As indicated by the typical company data, the demand for sport goods of retailers in this sector has been decreasing in the past several years. The decreased demand may be attributable to the declining demand for some type of equipment in US market but more possibly to unfavorable retail climate.

Sector’s Current, Trend, Causes behind trend, and Future

Current and Trend

1. It seems that the demand has been stabilized and strong and gradually growing for most of types of equipment of US outdoor recreation& sports.

2. The upward driver for price and the passion of market on new products have been seen in golf, snow sports, and fishing equipment markets. However, we have not seen the same upward trend in shooting& hunting, hiking, or camping equipment market.

3. Growth in demand from international market seems to be stronger than that in domestic market.

4. As demand increased, companies have been able to reduce their promotions and thus increase revenue and improve the margins for most of their product lines.

5. Companies focus on competition on products’ innovation.

6. The data as presented by specialty outdoor sports retailers seems consistent with what we have seen from corresponding manufacturers.

7. The retail performance in traditional stores (sell all categories in equipment, apparels and footwear) seems to have been influenced largely by the whole retail industry climate. While some of category of equipment and footwear perform well, the whole sales of those retailers have been dragged down by generally shrinking demand in some of equipment such as camping, hiking, and hunting and apparels.

Causes behind the trend

1. Generally, the demand for outdoor recreation and related equipment& products has been growing driven by macro-economy and income factors as described above and by increasing realization of outdoor sports among young and women.

2. The increased demand may be more likely from existing sport fans than from new fans as they would like to pay more for new, innovative equipment, which help speed up product updating and result in growth in revenue. At the same time, those consumers may prefer to go to specialty stores for their equipment.

3. However, sales of outdoor related goods and equipment have also been, to less extent, influenced by the whole retail climate as seen by slowing down traffic in traditional sport stores, which may be attributable to the decrease in revenue in hiking, camping, and sportswear.

4. For some of recreation sport such as sport shooting, political and public factor play a more important role in influencing consumers’ shift.

Industry Future

1. As upward trend in this industry continues, companies may be able to continue to see growth in their revenue as macro economy recovers gradually. However, some of categories that depend on traditional sports stores channels may find their performance in revenue will be limited by those stores’ ability to attract traffic.

General Financial Performance of Companies In the Sector

It seems that the demand for sports goods has been weak and declining in the past several years as indicated by the decreasing same store sales in the typical retailers during the same period of time. The downward trend seems to be speeding up as indicated by the average growth in the same store sales (down 3.4 and 1.7% for 2018 and 2017 respectively). The decrease in the same store sales has been reflected primarily in some of equipment categories such as hunting and skiing and apparels generally. We have seen strong demand for footwear products, especially branded products.

Due to intensive promotion and deleveraging of store related expenses as a result of expansion of new stores, companies’ margin went worse in the past several years. As revenue went down, their EBI/share went down by 25% and 27% in 2018 and 2017 respectively. The typical gross margin for retailers in this sector is about 31% in 2018, the SG&A as percentage of sales is 27%, and the operating margin was down to about 4% in 2018. And the EBI/sales ratio was about 3% in 2018.

The typical enterprise price/EBI ratio is 12.

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