The overall sporting goods and outdoor retail market has seen continued slowing in the retail fiscal month of July, resulting in fiscal second quarter growth that moderated a great deal after a solid start to the year in the first quarter.
On the surface, Sport Footwear’s positive performance for the year continued into July but the mid-single digit sales growth for the month slowed from the 10% gains seen in May and June, according to retail point-of-sale data compiled by SportScanInfo. Unit growth was up in the low singles, resulting in a small increase in average selling prices.
July is typically one of the leanest months in volume and the smallest week of the year occurred during July, but the month is also seen as an early indicator of back-to-school trends.
The last week of July is the unofficial kick off of back to school. Sales for the last week only grew in the low-single digits.
Virtually all the growth in July came from Toning Footwear. Vibram FiveFingers is the other big story of the year, but the unit volume in the category is not enough to move the market the way Toning has this year.
Toning remains on track to exceed $1 billion for the year, while the Vibram FiveFingers phenomenon at specialty retail may get to $35 million in total for the year.
Toning Footwear was 5.3% of total Sport Footwear sales for July, in line with its contribution year-to-date. While sales of Toning Footwear slowed from earlier dollar sales growth, the category mirrored sales of all athletic shoes. A planned promotion by Skechers appeared to be successful, as it doubled the units sold and liquidated older styles.
The other big headline for the Sport Footwear category in July was the Jordan business, which declined for the fourth straight month, down in the high-single digits.
The styles offered this year simply could not offset the very successful launches from last year. Anecdotally, styles for the third quarter are expected to be much more successful.
Overall the sales for the second quarter remained on track, growing in the high-single digits in dollars and the low singles in units, yielding a mid-single digit increase in average selling prices for the period.
By channel, Family Footwear again led the charge for the quarter with sales improving in the mid teens for the period, but that growth is just a bit weaker than the first quarter when sales in the channel grew nearly 20% through April, but a clear acceleration from the mid to high-single digit gains seen in the third and fourth quarter last year. Mall Specialty and Full Line Sporting Goods both grew in the mid singles for the three-month period ended July 3.
Top sellers for the quarter were: Nike Air Force 1 (2 styles); Skechers Shape- ups (4 styles); Reebok Easy Tones (2 styles); a Nike Free running style; and a Retro Jordan 6.
Men’s Sport Footwear sales improved in the mid-single digits for the fiscal second quarter, while women’s product sales grew in the high teens on energy from Toning Footwear. Kids’ sales declined in the low-single digits on a percentage basis. The kids business is suffering from the lack of any significant Toning Footwear offerings and from having sparse Lightweight Running styles, two key athletic categories for growth in the period. Without the positive effect of Toning Footwear and Lightweight Running, the trends in adults are similar to the trends in kids.
Roughly 75% of the growth in second quarter came from Toning and the balance came from Lightweight Running.
Running remains a very important story, led by the Lightweight Running category which grew more than 3X.
Overall running improved in the mid teens. Performance Running, with 45% of Running Footwear, sales grew about 25% in the quarter, while Fashion Running only grew in the mid singles.
Basketball declined in the low singles in the second quarter. Lifestyle Fashion Athletic again declined in the high teens. Every major brand had significant declines. Classics Footwear dropped about 10%. Only New Balance showed improvement. All other brands declined
Training improved in the high singles and Cleated improved in the mid singles.
The struggles in Skate continued with sales down more than -20%. This hit the family channel particularly hard, as they do the bulk of the Skate business. Of the major brands, only Vans had an increase in Skate.
Sandals retail sales grew in the low teens in the fiscal second quarter.
