade sharpening and stuff like that.

The stock in the shop is almost superfluous, as this can usually be brought (cheaper) online, but the services are difficult to match. But if I'm there to drop off a rug to be fixed, I might as well pick up shampoo or whatever else I need.

 

[Cheshire Chestnut]

Speaking from personal experience here of living MILES away from a tack shop and having to order things online... stock lots of things that make postage & packing too high to order online. For example, feed buckets - they're cheap online but the p&p was so expesive due to it being a bulky/heavy item that it put me off buying them online.

Other expensive items to post that I'm put off buying online are: bags of feed, larger bags of treats, water buckets, riding crops (especially lunge whips), some turnout rugs, saddle racks etc. Things such as fly spray and mane & tail spray are usually the same price as tackshops online but then you have to pay £4ish for delivery so I just tend to wait until I need to go to the tackshop to get stuff like that.

Saddlecloths are hard to buy online as you can't feel how thick they are and actually how good quality they are. I have a friend who sells some personalised saddlecloths and she said all the pink stuff flies out the door - people seem to love the matchy matchy sets that come in cute colours such as pinks, purples and bright colours - as a matchy set for a good price always makes people feel as though they're getting a good deal (eg: saddlecloth, hat silk, bandages as a set together for a set price)

Also, the feed place I go to bags up their own horse treats into smaller clear bags (presume it's from a huge bag) and sells them for £1 a go. They put them on the checkout and just about EVERYONE buys a bag - including me!

Good luck

 

[Cheshire Chestnut]

Oh and I second WandaMare with the second hand saddles/tack - there's hardly anywhere that sells second hand saddles you can actually see beforehand (without having to just buy them on ebay etc without seeing them first). You don't have to buy them as stock, just let people sell them in there and you take a commission. Gets people through the door and they will pick up other bits and bobs too.

Also, just a final though - a place where I used to live in Yorkshire did embroidry for saddlecloths, travel rugs, jumpers etc for about £5 an item. I don't know if they did it in-house or had someone outside to do it, however it got so many people through the door and they also picked little bits and bobs up while they were there.

FACEBOOK PAGES ARE THE WAY FORWARD FOR FREE ADVERTISING!!!

 

[Capriole]

There are at least four in my local area.

One I won't shop at because the customer service is dreadful and one member of staff in particular is just sullen and rude.
One gives an overall impression of pink and glittery, and since I am not in the market for sparkles, I tend to avoid.
The next I call House of Chav, reasonably large, adequate selection of stuff, some is a bit icky but that's fine. Great opening times, really great, prices range from good to cheap to overpriced, and the staff are pleasant.
Last one is the best. Aladdins cave of stuff that you have to burrow through, some good high end gear, nice brands, staff are excellent and knowledgeable. Prices are rather high here in general. Some bargains, but they don't carry so much tat as the others.

 

[Houndman]

Most small tack shops all purchase their stock from the same wholesale catalogues so you just see the same stuff in all of them. Sadly gone are the days of the old saddlers making saddles and bridles on the premises and the shops being an Aladdin's cave of all sorts of stuff, often sourced from small suppliers. There is only one of these shops in the entire area round here left and even they are struggling to get different stock. Much of the items produced nowadays are made in China which is why lots of stuff is lurid purple and pink colours and blingy as the Chinese are fond of these colours. Tack is more or less made to be thrown away when it breaks as it would cost more to repair than replace. Quality tack is available but they have to order it in as it is expensive and costs several times the price of imported stuff. Sadly that's the way of the world now, and there are so few English producers now compared to what there were even twenty years ago. There are only two main riding boot manufacturers left in the UK now and even those cater for only the top end of the market with £600 plus per pair boots. Horse rugs, numnahs, brushes, plait bands, hoof picks, competitively priced tack and in fact just about everything is made abroad in vast quantities and there is very little profitability in selling these items today to make small scale retail worthwhile.

With the internet and mail order, I cannot see a future for dedicated tack shops that aren't part of a larger concern such as a feed merchants, agricultural supplier or country clothing shop.

 

[Capriole]

looking online later I found them £30 cheaper, again I understand overheads for small businesses having run one of my own (not tack shop) but with a variance of price if they were perhaps £10 difference I would consider buying from the shop for convenience and could wear them that day, but with a difference of £30 I cannot justify it.

Talking of price variance, I was just browsing a site that was linked from HHo, and I saw two rugs on there that I'd been looking at elsewhere recently. The mark-up from the manufacturers site to the second site was £51 and £63 respectively

 

[Houndman]

Talking of price variance, I was just browsing a site that was linked from HHo, and I saw two rugs on there that I'd been looking at elsewhere recently. The mark-up from the manufacturers site to the second site was £51 and £63 respectively

That is exactly my point. With online sales and manufacturers offering to sell a product directly, it is almost impossible for small tack shops to earn enough to survive these days.

 

[Capriole]

That was online.


And the manufacturers are selling the rugs at around the same price as every other online place I've seen the same rug offered for sale. Apart from this one online shop.

 

[smja]

Knowledgeable, helpful staff is a must!

I go to the tack shop when I want to talk to a human being about what might be best - be that saddlecloths, feed, jackets, whatever.

 

[Houndman]

Knowledgeable, helpful staff is a must!

I go to the tack shop when I want to talk to a human being about what might be best - be that saddlecloths, feed, jackets, whatever.

