Part 2: How to elevate Your skate shop drops with EQL
Too much work, too little guaranteed payoff: this is the struggle skate shops owners know all too well. Participating in limited edition product launches is a massive opportunity — the type that’s growing increasingly rare in our tough retail landscape — but it can be difficult to make the most of it with the limited tools and outdated processes that most shops lean on.
We addressed many of these common pain points in part one of this blog series. Now, we’re going to explore exactly how EQL can help turn things around. We’ll take a look at several of EQL’s key features and how they’ve been designed to make drops more efficient, more profitable, and more fun for skate shops and their customers.
Hybrid Raffles: The best of both worlds
The biggest challenge when facilitating in hot launches is choosing who gets to buy the product. Say you have an allocation of 200 pairs of Dunks, but thousands of customers are hoping to buy them. Who gets the W?
Many shops take the first-come-first-serve (FCFS) approach: start selling when the doors open, and stop when you’re sold out. This seems relatively simple and fair, and it can be fun and exciting too: tons of people show up to your shop, which creates a festive atmosphere that you can encourage by turning it into a larger event. However, this also requires significant crowd control to prevent it from turning into a stampede, and you’re more likely to end up with angry attitudes from people pissed off that they’ve waited in line for hours just to be told that the product has sold out.
The alternative is a simple raffle: set out a fishbowl or use another method of collecting entries, then randomly select winners. This approach is far less chaotic, but it means a lot of manual effort on the back end to choose and notify winners, and then process the fulfillment. Here's where EQL can help - launching with EQL can remove hours of manual work and create a positive experience for shop owners and fans
No more manual work
EQL launches are a way to run smarter raffles. First, you can accept entries over an extended window of time. That bypasses the messy and hectic FCFS scenes and gives a fair shot to more people — not everyone can take off work or shirk other responsibilities to make it to your shop for the moment of a FCFS release. And because EQL handles everything on the back end, you and your team won’t spend any time choosing winners or working on fulfillment.
Keeping it fun
There’s another element here to consider: product releases should be exciting and fun. Sure, the manual effort and challenges of running in-person drops and raffles aren’t ideal, but the work may be justified to create a great experience for customers. Thankfully, with EQL, none of that gets sacrificed. It’s the perfect mix of tech-driven convenience with the memorable experiences that only in-person events can create.
How does it work? Simply display a QR code in your shop to accept entries — it’s the 21st-century version of your old fishbowl. Customers still have to come in to enter, so you’re still getting the benefit of foot traffic and IRL engagement that help your bottom line and keep the culture strong. You can throw the same epic launch day parties that get people talking and connecting, but when the raffle window closes, your work is done.
Skeptical about security? We get it — if it’s possible to leak something, people will leak it, and a QR code is easy enough to copy and share. But thanks to EQL’s geofencing option that blocks entries from outside of your established location, you can keep the “I was there” spirit alive — because entrants literally had to be there.
Locals-First Flexibility: Balance your priorities
In this era of hyper-globalization, independent skate shops are one of the few places that still maintain their sense of locality and community. They’re dialed into the local scene, and they put genuine connection and culture-building over profit. This is why we all cherish our local skate shops — but it’s not always easy when owners still have to generate enough revenue to pay their rent.
So while you want to give your local community the best shot at your drop, it’s also essential to guarantee that you don’t misjudge the market and wind up with a bunch of unsold merchandise that you invested in. How do you guarantee sell-through without selling out your local crew? Once again, EQL’s got you.
Flexible audience controls
EQL was designed with flexibility in mind, because we know that nothing is more important to small businesses than the ability to adapt. That’s why our hybrid raffles can be run as locals-only (no entries are accepted outside of your set geographic parameters) or locals-first, meaning that local entrants are upweighted and given the best shot, but others are accepted.
It can be hard to gauge demand when you’re working with your limited local market, but when you have the option to expand your launch beyond your geographic barriers, you’ll have the confidence to ensure selling out.
Fulfillment options
EQL offers flexibility in fulfillment, too, allowing you to adapt your launches to the unique needs and setup of your store. Got plenty of storage space for inventory and want to ensure that your launch is driving foot traffic to its fullest potential? Set up your launch for in-store pickup. Tight on space in your shop? EQL powers shipping directly to your customers, cutting you out of the logistics. Or offer both options and let your customers decide what works best for them.
