“Dont tell a Texan that there isnt enough snow to hit the mountain in their state, last year Texans outspent forty-six other states on snow sports equipment, apparel and accessories with more than $106 million in retail sales,” said Kelly Davis, research manager for SnowSports Industries America (SIA), the not-for-profit industry trade group that represents manufacturers and distributors of snow sports products. California, Colorado, New York and New Jersey rounded out the top five states in total snow sports retail receipts for the 2006/07 season.
States like Texas and Florida with large populations tend to have higher total retail sales of snow sports goods, but states with more mountains and more snow sell more goods per person. This year, Vermont topped the total spending per capita list with more than $76.00 spent per person on all snow sports retail goods. Colorado was second on the list at $53.00 per person, and Idaho, Utah and New Hampshire rounded out the top five states in the rankings. Meanwhile, Floridians spent just $2.09 per person on snow sports goods and were 45th in the sales per capita rankings despite being ranked 19th in total retail sales. Hawaii, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi rounded out the bottom five in the rankings for sales per person. Those states per capita sales rankings remained the same when analyzed for alpine and snowboard equipment, accessories and apparel categories, but not for Nordic Equipment.
Minnesota moved into the number one position in total sales by state for Nordic equipment and into the number three position in the rankings when we analyzed the sales per capita data. Again, the states with very little snowfall including Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, Alabama and Mississippi make up the bottom five states when ranking by sales per capita in Nordic equipment. In fact, sales per capita were non-existent in the Nordic sales categories in the bottom ten ranking states.
Regionally, the Pacific States, led by California, had the highest dollar totals in retail sales of snow sports goods totaling over $514 million during the 2006/07 USA Winter sports season. The Mountain region followed closely with about half a billion dollars in retail receipts. New England lagged behind this season as the snow was a late arrival on the slopes and total sales for the season were down about 20 percent. Nationally, the snow sports market was fairly neutral with a gain of about 1.8 percent driven hardest by apparel sales as the Mountain and Pacific regions made up for New Englands losses.
