The ultimate guide to the American outdoor sports category, this is the right way to sell!
If you have watched an American family comedy called “Modern Family”, you must remember grandfather Jay who often plays golf, mother Claire who jogs every day, uncle Cam who is a football coach, and organize family trampolines at home from time to time, go out for riding, The father Phil climbing and rowing. This drama very truly reflects the popularity of outdoor sports in American families. From the retired grandfather to the children who are still in school, every member of an American family regularly participates in various outdoor activities and outdoor activities. The forms are very diverse.
So how can Chinese sellers find the right entry point and seize the opportunity of this huge market? Today’s category accelerator has refined the key insights from the annual report on the American outdoor sports market, and comes with an annual ultimate guide for outdoor sports categories. This is the right way to sell outdoor sports categories in the United States!
Overview of the U.S. Outdoor Sports Market
The market is large, 49% of Americans participate in outdoor sports, and each person travels 74 times a year on average
According to statistics, 49% of Americans (146 million) participated in outdoor sports in 2017, a slight increase over the previous year. Among them, the average person travels 74 times a year, and 20% of outdoor enthusiasts participate in outdoor sports at least twice a week, which shows the scale and stability of the outdoor sports market in the United States.
The South Atlantic region of the United States, including the major southern states located in the eastern coastal region and West Virginia, has the highest number of outdoor sports participants, reaching 19%. Due to the varying degrees of participation of each state, sellers need to prepare for the online stocking in accordance with the local and seasonal conditions.
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Geographical Distribution Map of Outdoor Participants in the U.S.
The market will maintain its growth momentum in the future and is inseparable from online retail growth
According to the analysis of the “U.S. Outdoor Entertainment Product Market: Scale, Dynamics and Forecast (2018–2022) Report”, the U.S. outdoor leisure products market will continue to grow in the next few years, mainly due to the growth of online retail business and the number of outdoor participants Increasingly, the industry has accelerated mergers and acquisitions and other reasons. So sellers, master the category strategy, maybe the next dark horse is you!
U.S. Amazon Outdoor Sports Category Raiders
There are many types of outdoor sports, and the product categories are diverse, some of which are highly seasonal. Therefore, how to prepare suitable outdoor sports products in the right season has become a big problem for sellers. But don’t worry, today, we have compiled the introduction of common outdoor categories in the United States, the peak seasons of each category, and what festivals it is suitable for as gifts, to give outdoor sellers some inspiration.
Common outdoor sports categories
Sports category
Outdoor category
In addition to the common categories listed above, we also list some popular categories for your reference.
1
Hot items (will vary with time):
Smart bracelet, outdoor sports water cup, outdoor sportswear, sports socks, fitness accessories such as fitness bands, yoga mats
2
Products with greater consumer demand (will vary over time):
Yoga mat, swimming goggles, skateboard, golf, treadmill, fitness resistance band, ski goggles, sleeping bag, pull-up rack
Peak sales season for various outdoor sports categories
Because outdoor sports products often have a strong seasonality, consumer needs will vary with the time period of the society. Understanding the respective peak seasons of these products has become the top priority in determining product sales. Therefore, we have specially made a calendar about the peak season of each outdoor sports category to help sellers not miss the best sales season of each outdoor sports product.
Sellers can formulate their own promotional activities based on the peak season of each category, important promotional nodes on the Amazon platform, and outdoor sports nodes in the United States (marathon, national yoga month, etc.). For example, some products such as hunting, golf, fishing, fitness and leisure games are very suitable as gifts for the fourth quarter and Father’s Day in June. Fitness and leisure game products are also suitable as gifts for the back to school season in July and August.
Peak season calendar of various outdoor sports categories
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Dry Goods Strategy
Faced with so many dazzling outdoor sports categories and complex interlaced seasonality, do you often worry about stocking and sales? Are you often troubled by the large size of outdoor sports products leading to distribution and after-sales problems? Are you still worrying about the lack of outstanding product selling points? As long as you find the right method, all the pain points will be wiped out!
If you want to solve the problem of large product volume, you can start with stocking, distribution, packaging and after-sales:
Combine overseas warehouses with FBA to centralize stocking and reduce transportation costs: part of the stocks are stocked in FBA to determine the ranking flow of products, and you can also participate in Amazon promotional activities. Another part of the stock is in overseas warehouses to ensure that FBA can be replenished in time, so that some after-sales problems can also be dealt with in a timely manner.
Join SFP (Seller Fulfilled Prime): After meeting the performance requirements during the trial period, sellers can choose to join the plan and publish their products as eligible for Prime. For more information about “SFP”, you can search for “SFP” in the seller’s platform.
Improve the product structure and ingeniously reduce the transportation volume: For outdoor products that are large in size and inconvenient for packaging and transportation, the product structure can be improved, which is convenient to carry and can reduce the volume of transportation.
Improve after-sales service. For parts with high frequency of damage, it is necessary for customers to replenish goods in time and replace spare parts.
For products that need to be assembled, the products can be reasonably split into small parts to reduce the volume of shipping packaging. At the same time, an assembly video is added to the product page to facilitate customers to DIY after receiving it.
Make preparations for launch as early as possible. For example, for products in the peak season in May, sales will start in April at the latest, and for seaborne products, they will be shipped in February.
Do a good job in optimizing drainage during peak seasons, such as using the holiday port of Prime Day, optimizing drainage tools in the site, and maximizing product exposure
Off-season promotion: Since the peak season for most outdoor products is from May to August, in the remaining seasons, you can choose to sell some off-season products, such as winter sports products
If you want to increase product sales, you may wish to refer to these breakthrough points:
Diversified functions. For example, outdoor clothing can be added with functions such as self-heating or collecting user exercise data to make it suitable for multiple scenes; or the water cup can be added with indoor and outdoor multi-purpose functions, which can not only keep warm but also keep ice in a short time.
Combine products with intelligence. For example, combined with the Alexa voice assistant, which is convenient for users to operate, or the combination of treadmill and VR technology, allows customers to have a richer sensory experience when running, and so on.
Improve product portability. For example, after the structure of the outdoor grill is improved, the original bulky products can be easily carried around, which is naturally favored by customers.
Have irreplaceable patents and become the exclusive provider of products.
In addition, there is a small secret, that is, reading product reviews of similar products and finding customer pain points as a breakthrough to improve your own products is also one of the very efficient methods!
Brand “Appearance Responsibility”-the design of the logo is a very important part. The brand culture is cleverly embedded in the brand logo, so that customers can remember your brand and easily remember the brand value you want to convey from the logo icon.
