StarZmart:Exit Sales Tackles Fishing Gear Online

Over the course of a long and busy professional life, Bobby Fowler has come full circle. He got his start in wholesaling over 30 years ago, and has returned to it with Exit Sales, as a distributor specializing in selling fishing equipment for independent retailers. "I was in the wholesale business back in the '70s, when I was a very young man, selling hang-up cards and notions to mom-and-pop stores," he says. "That's when the Walmarts started moving in, and the small stores just started closing right and left. Walmart and the other discounters just kind of took over. So I got out of it.Wholesale Computers
"
He then pursued a successful career in highway construction as an estimator. "I just had a knack for it," he says. "I worked all the way up to vice president of one company, then they had me running another company." Unfortunately, a lifelong tendency toward headaches took a turn for the worse, and Fowler started to experience seizures and memory problems. "I had a medical setback from a scar in my head that happened when I was three years old," Fowler says. For a construction professional that had specialized in estimating job costs to the penny, it was a life changing blow. "It was kind of like going crazy. I was just losing it," Fowler says. "I'd be driving home, and I couldn't find my way home." However, Fowler found a solution with a new doctor, a new marriage, and a new business in wholesale.
"A few years ago I did a big study on the tackle business, and I studied the product categories that have not been run over by discounters in different markets. I studied what Walmart was doing and not doing, and so I chose to get into the tackle business." Fowler enjoys fishing, and had been making a study of the fishing gear retail business for quite a while. "I had been fooling around with selling fishing tackle off and on, dabbling in it, experimenting with it on eBay and all for ten years," he says. "I had knowledge of some places you can go for closeouts." With an insider's knowledge of bargain price sourcing, he got his start in earnest about three years ago.Wholesale Battery：Bottle Docker
Fowler had two buildings to use for the business, investment money in hand and no overhead, because he was using facilities that were in the family. "I had operating capital of my own, so I didn't have to borrow money. I said, 'We'll give this a shot,'" he recalls. "And little by little it has grown and grown and grown, and as people find us, we're picking up more and more customers. I've taken a bad situation and turned it into a survivable situation," he modestly explains. Speaking of bad situations, Exit Sales faced a serious challenge last spring, thanks to Mother Nature's less than gentle hand in Tennessee. "One major setback we had last year was one of the worst rains in 30 or 40 years," says Fowler. "We got flooded, and we've got a full basement. That was a tremendous setback, but we came out of it." The company lost a significant quantity of goods that were damaged by the floodwaters, some of which were sold at extremely low prices.