After only seven months in business, Victoria’s only outdoor consignment store is already bursting at the seams and in need of a larger location.
Grove Outdoors is an outdoor consignment store that opened its doors in April on Yates Street in a shared retail space with Best Coast Outfitters, a local kayak company.
Their aim since day one has always been to make the outdoors accessible.
“We sell consignment outdoor gear, high quality gear at a more affordable rate,” said Sydney Munk, owner of Grove Outdoors.
With the amount of outdoor activities readily available to people living in Victoria, Munk saw an opportunity to make these activities more accessible.
“So many people move to Victoria because of the outdoors,” Munk told Victoria Buzz.
“Overall, the model of consignment outdoor gear is not new, it’s just something that Victoria lacked.”
She says she got the idea to venture in the world of outdoor retail and community from her sister.
“During COVID, my sister worked at a similar store in Calgary called Switching Gear,” Munk said. “It got me thinking that Victoria doesn’t have something like this.”
Grove Outdoors is Munk’s first endeavour since graduating from UVic’s Business program in 2021. Following a camping trip to Port Renfrew with a friend she committed to herself that she was going to take this on.
Her business has now grown to the point that it can no longer share a space with Best Coast Outfitters as it has for the seven months it’s been in town so they are moving out on their own.
“We always knew that staying together wouldn’t be a long term solution,” said Munk.
“In mid-summer, Best Coast was getting more brands at the same time as I was getting more winter stuff dropped off so it was clear that we both needed more space to display stuff on the floor.”
The new location for Grove Outdoors is at 614 Johnson Street, which is ideal because it is closer to all the other outdoors stores downtown such as MEC, Arc’Teryx and Robinson’s Outdoor Store.
The new spot is about the same size as their Yates Street location, but they will no longer have to share the room with another retailer.
“Technically I have double the space,” exclaimed Munk.
She is moving locations this week and plans to open the doors to her new location on December 10th.