Fairness First: Keeping the culture fun
This isn’t specific to skate shops, but anyone who plays in the high-heat retail space knows how quickly things can get toxic. When you have massive groups of people who want something and low odds that they’ll be successful in getting it, it’s only a matter of time before someone stops playing by the rules and starts resorting to shady behavior.
A few bad actors can tilt the scales significantly. People lose faith in the fairness of the system, so more and more start looking for ways to cheat. Fans get disillusioned with their favorite brands and shops for not doing enough to prevent the scamming. Communities start to turn against each other, and the culture gets soured. We hate to see it, which is why fairness has been built into EQL’s DNA from the start.
What is Run Fair®?
Run Fair® is EQL’s operating standard. It demonstrates a priority to weeding out and blocking bad actors and giving the best shot to those who play by the rules. And increasingly, it’s something that fans know, look for, and demand to see from the brands they support.
When a launch is Run Fair®, bots are blocked from entering online launches using the most state-of-the-art technology out there. Thousands of entry signals are analyzed behind the scenes of every launch, flagging signs of dishonest behavior or resellers masquerading as real fans. And let’s not pretend that this is only a high-tech problem — even if your drop is 100% analog, that doesn’t stop customers from coming in multiple times, using different IDs (tbh, we wouldn’t put it past them to don a fake mustache) to try and get as many entries in as they can.
Be a good steward of culture
Why does it matter so much for your drop to be Run Fair®? It’s the essential role that skate shops play in their communities as keepers of culture. Since the very beginning, skate shops were known as a place that people could go to find like-minded folks and be treated with respect. To get good advice and be able to hang out and skate, even if you weren’t there to buy anything. The entirety of skate shop culture is built on credibility, trustworthiness, and authenticity.
The rise of corporate, big-box retail has meant a dwindling of those types of places — where customers can count on being treated as more than just profit generators. It’s more important than ever for skate shops to continue providing spaces where the only rules are fairness, respect, and good vibes. That’s why it’s essential for skate shops to set high standards for equity in product drops with Run Fair®.
Revenue drivers: Make your drops pay off
We know it’s not all about the Benjamins — few people get into the business of running an independent skate shop with the goal of becoming the next Elon Musk — but driving revenue is obviously an essential part of running a business, and a major reason that skate shops love participating in hot product releases.
The opportunity to sell an allocation of an ultra-high-demand product that can’t be found anywhere else can mean the difference between sinking and staying afloat for skate shops. But with thin margins and high economic pressures, shops simply can’t risk investing in a product drop without a guaranteed ROI. Here too, EQL can help.
Add-ons and upsells
EQL has built the option for post-entry add-ons into the user experience of entering a launch — and it’s a highly effective way for brands to drive incremental additional revenue with every drop. This might be a complementary add-on to the product or an exclusive discount on other merch from the shop. Regardless, it’s a perfect way to play on customer passions when they’re running highest. Whether it’s a consolation prize for someone who missed out or a celebratory purchase for a winner, EQL post-entry CTAs show an impressive 30%+ conversion rate — a significant amount of extra cash that your shop can count on.
Creating stickier customers
Participating in hot launches can be a bummer for customers. As we’ve mentioned before, the presence of bots and bad actors can really ruin the vibe. But even if everything’s totally above board, the hottest drops come with long odds of success. However, EQL’s unique algorithm, the EQLizer, gives fans a reason to stay hopeful and keep trying. Every time an entrant misses out on an EQL launch, the EQLizer bumps up their odds on the next launch from the same brand. This means more long-term loyalty from your customer base.
Flexible fee structuring
As good as this all may sound, we’re sure there’s one question on your mind: okay, but how much will this all cost me? After all, shelling out big bucks for a launch platform will quickly eat into profits.
EQL’s commitment to flexibility comes in here, too. We power our platform by charging a Run Fair® Fee that’s a small percentage of each transaction. But we leave it up to our brands to determine how the fee gets charged. Your shop can pay the entirety of it or pass it on to the customer — or split the difference. It’s another way that EQL can adapt to your shop’s unique needs.
Learn more about EQL for skate shops
We’ve talked about some of our top features in this blog post and how they can help skate shops turn their drops around. But there’s no out-of-the-box solution with EQL — our end-to-end platform can be tailored to your shop’s setup and the type of drops you want to run.
Curious to learn more about what that could look like for you? We’d be stoked to chat about it. Get in touch with our team today for a no-pressure conversation about implementing EQL on your next hot product drop.
