Retiring store owner ready for life apres ski
10:30am Sunday 12th February 2012 in News
Simon Needler is retiring
A WINTER sports shop is set to close its doors after nearly 40 years in business.
A closing down sale will start at Westsports Ski Shop in Old Town today as owners Simon and Wendy Needler prepare to take early retirement.
Simon, 62, said it had not been an easy decision to make but he wanted to close the store while the business was still successful.
“It is the end of an era for Westsports,” he said.
“Trading has become increasingly difficult on the High Street over the last few years, and although Westsports is still profitable, Wendy and I have decided to retire early at a high point, rather than preside over a steady decline,” he said.
“It was a hard decision. I am an enthusiastic skier but I am also a businessman.
“The internet has completely changed the way people buy things and there is tough competition from chainstores.
“I would rather go out when things are relatively good than later say ‘ok, we have been forced to close’.”
The store opened in Fleet Street in 1975 after Simon borrowed £5,000 from his father, Noel Needler.
Simon convinced his father to lend him the money to expand Noel’s general sports shop in Faringdon, which had opened 15 years earlier.
“I joined him in 1971 and being a keen skier and realising that skiing was the up and coming thing, I convinced him that a stand-alone ski shop could work,” said Simon.
“He said ‘you’re going to lose my £5,000’ but I told him to give me a go and I paid him back within two years. I never let him forget it.
“He was a retailer all his life and so was my grandfather. Shopkeeping runs in the blood.”
In 1997 they moved to the old Gilberts furniture store premises in Marlborough Road, where they have been ever since.
Simon said he has many fond memories of his time in business, including meeting triple Winter Olympic champion Jean-Claude Killy.
“One of the best things about running this sort of specialised shop for so many years is that I have got to know so many of the customers,” said Simon.
“I had a customer in the other day who was a customer in our first shop. He was a young man like me then and now he is taking his grandchildren skiing just the same as I am.
“We see not only the second generation but the third generation too, which is fantastic.
“I would like to thank all of our loyal and regular customers – many of whom have been coming to us since the early days – for their support.
“I have been one of the lucky ones that turned a hobby I loved into a business.”
The store will be open until the end of the season at the end of March.
