MIX IT UP | While swimming pools are big ticket items, East Coast Leisure owner Todd Glaser keeps an array of non-seasonal products to keep customers coming year round. Photo by Paul Chin, Jr.
By T.J. Prieur
Competing on price is important in many businesses, no matter the industry.
Pool and spa company, East Coast Leisure, has found a way to offer competitive prices like a large chain store while retaining its local character.
East Coast Leisure has grouped together with 15 other pool stores to form a purchasing cooperative. The stores are located in several states, including South Carolina, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio and several in New York.
“That’s really one of the big keys to our success,” says Todd Glaser. “I don’t know about other industries, but in the pool business being large enough to buy direct from the manufacturer really helps with price, and you have to be large enough to do that.”
East Coast Leisure opened its doors in the Virginia Beach area in 1984 when Glaser’s father moved here from Florida.
“He started in the pool business in New York when he was in college and working for his uncle,” explains Glaser. Then he moved to Florida and then he decided to come here.”
The company has expanded to four stores in the past 10 years, with two in Virginia Beach, one Chesapeake and one in Newport News, as well as a warehouse located in Virginia Beach.
The store’s connection to the buying cooperative go back to the 1960s and his uncle’s store in New York. “Most of the members are in upstate New York: Albany, Rochester, Buffalo. They were each just far enough away to be outside the other’s territory, but they were close enough that they could buy together, and if someone ran out of something they could easily go get it or have it freighted over,” he explains. “When my dad opened his store in Florida he asked to join.”
Glaser says there it is a “balancing act” between having enough businesses involved to obtain good purchase discounts while not having so many “chiefs” that it is difficult to make decisions.
“With too many people, particularly when they are all business owners, you can have a lot of clashes. Everybody’s got to agree to buy the exact same thing or it doesn’t work,” he explains.
The 15 members own a total of about 35 stores. “That makes us pretty close to chain size. And even if we were a chain we would still need to have a hub and a warehouse to ship things out of.”
The purchasing cooperative has been one important part in the success of East Coast Leisure. The second ingredient, according to Glaser, is diversification.
The store carries billiard tables, spas, and patio furniture and accessories as well as selling pools and pool supplies.
Billiard tables are a popular item from September through November, while spa sales are year round. The pool season kicks off in February with a President’s Day sale, and in the past few years, even in a slow economy, sales of patio furniture and accessories have been good. “When people decide they can’t take a vacation they spend a little more money on their home,” he says.
“The pool business is a few months of the year. We have 25 full-time employees and they do receive benefits. We want to keep them working throughout the year,” he says.
Finding complementary products that keep customers coming to the store even when the weather is cold is the key.
