The Rider Store is ready for its grand opening

 Size matters at the Rider Store.

At roughly 5,000 square feet, the new store at Mosaic Stadium is almost three times the size of its predecessor.

For Mark Habicht — the director of retail operations for the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders — the magnitude of the new store is its best feature.

“It’s the scope of the place,” says Habicht, whose outlet is to celebrate its grand opening Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. “It’s the bright windows. It’s the high ceiling. This takes us out of that cramped, damp, leaky man-cave that we were in (at historic Mosaic Stadium) into something that we think suits the brand, where we think we are and where we’d like to go as an organization.”

The Rider Store, which already is up and running in the northeast corner of the new stadium, is the flagship outlet in the province.

The chain also includes four stores split between Regina and Saskatoon as well as a 700-square-foot store (located in the southwest corner of Mosaic Stadium) and four kiosks (two on the main concourse and one on each of the two upper concourses) that will be open on game days.

Unlike its forerunner, the main store will have on-site storage that will provide quicker access to merchandise.

“We had (storage) in the old stadium, but it wasn’t in the store,” Habicht explains. “If we didn’t have the polo shirt that you wanted in your size, we had to leave the store, go through the gates and into the tunnel (under the west-side grandstand), go into a storage room, get the shirt and then come back around.

“The ability to service the customer and get them what they want will be far, far, far enhanced by the new location and the new space.”

The larger Rider Store will have some exclusive merchandise that won’t be found at other outlets but, for the most part, it will feature the same products. The only difference is that the main store will have more of each product because it has more space to store merchandise.

Another key component of the new Rider Store is the technology that will allow staff to quickly customize jerseys for customers.

Patrons can choose the sizes and colours of Roughriders jerseys they want and get them personalized with any name or number, all by using touch screens.

The jerseys can be made up in short order, with wait times depending on demand and on how busy the staff is.

“The traditional way of doing jerseys was to send them out and get them stitched — and that takes time,” Habicht says. “Some cities are lucky. Winnipeg has got a big embroidery house across the street, so they can be pretty quick to market in terms of getting jerseys made. We don’t have that, so we had to send our jerseys away. This allows us to do them the same day or while you wait in some cases.

“It’s all about that real-time speed to market. We like the idea of a guy watching (Saskatchewan quarterback) Vince Young throw five touchdowns and then coming in here saying, ‘I’ve got to get a Vince Young jersey.’ Now we can say, ‘We can do that.’ ”

Habicht started with the Roughriders in 2008, so he was well aware of the old location’s shortcomings — including the inability to move from one side of the store to the other when it was full of customers.

The sheer size of the new store should eliminate the bottlenecks. The hope is that its other features also will enhance the customers’ shopping experience.

“This store is a representation of our brand moving forward,” Habicht says. “In some ways, this store and this stadium represent how our fans envisioned the brand, but it wasn’t always backed up by the facilities that we had. This is meant to be a game-changer in the sense that it hopefully connects the fans to the team and to the brand.”

See below for Saturday’s schedule of events!