Shop Talk: Behind The Mask will soon be expanding with The Vault
If you follow us on social media, you have probably seen our posts about “The Vault” and might be curious as to what we are talking about.
At BTM each day, we strive to better service our customers, enhance the retail shopping experience at our stores and to help promote and grow hockey throughout Arizona.
We look at it as a three-tier approach.
Our Scottsdale Superstore is the flagship store of the company. It is centrally located just off the 101 and Shea, along a busy freeway corridor that many of our customers frequent throughout the week. When we moved to this location in the summer of 2010, this space was perfect, much larger than the Phoenix store that we closed to move to Scottsdale, and much more accessible.
We decided to make it our goalie superstore. Over the past seven years, the store has become jam packed with hockey equipment, sticks, skates, supplies and apparel, and we have literally run out of room.
Right now, it is cluttered.
About a year ago, the H&R Block tax store beside us went out of business. At this time, we started to think of how we could use the space and tie it in to our store. Would we make it just a goalie store? The ceiling is lower, and the space would not have the “wow” factor for a goalie store that we were looking for. Would we get more hockey apparel and lifestyle apparel and make it an apparel store? We decided this would not work as well.
Then out of the blue, it hit me – The Vault is what it would be!
What is The Vault? The Vault will be a separate store within BTM Scottsdale – a 1400 square-foot store dedicated to sticks. Yes, hockey sticks. Right now, we have over 1000 hockey sticks in the Scottsdale store on the retail floor. We expect this number to double or triple once we open The Vault. We will be carrying more models, patterns, flexes and brands – some exclusively sold just at BTM Scottsdale and The Vault.
The Vault will be a store inside a store.
Part of the wall in our goalie section will be cut out and an opening from inside our Scottsdale store will take you into The Vault. Every hockey stick from youth, junior, intermediate and senior will be housed in The Vault, as well as over 500 goalie sticks. This will open up much-needed floor space in the store and with this extra space, we have plans for several upgrades.
Our mini rink will be gone, and that section will get more shelves to display more goalie pads. We will dedicate more space to our goalie section, including a special youth goalie section. Our chest pad and pant wall will be much larger, and we will be bringing in more models and sizes. So our goalie superstore will get bigger and better.
We will be making a BTM lounge with our leather couches and table where you can stay, hang out, use the Wi-Fi, or watch a game on the TVs while we take care of all your hockey needs.
Look for a spring opening of The Vault and expansion of our goalie section. You might even see a familiar face on the outside store window wrap.
Randy Exelby is the owner of Behind The Mask Hockey Shops.
(March 1, 2018)
