Tailgating Express — Retail Marketing Plan

Tailgating Express is a hypothetical retail store concept developed for a retail marketing course: a sports merchandise store in Arlington's entertainment district, serving events at AT&T, Globe Life, and Choctaw stadiums. The project built a complete business and marketing plan covering target market, competition, placement, staffing, store design, visual merchandising, product, sales projections, pricing, and promotion.

The plan targets the tailgating crowd in Arlington's entertainment district — people who attend stadium events without tickets and cannot buy merchandise inside. AT&T Stadium's own store sells only Cowboys merchandise, leaving concertgoers and fans of other events unserved.

Store concept creator

The competitive strategy positions the store against street vendors (higher quality, trustworthy merchandise vs. bootleg goods) and Walmart (deeper selection at matched or better prices through wholesale volume). Product strategy keeps Cowboys, Rangers, and Renegades merchandise permanently in stock via wholesale from the NFL, MLB, and XFL, with concert merchandise available for embroidery. Promotion focuses on in-person advertising around the sports district, influencer partnerships, and artist partnerships giving VIP ticketholders free branded merch.

Designed a roughly 2,000 sq ft store concept with a quad-line layout and clear sightlines for foot traffic, an event-based staffing model (multiple proactive employees on game days, one or two on slow days), and visual merchandising with limited-edition items on walls and racks. Built sales projections from tailgating statistics — 18% of fans tailgate, 93,500 average Cowboys attendance, $57 average merch spend per event — estimating $100K in first-year sales, with pricing from $30 hats and t-shirts to $40 hoodies.