Calling all outdoor retailers! SNEWS Outdoor Retailer Survey now open for your responses

It’s time for the annual SNEWS® Outdoor Retailer Survey! Who will appear in the top 10 of the best companies to do business with list this year? We hope — as we know the rest of the industry hopes — you’ll take part to make this year’s results even more compelling, eye-opening and informative than last year’s. Best of all, we have made the survey shorter and easier than ever to complete.

Your opinion as a retailer is valuable and it’s easy to participate. You can take the survey quickly and easily online, sending us the results electronically AND you’ll also qualify for a thank-you gift. Just go to: www.outsidebusinessjournal.com/outdoorsurvey. Results are due by Oct. 23, 2009, so we can tabulate them in time to include a summary in the January 2010 SNEWS Outdoor magazine. (If you don’t have easy access to the Internet, call our main office, 530-268-8295 or send an email to survey@snewsnet.com and we’ll help you.)

As a thank-you for helping us and the industry by giving of your valuable time to share your insights, we are happy to offer an individual, one-year SNEWS® All Access subscription at 50 percent off for new subscribers — that’s a $97.50 savings. The discount is good for you to activate a new subscription for yourself or to give as a gift to an industry friend — it’s also the perfect time to upgrade from a SNEWS Freebie.

A few things to know:

• If you have more than one store, please have one buyer or manager take responsibility for answering for your entire group. We do verify all responses, so multiple submissions will be combined into one, and all non-retailer submissions (yes, there are those of you who have tried to skew the results) will be removed.
• Each question needs a response (so we can better track annual changes and so you can get your subscription discount).
• Most of the questions need only a couple of words or names filled in or something checked. The system won’t let you go to the next page unless you’ve put some mark in all the boxes.
• For the last two questions, please take the time to share your wisdom by writing in your thoughts and comments.
• Individual responses will ALWAYS be confidential; we will NEVER share which stores took part or what each said — even with the offer of million-dollar bribes.

Remember, we need completed survey responses by Oct. 23. Once we receive your survey, we will email you instructions on how to activate your own discount subscription or send to a friend as a gift, so be sure to include a valid email. If you have any general questions, please call the SNEWS® office, 530-268-8295, or email survey@snewsnet.com. And if you missed the 2009 survey results, check them out at www.outsidebusinessjournal.com/surveys.