Pauline Shepherd, head of research and insights at the European Outdoor Group (EOG), and Richard Payne, from market research firm Sports Marketing Surveys (SMS), recently held a webinar on the current state of the European outdoor trade and the association’s plans for the evolving “Outdoor Benchmark Report” managed by SMS. In addition to the “State of Trade” reporting portal launched last year, the EOG is working to expand the database for its monthly reporting tool to provide valid data and offer useful benchmarking features for outdoor stores in all European countries.
The current Outdoor Retail Benchmark Report includes sales from around 1,000 physical stores as well as online business from seven European countries, with Germany having the most coverage. 25 percent of participating stores are online retailers, while 75 percent are brick-and-mortar stores. Point-of-sale figures are collected and reported monthly, measuring six market segments: outdoor, sports fashion, cycling, winter sports, running/walking and water sports, broken down into highly detailed product-specific data collection. Contributing members of the program have access to extensively prepared data on their business segment. As an example, the webinar provided a glimpse into the 2020 full-year sales data captured and dove deeper into the numbers for running and cycling (see below), both of which were winning categories in the challenging last year.
The EOG is working with the OIA in the U.K. to develop a national market data program for the local outdoor industry and is encouraging brands and retailers to join the network. The plan is to initially establish an advisory group, with the first meeting scheduled before the end of May.
