back to exciting… and everything in between! Staffing warehouses, getting inventory, getting the stuff out in a reasonable time frame, getting inventory replenished from vendors, we definitely had to duck, dip, dive and dodge to find a way through the year.” He sees it from a bigger picture point of view. “It doesn’t matter, really, if you’re in the powersports industry, the grocery business or the auto business, we’re all kind of living in the same world right now. Just trying to keep our heads above water and figure out how to get more stuff.” Supply chain issues really impact your business when you are a distributor and have nothing to put into the pipeline! Shoemaker says he asked his brand managers and buyers to go big with ordering 18 months ago, because he foresaw the “Slinky Effect” the pandemic was going to have, but even his crystal ball was a bit murky when it came to the depth and breadth of the supply chain issues the world is currently facing.
WESTERN POWER SPORTS DODGES A COVID BULLET
Battle For Boise Bragging Rights Rages On!
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“ f you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball,” says
Patches O’Houlihan in the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Apparently Western Power Sports remembers Rip Torn’s character and the fundamentals… “Remember the 5 Ds of dodgeball: Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge!” The Boise-based distributor has dodged the COVID monkey wrench and continues its winning ways. But it hasn’t been easy… However all work and no play makes for a really boring sales meeting. WPS believes that if you work hard, you need to play harder! To that end the middle of the Boisebased distributor’s week-long rep training session was split up by the Dunlop Dodgeball Debacle Dos. We sat down with WPS CEO Craig Shoemaker before he suited up for battle in the hockey rink to get his take on what it takes to succeed during these tumultuous times. “This past year has obviously been a super exciting year for us at Western Power Sports,” says WPS CEO Craig Shoemaker. “Exciting, challenging, difficult,
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“So we have been excited to rise to the challenge and I think we’ve done okay,” he says, but laments the fact that WPS wasn’t even more aggressive early on. If we ordered 50% more, we should have done 100% more… obviously, we’d like to do better, but then you start looking around and realize there’s only so much you can do.” Vendors at the show echoed this during the week, noting just how aggressive WPS had been from the beginning, but the challenges persist and the supply stream is still a trickle of what it could be. “It has been a terrific year, we’ve actually crammed more than five years’ worth of normal increases if you look at it over the last 10 years. We put five years’ growth into one,” he says, noting quick decisions and quicker actions by proven partners like FMF, Warn and Dunlop helped them dodge a bullet. “I think our industry is in great shape — and difficult shape. Obviously supply is still going to be a problem for the whole next year, I believe.” He is not sure exactly when supply will keep up with demand and find the level. “But at the same time, we get to complain all the way to the winner’s circle, because business is good. We always feel like it could be that much better, but sometimes, you just gotta take what you get, and keep running with it and keep working.” When pressed for a timeline on when things finally do level off, Shoemakers says, “I believe next year will be another great year for our industry.” More importantly the COVID surge of new customers is going to pay off for years to come. “I think we’re going to hold on to a lot of these new riders for many years, our industry is going to be healthy for years to come because of all of our new players.