A boost from early back-to-school sales the last week of the month makes July more remarkable than it otherwise would be as it weathers the doldrums between the ramp up to summer and the back-to-school shopping season. July historically represents approximately 8 percent of annual sales each year as business ramps up to August, which is historically the second largest month of the year for Sport Footwear sales.
Based on retail point-of-sale data compiled by SportScanInfo, sales of Sport Footwear for the fiscal four weeks of July 2013 ended August 3 increased in the low-single-digits in dollars as a mid-single-digit increase in average selling prices more than offset a low-single-digit decline in unit sales.
Men?s Sport Footwear sales improved in the mid-single-digits while women?s and kids? each grew in the low-singles for the period. The kids? results were a slowdown from the low-teens trend seen more recently.
Sales of Sport Footwear on the Internet grew in the high-teens for the four-week month and represented 9 percent of sales in the retailers measured by SportScanInfo. Sport Footwear sales in brick & mortar stores increased in the low-single-digits. The Athletic Specialty/Sporting Goods retail segment posted a low-single-digit increase for the month while the Family Footwear channel had a decline.
From a category perspective, Basketball shoe sales for the four-week period increased in the mid-teens. Running Footwear grew in the mid-single digits in fiscal July, with Performance Running Footwear up nearly 10 percent. Sandals had a small increase for July, the first positive month of the year. After showing some promise early in the year, Casual Athletic footwear (the second largest category) posted a high-single-digit decline for July.
Overall Athletic Footwear was up in the mid-single-digits for the four-week month, while Outdoor Footwear was down in the high-single-digits. The trend has clearly shifted to athletic as color and silhouettes drive trends in apparel as well.
SportScanInfo recently went live with a greatly expanded online reporting platform that added the broadest number of new reporting options since the commencement of weekly reporting nearly 15 years ago. The new options include more channel and regional reporting across all reporting segments — Category Reports, Brand Reports and Product Reports — as well as a new archive retrieval system that enable users to pull data from any period over the last four years, including custom timeframes and channel selections. For more information, go to www.SportScanInfo.com or email to SportScan@SportsOneSource.com.
The SportsOneSource Group has released a new, more comprehensive Monthly Trend Report for SSI Data Footwear subscribers and reporting retail partners. To reserve your copy of the July trend report, please email SportScan@SportsOneSource.com with FOOTWEAR MONTHLY in the subject line.
