Precarious Beer Project Merch Overhaul
We love our buds at Precarious Beer Project. They and their parent company, Against the Grain Hospitality, have been great partners for us since 2017. The Precarious Beer Hall has undergone several expansions, steadily increasing the taproom’s square footage. Also, their location in downtown Colonial Williamsburg makes them the highest-trafficked brewery in our hometown. So, in the Winter of 2023, we metaphorically cleared our throats and said, “Hey dudes, we have an idea to increase merch sales and it could be pretty slick.”
Luckily, the Precarious crew trusted us, and we got to work.
The old setup.
This was the previous merch setup before Parkway got involved. There is nothing wrong with this, and it drives some revenue. Two opportunities that we addressed are the physical space constraints and shopability of the merch.
Relocate and increase size.
There was only 16 sqft in a 20,000 sqft taproom that was dedicated to merch. With up to 10K visitors on a peek day, the merch space needed to be significantly increased.
Find space that can produce more $.
We identified an area that housed 2-3 arcade games. Lightbulb! Move the games and use the area for merch.
Digital layout.
We took images of the space and create a visual merchandising blueprint.
Visual merchandising.
We used our past fashion retail expereience to create a layout that would entice guests to come “shop” the merch. Visual merchandising is a strategy, some might even say a science. (Disclaimer: we ain’t no scientists)
Metal Masters.
Over the past several years, we have built a great relationship with Metal Masters, a Williamsburg based fabrication company. They even helped do our retail displays at the shop. If you can dream it, they can build it.
It becomes almost real.
We worked hand-in-hand with the Metal Master team to finalize the final layout and presented it to the Precarious crew. This brought “life” to the product digitally and allowed for any last adjustments.
Install.
After some modifications to the design (check out those awesome custom back metal panels), the Metal Master’s team installed the new fixtures. Boy, she sure is pretty.
Time to make money.
The new retail fixtures are filled with new and existing merch. We continue to meet with Precarious on a monthly basis to plan upcoming designs and releases. We design merch, we make merch, they sell merch, repeat.
Win-Win
Our team has a vested interest in our partners selling as much merch as possible. The reasoning is simple and a little selfish: the more you sell, the more you order, and the more money we all make. (And you get some nice marketing perks with walking billboards all over town).
Make sure to check out the details of our Merch Services to learn a little more about what we do and why we know a little thing or two about merch.
If you think it might be a good fit for you and your business, hit us up! We would love to chat, especially if it is over a cold beer.
Big shout out to Metal Masters for all of their help with this project. Ben and his team are the real deal. If you need any metal fabrication, please reach out to them.
