Warm December weather slowed foot traffic in many New England Specialty SnowSports retailers causing nationwide SnowSports Specialty retail sales to slump 5% in units and 2% in dollars during the month. For the same month, SnowSports Chain retailers saw sales decrease 21% in units, and fall 4% in dollars.

For the season-to-date period, August through December, total SnowSports industry sales declined 1% to $1.33 billion. Specialty sales fell 3% to $1.03 billion while Chain stores sales increased 3.2% to $298.4 million. Behind the simple numbers there appears to be a bit of a paradox affecting the ski side of the industry. The strong innovation coming out of today’s manufacturers seems to be propelling sales with the core ski market, but rising prices-of both equipment and lift tickets-may be pricing the entire industry out of the market for many newcomers.

The innovation and excitement behind certain product categories in the ski industry is obvious.

As ski boot manufacturers tweak their designs to work better with modern, wide skis, the performance improves, and sales of high performance ski boots at Specialty jumped 12% so far this year.

The huge improvements in telemark ski equipment over the past several years have more than doubled the size of the market and sales have increased in the category by 14% so far this year.

The advent of innovative new companies in the twin-tip arena has also dramatically pushed sales up in this category, increasing sales by 33% in Specialty shops this year.

While the growth in each of these categories is great for retailers, there is one common thread to these categories tying them to short-term gains, not long-term industry health. Each of these categories caters to the established and experienced skier.

This strong sales growth shows that manufacturers are doing a great job with innovation, and retailers are successfully selling the product to their existing customer base, but no new skiers are entering the market. For example, while high performance boots are selling through, Sport performance boot sales declined 5% at Specialty and recreation boot sales declined 19% at Specialty. This added up to an 8% drop in units-sold while dollar-sales fell 3% in the entire boot category.

Likewise, the snowboard category is showing weakness for the first time this year with sales falling 10% in both units and dollars for the August through December period. All three categories — Boards, Bindings, and Boots -– showed declines in units-sold and dollars.

The one bright point for Specialty retailers is apparel. The category has seen sales increase 4% across the board so far this year. Insulated tops sold through with a 10% sales gain, while softshell sales jumped 17%.

While Specialty retail is showing weakness in SnowSports, Chain stores are relying on higher average selling prices to keep their sales numbers up. This is a dramatic departure from the stereotypical “price-slashing” Chain-store strategy but it appears to be working.

Chain store sales declined 15% in units-sold but, as stated earlier, dollar-sales increased by 3%. Sales were led by easy-to-buy ski systems and a $62 increase in the average selling price of Carve skis, which boosted dollar-sales by 24%.

It seems the pre-season spike in telemark sales at Chain stores was actually an inventory blow-out. In SIA’s pre-season retail audit, released in November, telemark equipment unit-sales spiked 40% in Chain stores but dollars dropped 5%. The ASP for a telemark ski fell from $326 to $235, boots from $260 to $152, and bindings from $96 to $83.

In this most recent season-through-December audit, telemark equipment sales dropped 21% in dollars-sold and 10% in units-sold at Chain stores. Falling ASP’s and a 29% drop in the number of skis sold pulled the entire category down at chain stores.

Snowboard equipment sales were up 2% to $43.9 million as compared to last season with the ASP of a snowboard hitting $212 at chain stores compared to $175 in December 2003. Freestyle boards led the category with an ASP of $238, and a sales increase of 16% in dollars. Women’s snowboard apparel is pushing sales at chain stores. According to the SIA, in December, women’s snowboard tops outsold men’s tops by more than 5,000 units.