Roller Warehouse, a counter culture success

'Motley crew' gains national success Rick Davis and Gill Ilanit, owners of Roller Warehouse in Rocklin, have a unique recipe for success: take a pair of guys who loved to skate, add one group of unruly teenagers and let it age 13 years.What you end up with is one of the most successful aggressive inline skating distributors in the nation."We have a pretty motley crew here," Ilanit said, commenting on the brash group of customer service agents handling the hundreds of orders daily.Roller Warehouse caters to inline skaters across the United States and Canada and got its start in June 1994.Since then, Davis and Ilanit have put in much overtime to help Roller Warehouse become an industry leading provider of inline skating products. "I went 10 years without weekends off," Ilanit said.Davis gave up working for a mail order business and used his computer skills to get Roller Warehouse off the ground. Ilanit signed on with Davis after leaving his "former life" as an auxiliary firefighter in Canoga Park, Calif. Roller Warehouse is the only online retailer to produce a catalog. A total of 100,000 copies of the heavily colored flipbook are produced twice annually and has become an important guide for skaters everywhere.The twosome noticed in the early 1990s that rollerblading distributors were not able to keep up with the growing demand of hot products."Aggressive inline skating became the new hot sport, along with skateboarding back then," Ilanit said.The sport developed a dedicated audience quickly."Skating is an absolute lifestyle for these kids," Davis said. "They find a cool identity and they embrace it."The online entrepreneurs keep busy at the Roller Warehouse by staying in touch with their hardcore consumers, whose average age is around 12 or 13 years old. In February, the company started a MySpace.com page, which receives an average of 4,600 hits on a regular basis.The page also works as a clever advertising tool for the Roller Warehouse. The Web site has a scrolling news ticker for all things on the aggressive inline skating industry, also known as a "widget." Davis said other industry professionals were impressed to see the immediate impact the widget had on sales.Skaters, surfing online, are linked to up-to-the-minute news stories on their favorite pros, skating events and sales.Clothing makes up about 60 percent of the warehouse's sales while inline skate boots and wheels round out the revenue.The Roller Warehouse also has a lowest price guarantee policy. If a customer finds a cheaper price on a product they purchased through the Web site, Roller Warehouse will match the price with a refund. Customers also have a chance to create custom skates from the wheels to the boots on the Web site's Customer Skate Manipulator template. Once a customer purchases more than $1,000 in merchandise, the customer will receive free shipping for life.To encourage good academics from its youthful customers, the Warehouse also offers a 5 percent discount for students with a B average or better."It's funny, these kids with gangster attitudes usually have good grades," Davis said.Many of the employees at the Roller Warehouse come from troubled backgrounds, but none of that matters in the eyes of Davis and Ilanit."It's like an extended family around here," Davis said. "We love each other and we hate each other. This place is like our baby."Brad Alexander can be reached at brada@goldcountrymedia.com.Roller WarehouseWhere: 4105 Delmar Ave, Suite 3Info: (916) 630-2370 or visit www.rollerwarehouse.com for more information