People
today are focused on keeping themselves fit and healthy, while the rest
are keen on making it to the big leagues depending on the sports they
are into. Gone are the days when children play games or are into sports
just to enjoy or just to keep them physically fit. Nowadays, some
parents are urging their children to play a certain sport not only to
distract them from being inactive, no thanks to smart phones, virtual
games and computers, but also prodding them to make it big someday. This
scenario gave an incentive to many sporting goods manufacturers,
importers and retailers to cash in on the huge demand for sport
equipment, sports gadgets used by players during training and games.
However,
an analyst cited that the boom on sporting goods suffered a huge
setback lately. According to reports, a major sporting goods retailer
suffered a major slump due to over saturation. Excess store growth with
growth accelerating over the last couple of years and having low demands
for equipment especially high end brands resulted in overstock
clearance and surplus wholesale merchandise in retail outlets. This
resulted to several branches of these major retailers to close shop,
lest they go bankrupt. Despite this move, these sporting goods outlets
still have excess overstock clearance on hand and at their warehouse
collecting dust. Analysts say these sports retail outlet are simply over
stored and this problem affects not only them but also can hurt the
manufacturers of the products they are carrying at their stores.
Overstock sporting goods
Another
problem that is hounding the sporting goods business today especially
sporting goods retailers is e-commerce. Traditional retailers have to
store inventories anticipating the demand, but when this does not
happen, the result is
overstock sporting goods
lying around. Adding more problems to these outlets is the new channel
wherein people shop today. A simple click on one’s Smartphone allows
them to have access to their favorite brands, sports equipment, gadgets
and the likes. Unlike traditional retailers, this digital platform has
less operational expense (OPEX) and enjoys lesser inventory level.
Manufacturers,
importers and retailers having large quantity of fly fishing closeouts,
overstock sporting goods or closeout hunting gear, often contact
closeout buyers, sports liquidators or wholesale liquidators. They know
that stale dated merchandise is like money sitting in a checking
account, not earning them interest. Also this wholesale merchandise is
just sitting in their warehouse taking up valuable space that could be
put to better use. They realize from experience that they must act
promptly and liquidate their overstock clearance inventory.
Further
hurting this industry is the move by major players and manufacturers.
They are now geared towards improving their direct sales to consumers,
resulting to sudden downturn for sporting equipment in an already soft
demand season. This competitive landscape has indeed made an opportunity
for others but hurt some.
Traditional
retailers of sporting goods, clothes, fitness gear and other sports
equipment are struggling as more children in the country and adults play
sports but opted to buy fashioned-focused athletic apparels.
Hurting
the industry further is the influx of cheaper imported brands. Usually
these brands came from Asian counties like China, India and Bangladesh
where labor is relatively cheaper, and when it hit stores, more
expensive brands are left hanging. Lastly, counterfeits are slowly
making into the market, killing legit brands. So good are the
counterfeits nowadays that it is really hard to detect, which again
results to genuine overstock sporting goods sitting at the warehouses.
Vendors will try and contact various national
closeout buyers and merchandise liquidators to rid themselves of their wholesale merchandise. One of the largest wholesale liquidators is AAA
Closeout Liquidators, a trusted and well known
closeout buyer,
in business since 1979. They specialize in quickly purchasing wholesale
merchandise, overstock clearance and bulk inventory for cash.