Consumer Attitudes Towards Shopping For Sports Goods- Sports Goods Retailing Questionnaire for Project Report
Strengths and Weaknesses in the Sports Goods Retailing Market
Strengths
Mass-market status
With
almost two thirds of UK adults buying sports goods each year, the sector is an
established part of the high street retail scene with a mass-market customer
base to target.
Fashion interest
Much
of the market’s growth over the past two decades has been driven by rising
consumer interest in sportswear for casual/fashion wear. This continues to grow
on the back of spectator sports’ evolution into an entertainment product and
the influence of celebrity style on public taste.
Parental buying
Mintel’s
research shows parents of under-15s are significantly more likely than
non-parents to buy sports goods. Pester power and the need for replacement
buying as children grow are likely to have been helpful in limiting the impact
of the recession on consumer demand.
Online presence
While
pure-play online retailers have heavily damaged bricks-and-mortar competitors
in many sectors, the high street multiples of the sports goods market are also
the dominant presence on the web. This is seemingly as a consequence of the
non-specialist nature of its mainstream audience, which drives it to familiar
names online.
Health and fitness promotion
Government
efforts to encourage more playing of sport may not yet be translating into
increased buying of sports goods, but greater health and fitness awareness is
increasing the pool of active adults, particularly among more affluent older
groups who could emerge as a valuable new market segment.
Weaknesses
Discounting culture
The
culture of discounting that has become embedded in the market in recent years
may be good for the consumer, particularly during the recession, but continues
to squeeze independent retailers and risks creating customer resistance to
paying for the quality that drives the performance end of the participation
segment.
Fashion interest
While
the fashion status enjoyed by sportswear is beneficial to the sports goods
market as a whole, the extent to which fashion buying now dominates sales
threatens to create a vicious circle in which participation goods are
increasingly marginalised.
Reliance on ‘value sports’
Sports
goods retailers’ reliance on ‘value sports’ like football – which offer a wide
and ever-changing array of products for players to buy – is limiting their
ability to accommodate ‘volume sports’ like swimming, which, despite seeing
more people take part, do not deliver anything like the same level of frequency
of spending on kit, equipment and accessories.
Shops or showrooms?
Participation
sports goods retailers (particularly in the performance sector) are far more
vulnerable to online competition than are those whose focus is fashion buying.
While fashion buyers research online and try in-store for feel and fit,
equipment purchasers especially have their needs assessed by experts in-store
but then retreat online to compare prices.
Lack of innovation
Whether
the blame lies in the multiples’ focus on price, the conservatism of the
independent sector or the manufacturers running out of revolutionary new
product ideas, the market has for some time been short of innovations to get
excited about, leaving it in growing need of reinvigoration.
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