Royal Treatment Fly Fishing syncs sales and community with Lightspeed

Navigating market volatility with precision

For 15 years, Joel La Follette has built Royal Treatment Fly Fishing into a West Linn staple, relying on a mix of education, charity work and deep industry ties. While his reputation for reliability helped the shop thrive during the outdoor boom of 2020, external market volatility has introduced new complexities to his daily operations.

From sudden tariff fluctuations to the skyrocketing cost of raw materials, Joel faces a landscape where margins can shift overnight. “The hardest thing right now for me in my business has nothing to do with how I run my business,” Joel explains. “It’s just adjusting to what is happening today.”

Managing these financial shifts requires precision. In an industry where picking up a few percentage points through early-pay discounts is vital, Joel needed a system that offered absolute clarity on his bottom line. By utilizing a modern platform to track these variables, he ensures the business remains stable regardless of the news cycle, allowing him to stay focused on the anglers and advocates who make up his community.

Turning data into a competitive advantage

Having witnessed businesses spiral out of control due to a lack of data, Joel knew that professionalizing his operations was the only way to succeed. When he opened Royal Treatment Fly Fishing in 2010, he bypassed the traditional method of walking around with a clipboard and opted for a digital first approach.

Today, that commitment to data allows the shop to operate with a level of speed that was previously impossible. Leveraging Lightspeed Wholesale—a seamless connection between Lightspeed POS and the NuORDER B2B platform—Joel can bring in new apparel lines from the NuORDER network with a single click.

Processes that used to take days—manually photographing products, writing descriptions and inputting metadata—now happen instantly. “It’s one push of a button and they’re in the system,” Joel notes.

This efficiency extends to how Joel manages the business from afar. Whether he is home in Oregon or guiding a group in Argentina, he monitors performance through Lightspeed’s reporting features every day. By tracking high value sales in real time, he maintains a personal connection with his customers, often greeting them by name to ask how their new gear is performing.

Joel relies on his daily sales reports and year to date totals to keep the business on track. By automating the backend, he has transformed his lone ranger startup into a thriving community staple where the focus remains on the water, not the paperwork.