Play It Again Sports Sarasota Fl
When Mark Zimmerman looked into buying Sarasota's Play It Once more Sports, he knew it was a chain of sporting appurtenances stores specializing in selling used and new sporting equipment.
What the 61-year-old native of New Rochelle, New York, was unfamiliar with was the origin of the name.
Play It Once again Sports. Play it again, Sam, a misquotation of the line "Play information technology, Sam" from the movie "Casablanca."
Zimmerman'south independently owned store isn't exactly a gym articulation, but because of COVID-19, many gym patrons have turned to him for assist.
And sales at Play It Once again Sports have reflected this need.
"For the year, I'k upwardly double-digits," Zimmerman said. "I'm bitterly sweet well-nigh how good the business concern is due to the pandemic. But that doesn't hateful I want this pandemic to continue. I want to be normal, too."
For area sports enthusiasts in demand of stuff, there'south Dick'south Sporting Goods, the nation's largest sporting appurtenances retailer with approximately 850 stores and thirty,000 employees, and Play It Again Sports, started in 1983 in Minneapolis and now with more than 450 stores in the United States and Canada.
Zimmerman was on the back finish of a 37-year career as a district managing director for CVS Chemist's shop in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut area. But the visitor reorganized in 2017, a shuffle which greatly increased his work load.
"More work for the same pay," Zimmerman said. CVS somewhen severanced him and the move caught him past surprise. "I would accept retired with them."
But with three children in college and not even so gear up to sit at dwelling house, Zimmerman looked into buying into a diverseness of businesses. His love of sports zeroed in the former high schoolhouse baseball histrion and track star in 2018 on the Play It Once again Sports franchise for sale in Sarasota.
Zimmerman visited a couple of stores, one being the Sarasota location, which had seen its sales tumble. The possessor operated 26 other Play It Again Sports franchises around Florida, but hadn't been in his Sarasota location in ten years.
"I knew it wasn't very profitable," Zimmerman said. Still, he saw the potential in it, and later on getting approval from the Winmark Corporaton, the franchiser of Play Information technology Again Sports, Zimmerman forked over about $200,000. The Sarasota location was his.
"I was nervously excited," he said. He renovated the store, but without much available inventory, Zimmerman began listening to the requests of his customers.
Then he started selling discs for disc golf. Zimmerman brought in more bikes and more fitness equipment. He got the necessary space by ridding the store of cumbersome hockey equipment.
But six months afterwards Zimmerman took over, Dick's opened a store at The Mall at University Town Center. And for the first month at Play It Again Sports, sales tanked.
"I was like, 'Oh, my God. What's going on here?' " Zimmerman said. "Just afterwards a calendar month and a half, information technology started going back upwards again and information technology hasn't stopped."
That'southward because COVID-19 has been good for Zimmerman'due south business. Bicycle sales are up more than 100 percent. He'southward operating with a ratio of sixty percent new gear and 40 percent used due to no i coming in with their used equipment.
In March, when area gyms shut down, fitness junkies descended upon Zimmerman'southward shop for equipment. "There are fettle junkies out in that location like you tin't believe," he said.
Sales of dumbbells, benches, weight bars and plate weights exploded. People came to Zimmerman for inline skates, bikes and golf equipment. "It made up for the other stuff I was non selling."
He was forced to close in April, but since reopening on May 3, Zimmerman hasn't been complaining, salvage for i thing.
His vendors can't get him the equipment fast enough. Zimmerman ordered 27,000 pounds of weights. Ten weeks later, he got only eight,500.
"And I tin't tell the customer when he tin get it," he said. Every bit a effect, Zimmerman will mail service on Facebook when an lodge of equipment arrives.
"Then it's commencement come up, offset served," he said. "I wish I had carte blanche to be able to go whatever I wanted, when I wanted it."
Someday the virus will pass. Just Zimmerman thinks the auction of certain equipment won't as part of the post-COVID-19 earth.
"I call up, quite frankly, (it will final) until the end of time. I don't think it will stop."
Source: https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/sports/2020/08/10/covid-19-sarasota-play-it-again-sports/3332346001/
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