Take A Break From Shopping Large

It's Small Business Saturday. Are you shopping at your local tack shop or do you shop at the Walmarts of the tack world? We have a select group of tack shops that carry Five Star's bridles. Sometimes they even have better pricing than what you'll see on our website. These shops have products that are carefully selected for quality as well as product differentiation from what the large stores have. They also have great service and knowledgeable sales people.

Some of my favorites and where you'll find a good selection of Five Star Tack's bridles are: The Tack Box in Middleburg, VA. They carry both our hunter and eventing style bridles as well as breastplates. Ask for Berk when you go. She's the best! The Tack Shelter in Colts Neck, NJ has many of our bridles. Located in the middle of horse country, they are a well known store and can expertly fit your horse with one of our bridles. They also carry our bridles in their mobile unit. In Pennsylvania you can find both our hunter bridles and figure eight bridles at Bit of Heaven Tack in Pottstown. They have a large selection of tack and apparel along with great service. The Paddock in Connecticut has a good selection our hunter bridles. We don't have many shops out west but Alta Hills Tack in Sandy, Utah exclusively carries Five Star bridles. For a complete list of stores see this list.

While people may complain that their local tack store doesn't have the prices or huge selection that the big box stores have, the better tack stores are more like boutiques. Realizing that you can't always compete with the big stores they often carry products you can't find at the big stores as well as carrying the products their customers want. Plus the smaller shops can give you a level of service not possible online. There is nothing like being greeted by name when you walk into your local store!

It's harder for tack stores to compete on price with the big guys because they are not able to purchase the big volume of an item to get a price advantage. The big stores and manufacturers are all very well funded. In many cases they are either publicly traded companies or owned by private equity firms. We all like to get a good deal but if smaller businesses can't compete with the Walmarts then they will have difficulty surviving. That unique selection you enjoy at your local shop may be gone if that shop has to close. Then your choice will be limited to what the mass producers carry. Even us small online merchants are not immune to the challenges of going against the "big guys".

So get out there and shop small today!