Tricon Sports goes online-only post pandemic 

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, with its shutdowns, manufacturing delays, and supply chain issues, giants such as Amazon only grew larger, while small, local businesses struggled to stay afloat. 

Here in Lexington, we’ve seen many beloved shops and restaurants shut their doors. The latest is Tricon Sports, a local sporting goods business that has long supplied the uniforms for most of Lexington’s local sports teams. 

Tricon was founded in 1968 by a high school teacher and former college athlete who noticed that there were not enough local companies supplying sporting goods. Originally located in Lexington center where Upper Crust is now, Tricon moved to its current Waltham Street location in 1988. Robert Tavilla, the current owner, and Drew Busa bought the business from the original owner in 2011.

Tricon is one of many businesses that started to see fewer faces in its brick-and-mortar store following the pandemic.

“Sourcing products to resell, long delays in manufacturing, and unexpected COVID shutdowns globally made a mess of the supply chain and timing with custom orders. Later, the constant change in the pricing we receive from our suppliers was a challenge through 2022,” Tavilla said.

Tricon has still been able to thrive with its local support and online presence. Online operations have been running successfully with the help of an Amazon storefront, followed by Ebay, which was added in 2020, and more recently, Walmart, added this year. 

Tricon will be closing its physical store soon to focus on online operations.

“We’ve continued to expand our apparel side of the business. We also focused on keeping our inventories lower and learned a valuable lesson on ensuring our account receivables are as current as possible,” Tavilla said.

Through the ups and downs of navigating their business through the pandemic, Tavilla has persevered and learned an important lesson.

“The ability to react and also be as proactive as possible is the key to success in business post pandemic times,” Tavilla said.

Despite the difficulties of the pandemic, Tricon Sports has established strong relationships with their customers.

“We have been lucky to be part of a strong community and have had the pleasure of servicing multiple generations of families in the area since our inception,” Tavilla said.