Spawn Fly Fish is a small retail fly shop in Ilwaco, Washington (Ilwaco is in far southwest Washington near Cape Disappointment and the Columbia River).
Josh, the founder of Spawn Fly Fish, talks about the challenges of wholesale pricing and possible solutions in the following video.
Spawn Fly Fish is one of what’s a struggling breed – at best: small fly shops that are trying to succeed in a market filled with large regional / national chains; changing consumer sentiment and buying patterns, and suppliers who don’t support the smaller businesses with favorable wholesale pricing.
In some areas of the country where fly fishing is a destination sport, e.g., Montana, fly shops can be found on what seems to be every street corner; all to most seem to thrive. But in other areas of the country – where most fly fishing is local and where off-season sales are barely adequate – there are only so many fly tyer – each day is another hoping for the next customer.
Some shops – Red’s Fly Shop, for example, started very small (I remember the little building they were in before they built their current lodge, restaurant, and fly shop), and then were able to use the Internet/social media (primarily with informative YouTube videos for more than a decade) to grow their business into national prominence.
Many have branched out into watercraft (e.g., Gig Harbor Fly Shop), travel, and sponsoring local and destination guiding. Even the latter take time and investment to grow.
But smaller shops, particularly those starting in recent years – or never having established a visible online presence in the early social media era – have found tough business conditions or have gone out of business.
A friendly welcoming store with staff that is sincerely glad to see you; assistance with questions and issues; a gathering location to share one’s passion – those are the hallmarks of small retail fly shops. It’s one of the reasons if there’s a fly shop somewhere I’m visiting I make it a point to visit and soak up the ambience = and typically buy something (even if only a hat or t-shirt).
You may not be interested in small fly shops – fly fishing, or any fishing for that matter. But the plight of small retail is widespread.
Inevitably, it seems to be another nail in the coffin of what’s been going on across small retail businesses in many business areas.
Even if a business has a desire or intent to evolve and grow it into more profitable avenues, it encounters the same Catch-22: a business can’t grow if it isn’t profitable, and it can’t be profitable because it can’t grow.
Perhaps it’s another variant of “back in the day”, but it sure feels like we’re losing another of the things that made so many aspects of life rewarding. An AI buying program and an overworked Amazon delivery driver do not provide the same experience.
