Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The Emergence of the Major Sporting Goods Stores

By Frank Cabella

In recent years there has been a frenzy of sporting goods stores mergers and acquisitions. This is good news and bad news for the consumer. The goods news is the ability for the larger sporting goods chains to adapt many of the smaller specialty stores qualities.

Today the major sporting goods retailers have learned to use the success of the smaller specialty sporting goods stores in there much larger stores. Dicks Sports Stores and The Sports Authority are the two major players in the sporting goods business that have successfully introduced many of the attributes associated with the specialty store.

Walk into any major sporting goods store and find an extensive array of any given sporting goods interest. There are camping, cycling, golf, and fitness that have given the consumer more freedom of choice instead of the cookie cutter sporting goods store of the past.

But, you might want to evaluate the following when shopping a sporting goods store:

1. What is the mix of specialty products with typical sporting goods?

2. Do they send out ads for special promotions on a weekly basis?

3. When shopping a store, can you easily find what you are looking for?

Sporting goods stores are continuing to change given the consumer is becoming much more educated in the type, brand, and price of the sporting goods product they are looking for. The future success of any sporting goods store will be its ability to change and adapt with the consumer.

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