The SportsOneSource Group, publisher of SBG and The B.O.S.S Report, has market research and accompanying analysis out this week on brand awareness in the outdoor sporting goods industry.
“As the economy contracts and the retail environment suffers, many retailers are re-trenching back to the brands that are seen as safest,” said James Hartford, chief market analyst for The SportsOneSource Group. “The strong will most likely get stronger over the next year.”
This is another reminder of how the outdoor industry works differently from mainstream consumer goods. When times are tough, many mass-market consumer’s look for low-priced alternatives to the top brands: generic dishwasher detergent over Cascade or Coby over Sony. Recessions are a great opportunity for second-tier brands to build loyalty in customers who might not otherwise have tried their products.
But in the outdoor market, most lesser-known brands don’t come with lower prices. Read the rest of this entry »
Since crummy consumer spending numbers began to appear this summer, retail analysts have been talking about the advent of a new consumer mindset. Consumers, we’re told, are learning to live with less, questioning their need for non-essentials and focusing on value. While I don’t doubt this is true, the full story is likely more complicated. Consider these conflicting trends from today’s The New York Times:
Best Buy reported this month that same-store sales were down almost 8% in October, led by what an analyst called an “unprecedented drop in consumer buying of items like flat-screen televisions.” Wal-Mart, on the other hand, announced at a Nov. 13 earnings conference that their October numbers show a “healthy sales growth” in flat screen TVs.
So what’s going on? Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve ever doubted the claim that more and more consumers are doing pre-purchase research on web, the new Google Trends will make you think again. If you haven’t found it yet, Google Trends is a real time display of the frequency of Google searches. You enter a search phrase and Google displays a graph trending the search volume for that term. Additional features let you see trends in the search terms appearance in Google News stories and even to rank searches by geographic area. Some sample results and half-baked conclusions based on them below:
Search “north face” or “mountain hardwear” and see how search volume increases during cold weather months.
The North Face Trends
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