Gord’s

A lot of what you’ll read on here I originally wrote for the old “Gord’s Ski and Bike” Website. While I shut down Gord’s in May of 2013 and subsequently shuttered the website shortly thereafter, I nonetheless wanted to find a way to preserve some of my articles for posterity without necessarily having to host the entirety of the infamous Gords.com. So here you have it… This is the last article I wrote for the website that we kept up a few years after the closure of the business.

Herein lie the ashes of what was once our dream. The last ditch effort we liked to call “Ethical Retail”.

Gord’s Ski and Bike was a Winnipeg based shop that started from very humble beginnings: in 1961 with a $1000 loan from a gentleman named Shluderman who just happened to co-invent the removable metal ski edge a long time ago in Europe. From the coat check in the basement of the now defunct of the Winnipeg Ski Club on Togo and Osborne Gord’s Ski Centre emerged as one of the premier ski shops in western Canada… From there Gord’s grew steadily over it’s 50+ years. in 2011 Gord’s became the largest independent ski and bike retailer in Central Canada with three locations in Winnipeg and one in Banff totaling over 20,000 square feet of the very best clothing, ski and bike product anywhere. Winner of the Prestigious Snow Industries Association’s “Canadian Retailer of the Year” and perennial winner of  the “Best Bike Shop in Winnipeg” award by the readers of Uptown Magazine, Gord’s Ski and Bike was constantly striving to be the best ski and bike retailer in North America.

Bolstered by the very best staff anywhere and an insatiable desire to become the best we could be, Gord’s was committed to outstanding customer service and superlative product knowledge. What truly set us apart was our uncommon degree of caring and our need to get out there and participate in the activities that we represented. From our much loved Bike Club to our involvement in grass-roots programs, events and organisations like the International Mountain Bicycling Association, it was etched in our mission statement to get out there and play with our customers. To not only sell stuff but also to get to know WHO our customers were in order to better take care of their needs. 

Built on foundations laid down by the late, great Gord Reid, Gord’s Ski and Bike was founded on a few basic (if a little bit naive) principles:

1-Let other people sell crap. Only sell the good stuff, stuff you yourself would use. Stuff made and sold by people who cared as much about the end user as we did.

2-Test everything. How else can you stand by law #1? Simple, Don’t take anyone’s word for it. Sure it’s expensive to do it right, but do it right. Test everything you sell BEFORE you buy it… and hold the distributor’s feet to the fire if they ship you crap. That way you can look your customer in the eye and stand by what you sell.

3-Never bullshit your customers. I know, sounds odd, doesn’t it? But seriously. Don’t lie to the people that put food on your table. EVER.

4-Walk it like you talk it. Snowboarders selling snowboards, skiers selling skis. Nothing wrong with blind folks but I’d rather buy a TV from someone who can see the difference between CRT, LCD and LED. Knowledge is power and that’s likely why every single one of our employees found work BEFORE the fat lady sang as our competitors immediately scooped up all of our staff the moment the end was near (except of course for Josh, he just walked away from retail altogether). Which, of course, brings us to number five:

5-Hire the best Staff. Find the best, train the best and hold them accountable to higher standards. We knocked it out of the park there. Our staff were simply second to none.

6-Care. Because to care is to do everything that needs to be done to treat your customers like friends. Good friends.

7-Service what you sell. Make sure you always have a tech on duty, make sure they’re trained properly and carry parts for the stuff you sell.

The end of Gord’s was a tough one for many and no one took it harder than me. After all, as the last owner. I was the captain at the helm when we went down so the blame rests on me. More on that at another time. The wounds are a wee bit too fresh still.