02/24/2026
Free items available at 1601 Kossuth. We will be posting a few more every day, mostly on the large furniture or chairs side. We won't be posting any camera gear or equipment as we are continuing to sell through eBay after our lease ends on March 1st at 1601 Kossuth.
I'll be posting a few answers to questions I've gotten with Trackside's closure.
"Why did you close?"
I knew retail was challenging and capital intensive. I started the venture on bootstraps, seeing how the community responded and was testing all sorts of different products and services. I was incredibly optimistic that people would have the disposable income and interest in photography. Unfortunately, even with my massive friend groups, connections, marketing pushes... We never saw foot traffic start to increase meaningfully and monthly sales were propped up by eBay. If we hadn't started selling on eBay, I likely would have chosen to close before 2025 ended.
One of the core decisions was looking at the numbers and projections. The shop had been actively losing $2k a week since the day it opened in addition to the time, money and energy I had put before October 15th. Inventory coming in costs money, staff/payroll costs money, utilities cost money. I as the owner was okay with losses as that was expected for the first few months and knew that I was okay eating about $100k in total debt.
There were definitely some ways I could have cut to try and stay alive, but cuts weren't enough. If I would have reduced hours, or tried to run the shop entirely by myself, it wouldn't have fixed the problem that people weren't coming in and purchasing. Running it solo also would have cut my ways to advertise, and be out in the community. Also a lot of my funding came from me actively shooting real estate and events, so I needed staff to be here while I went and shot to try and find the funds to keep the shop going during the first few months of losses.
In the end, even with ribbon cuttings, classes, and film development our best performing post on social media was our sudden announcement of closing. We got more sales in the flu
"What is next for Trackside? Will you continue classes/services?"
So I as the owner previously owned 5 businesses. I will be condensing down to 2, and reducing my visible footprint in the community to work more behind the scenes. Picture the Past is being taken up by one of my former staff members, and he will be also doing some level of printing services. RaggedyMan Media will continue to be independent and working to find a new home for him and his services.
As for classes, there is a chance we may continue classes with our local audience. Right now it unlikely to continue under the Trackside brand and more likely will be picked up by other photographers inspired by our classes.
More in the next post. - D
