Deep inside the numbers reflected in the 2008 “How America Shops” study lies an interesting opportunity for retailers that have an Internet presence of their own. The key is to convert the customers that use the Internet for research to buy in-store or buy online and return goods to a retail location.
Roughly 45 percent of the surveys respondents indicated they had purchased athletic equipment, outdoor equipment, sports licensed products, athletic footwear or athletic apparel over the last 12 months-a significant increase from the 38 percent that shopped online in the 2003 study. The use of the Internet to conduct this survey was expected to skew the number higher versus the survey conducted five years ago via telephone.
Apparel was purchased by the greatest number of those surveyed, with 48 percent of those indicating an online purchase responding that they purchased apparel online. Footwear was purchased by 41 percent of Internet shoppers and sports licensed product was purchased by 22 percent of those that bought on the Internet. Outdoor equipment was purchased online by 17 percent of online shoppers surveyed.
Of the respondents that had shopped online, 23 percent indicated that they had purchased apparel through a manufacturers website, while 17 percent said they purchased footwear through the same channel and 11 percent purchased equipment through a direct-to-consumer Internet site.
Amazon.com was cited by the most online shopping respondents as a pure-play e-tailer site where they had purchased product over the last 12 months and eBay was cited by 39 percent as a location where a purchase was made. NFL.com (18 percent), Eastbay (14 percent) and Zappos.com (13 percent) rounded out the top five e-tailer sites where purchases were made in the last 12 months.
A stunning 78 percent of total respondents had used the Internet to research a product before they bought it, a 22-point jump versus the 2003 survey. This statistic bodes well for retailers with both an online presence and a brick-and-mortar operation. When asked if respondents had found a product in a sporting goods store and then bought it online instead, only 28 percent indicated they did so. Price was cited by 80 percent of those responding as the primary driver for the decision. The good news is that 50 percent of those respondents that researched a product online then went to a store to purchase it. Convenience was cited by most of those consumers as a reason for making the purchase in-store (58 percent) and shipping costs followed close behind at 52 percent of those that purchased this way.
There may be some interesting opportunities in which to convert customers in the area of returns. Roughly 33 percent of the respondents that had purchased product on a sporting goods retailers website had returned the product they purchased. However, 45 percent said they returned the merchandise back to the store, and 25 percent had returned goods both back to the store and to the online site, while 30 percent had only returned goods back to the Internet site.
Methodology of the Study
This research is designed to show the habits of the American population when purchasing sporting goods. Included in the research is a detailed description of where Americans shop for sporting goods, what they purchase at particular sporting goods retailers, and how the use of the Internet factors into their purchasing decisions. To qualify for this survey, each respondent must have purchased some type of sporting goods within the past year. A total of 1,400 completed interviews were conducted, with consumers highlighting their interaction with 35 different sporting goods retailers and 14 Internet retailers.
The survey was conducted in June 2008 among adults ages 18 to 65, and was administered over the Internet using a third-party Internet panel provider. SportsOneSource made every effort to control the demographics to best represent the U.S. population. However, with Internet surveys, the demographics tend to skew more toward older, Caucasian, and higher-income households. Within the survey, 44 percent of the respondents were male and 56 percent were female. The average age of the respondents was 44.1 years old.
A rating scale of 1 to 9 was used to measure certain attributes of respondents purchasing habits and patterns, with 1 being negative and 9 being positive. A response of “Dont Know” was removed from the rating and is not part of the overall average.
The results of the survey can be projected to the U.S. population with a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
