SIA released its first Retail Audit of the season, showing a strong start at SnowSports stores. For a third season in a row, early season snow drove people into the stores and boosted sales above the previous year. The report shows sales for the August to October period for both specialty and chain stores increasing 11% to $386 million from $350 million last year.
New for the upcoming season, the SIA Retail Audit will now track the Internet channel of distribution. You can now see a new $100M channel of sales for the Internet and Catalog business of winter sports retailers. It is growing more rapidly than the sporting good chains and we predict they will be larger in total sales than the chains within two years. Because this is a new tracked channel there is no historical comparison yet. For the August-October period, snowsport Internet sales totaled a significant $69.5 million.
Specialty store sales increased 12% in both units and dollars and finished the August-October period with $310 million in sales. Apparel sales increased a remarkable 32% and drove sales along with strong integrated ski system and accessory sales. Nearly 51,000 pairs of integrated ski systems were sold this period bringing in $21.7 million at retail. Soft shells continue to be the “hot ticket” item in apparel up 66% in units and 55% in dollars.
For the same period, chain stores sales totaled $76.7 million; a 6% increase over the same period in 2005.
Of the $69.5 million in Internet sales sold so far this season, 56% of the dollars were from apparel, 27% from accessories and 17% from equipment.
