Tim Harty, The Business Times

Loki Gear moved from 445 Colorado Ave. to 537 Main St. a few years ago, but it didn’t make the difference its owner had hoped it would. So, Loki’s employees packed up the multi-functional, performance, outdoor apparel it’s known for and moved one block south and one block west, back to Colorado Avenue.

The reasoning for going back to its former home is simple.

“The short story,” Loki owner Seth Anderson said, “is we tried Main Street for three years. It didn’t increase our sales enough to offset the extra expense, especially during our offseason in spring and summer. We own our Colorado Avenue building, we did great sales on Colorado Ave., so it’s better sense for us to pay our own rent.”

The Main Street experiment had its allure. Anderson said people told him he’d get more foot traffic, customers wandering into his store because of the greater amount of retail stores on Main Street.

And that did happen, but Loki isn’t a store with lots of small, inexpensive items that appeal to tourists and the out-of-towners who stay at the nearby hotels or are downtown for an event at the convention center.

“Tourists don’t really want to buy big-ticket items, at least not in the last three years,” Anderson said.

Ultimately, he said, many of the people who came to Loki Gear on Main Street were the same people who shopped at Loki when it was on Colorado Avenue. And new faces often accompanied existing customers or were directed to Loki by existing customers.

“People bring us customers here,” Anderson said. “We’re known here, but we tried to get people that didn’t know us to come. We did get some more customers …”

Just not enough to deliver the revenue increase the store hoped to realize.

Anderson also can look at the past few years and acknowledge he didn’t follow his own thinking about downtown Grand Junction. He said when Loki first moved into 445 Colorado Ave. in 2013, he tried to promote the idea of “Grow Downtown,” not just Main Street.

“But then I broke my own theme and tried to move to Main Street to get more tourists,” he said.

Lesson learned.

People locally were going to seek out Loki Gear regardless of location. Anderson has known that since the days of Loki being home-based, then operating a small store on the Redlands for about a decade before coming to Colorado Avenue and setting up shop.

He doesn’t have numbers to back it up, but Anderson feels comfortable saying there hasn’t been as much foot traffic in the couple weeks Loki Gear has been back at 445 Colorado Ave. However, sales are about the same, and he knows customers will find the store. When they do, it will be easier to get there and easier to park. And he thinks Colorado Avenue has “noticeably more going on” than it did when Loki first moved there 12 years ago.

“Long term, we’re happy here,” Anderson said. “I enjoy being on Colorado Avenue. Actually, it’s kind of cool. It’s got its own feel.”

MORE ABOUT LOKI GEAR

Loki Gear describes itself on its website as “the original ‘All-In-One Outdoor Clothing Company.’ We specialize in patented convertible hand and face warmth, backpack-able pockets and all-in-one convertible accessories. There are a growing number of imitators. None take it to the extent we live by. Everything Loki makes is ready to face changing weather. And like the weather, it keeps changing.

“Loki was founded by the mountain climbing Anderson brothers in Colorado. Dirk and Seth wanted gear that would change with the weather for mountains and everyday adventure. They named Loki for the Nordic shape-changing god of mischief and trickery.

“Loki gear changes to be warmer with built-in mitts and neck warmer, or cools down with vents, and some can turn into backpacks. All this functionality while maintaining a ‘low-key’ in style and friendly prices.”