Unfortunately you are in the minority as the overriding concern to most people is to get things as cheaply as possible these days without having to leave their homes. In some tack shops the people selling the stuff know little about the things they sell anyway. Maybe I'm just showing my age but I do miss the old friendly family run saddlery shops that used to be in all the market towns up and down the country.

 

[smja]

I know what you mean, Houndman - and I admit that I've ordered online for stuff that I only want a cheap version of.

I'm lucky, as we have several good, old-fashioned tack shops around here, run by experienced people who give good advice and go the extra mile when it's needed, which is why I go back to them again and again.

 

[Happy Hunter]

I still miss terribly my Local saddlers, the old shop piled 10ft high with leather and bottles of potions that many have never heard of now. Of course the smell too - unmistakeably lovely old English leather!
Sadly its a coffee shop now called 'The Saddlers' - mind you they do a nice cake

2nd hand items go well, Quality items like saddles, hacking/hunting jackets or decent leather boots.
Repairs service is always handy for a snapped rein or headpiece?
Having a good number of catalogs available, so even if you dont have it in stock you could order it in, followed by local delivery? - - (Ensuring that they pay first!)
Cake! - Yes please- my local tack shop does very well with Flapjacks (Best in a 10mile radius I recon), and whilst you have the oven on, try some of those baked horse treats?
A good noticeboard - For sale, local events etc - well worth a visit for your casual browser.
For publicity - why not try a 5% off leather goods kind of sponsorship with local riding/pony clubs? or similar.
A little knowledge goes a long way, I'm sure you will have some very odd requests / questions!!

I still miss that saddlers, I think it has been shut about 14 years now!
And of course let us know when you open!
I am planning a cubbing season trip to a friends in South Wales, so I'll try to pop by!

 

[Houndman]

My favourite saddlers when I was a teenager (1970s to early 1980s) was one such place. The shop had that aroma of English bridle leather and one room was piled high with saddles and hung with bridles, both new and second hand. They were an agent for Eldonian and had some really old style advertising from before the war still up.

At the back of the shop was a workshop with all kinds of vintage sewing machines and equipment and there would be the guy sat there stitching away. They would repair leather riding boots and the gamekeepers would bring boots to be resoled and have new hobnails fitted, and the farmers would bring clogs there to be repaired and have new irons fitted. All over the shop there were traces of previous generations and adverts and pictures from the beginning of the 20th Century.

There were all kinds of potions. Ellimans Embrocation had a distinctive aroma which I remember. Big beige tins of Kaolin poultice. Stockholm tar, and all sorts of other preparations. Some were in glass jars with hand typed labels so must have been made up by an old fashioned chemists (there was one of those too in town where you could buy veterinary stuff as well as medicine for people, and you could buy loose chemicals and they made their own preparations)

You could buy waxed ends (anyone on here at all know what they are before now?) which are prepared threads for doing your own stitching, and saddlery needles and so forth. There was a section of used and new hunting coats and boots, all proper hand tailored stuff. Riding hats back then you got home and stitched a bit of elastic onto them to go under your chin to hold them on. Half the people who rode did so in flat caps. As a boy, I wore a bowler hat for riding at any smart do or hunting (as my grandad told me was proper for a boy, always along with tweed jacket and tie), else a flat cap for schooling in the paddock, and hard hat only for competing. I would have been reprimanded for riding out without a collar and tie. Riding breeches had buttons or buckles at the bottom and were from a cotton material which was a devil for getting stains out, or from wool for hunting. Stretch jods were just starting to come in for youngsters but had not yet started to take over.

Rugs were the heavy New Zealand and jute type ones, made from army canvas. You could buy nosebags, paniers and toolbags to go on the saddle, all made from webbing or leather, and many of them made in house. Haynets were made from jute string and rotted after a while. Whips were mainly from plaited leather and carefully hand crafted.

 

[longdog]

Waxed thread - that takes me back! Learned how to do those when I trained at Cordwainers back in the early eighties!
We try to run the sort of shop you have described with good quality English bridle work & saddlery, but we also have to run the cheaper lines along side.
We offer saddle fitting, repairs, rug washing, feed & bedding, but it is very hard to be all things to all people. It's not an easy trade!

 

[OvergrownShetland]

There's only one "proper" tack shop near me - and its the best place. bridles hanging from the beams, shelves and shelves of lotions and potions, rugs galore, clothing, boots, show gear, feed and a sale rail! all crammed into a teeny weeny stone barn. People are friendly and know their stock well. they also have lots of catalogues, so if they don't have what you're looking for you can order it they stock middle of the range items, and have catalogues for cheaper and more luxurious items. I went in the winter, and was greeted by a huge grin, a space on the radiator for my hat and gloves and a cup of tea... I'm not even a regular there!

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

Location is important and ease of parking
Owner should always be cheery and always there herself.
Local shop seems to have everything I want, a few saddles, some boots, mostly feed and rugs plus all the grooming kit and so on.
Rugs galore which she selects for you from a huge stock.
I would not feed cup cakes, you want customers to come, buy, and leave happy, in that order.
I prefer that the shop is mostly goods and less floor, fewer staff but fast service.
Community board essential.
I would be very wary of running a shop, it is high risk venture , local riding and livery school could not make it pay in spite of customers on site. I bought quite of lot of stuff from them when they closed.