The athletic sock business may be a reflection of both new trends in fashion as well as the new realities of the economy. Consumers appear to be showing a little more ankle this year-while saving a little green.
Based on retail point-of-sale data compiled by SportScanINFO, sales of no-show and low-cut socks are taking a larger chunk of athletic footwear dollars in the full-line sporting goods, mall specialty, and family footwear channels. Multi-pack socks also grew in popularity.
The over-the-calf look has gone the way of the basketball category and now resides mainly in the full-line sporting goods channel, although the category did pick up share in the much smaller mall specialty business. Crew socks are also picking up more share of the overall athletic sock business in the full-line sporting goods channel by eating into some of the over-the-calf business.
Overall dollar sales of athletic socks in these channels were up nearly 4 percent in the aggregate for the five-month retail year-to-date period through June, but unit sales declined by more than 4 percent. A big reason for this is a move from single-packs to more two- and three-pair packages, with unit sales increasing 6 percent for the YTD period. Four- to six-pair packages grew more than 6 percent in unit sales for the period, while seven-plus unit packs posted triple-digit growth for the period, albeit off of a much smaller base. The individual unit sales lost were more than offset by these gains.
“The move to multi-unit sock packaging is a clear trend across the market,” says James Hartford, president and CEO of The SportsOneSource Group. “Once the domain of the discount and mass channels and associated with the tube sock crowd, we have seen more retailers and vendors partner up to offer incremental value through a broader selection of sock offerings in this area.”
The trend is made clear by data that show multi-unit packaging sales jumped in the no-show and low-cut categories, while declining in the over-the-calf and crew sock categories.
For the 2008 year-to-date period, the mall specialty channel was the only group to increase dollar sales of athletic socks across the three channels measured for this report. Sales were up in the low-teens as retailers pushed programs with their associates to boost accessory sales with every footwear purchase. The mall stores biggest increase in sales was in over-the-calf product, with all of the growth coming from multi-unit packaging. No-show socks were also up in the strong double-digits at the mall and low-cut socks sales were up in the mid-teens. Both those increases came at the expense of double-digit declines in the quarter-length socks business.
Sales were flat in the full-line sporting goods channel for the year-to-date period as double-digit growth in no-show and low-cut socks, and mid-single-digit gains in crew socks, were offset by double-digit declines in quarter socks and over-the-calf styles. The only packaging type to post significant unit sales growth in the full-line sporting goods channel was the four- to six-pair packaging, with strong double-digit growth for the period. Packaging of seven or more pairs was basically flat during the period, while all other packaging types declined.
The no-show trend looks to be gaining even more momentum as retailers and vendors offer more options to counter the no-sock trend that cut into sales last year. A cooler early Spring period may have helped keep socks on the feet of consumers as purchases of sandals and flip-flops were delayed further into the year.
