5 Tips to Boost the Profitability of Your Sporting Goods Stores

Your sporting goods store network’s profitability hinges on strategic actions. Emerging challenges from the current health crisis call for innovative solutions. To stay competitive and satisfy a digital-savvy and demanding customer base, you must automate management processes, digitize offerings, and foster strong customer and supplier relationships. These strategies streamline operations and enhance the customer experience.

Boosting your sporting goods store’s profitability involves various strategies. But which should you choose? What investments are necessary? What results can you expect? Here are five actionable tips to enhance your store’s profitability.

Automate Your Inventory Management!

To boost store profitability, professionals are focusing on automating inventory management with a fully connected supply chain:

• Resources are redirected to higher-value activities.
• A shared product reference ensures consistent communication throughout the network.
• Replenishment operations are streamlined network-wide.

• Mobile salespeople equipped with tablets can access the entire network’s inventory, enhancing the customer experience.
• If an item is out of stock, the salesperson can order it from another store or the website, choosing the delivery method to best suit the customer, ensuring satisfaction and loyalty.

• Tracking exchanges accelerates decision-making for commercial operations and stock balancing.
• Detailed data analysis on network activity (turnover, margin, average basket, stock levels, etc.) is available by department, store, and region.
• Prices and products can be adjusted based on sales performance, optimizing revenue. You can identify top-performing products and those that underperform.

Equip and Train Your Sales Team for Customer Retention

Digitalising your sporting goods stores brings new sales techniques with equipped salespeople aimed at attracting and retaining customers. They now have multiple tools to boost in-store profitability.

• With connected tablets, salespeople can effectively inform and advise customers, accessing your entire product range. They actively contribute to increasing the average purchase.
• In sports retail, expert advice is essential for purchases like electric bikes, skis, or trail running shoes. Training your sales teams on the products sold is crucial. Salespeople’s tablets enhance their roles and job satisfaction by providing easy access to product and stock information, a valuable tool for team retention. Responsible for customer satisfaction, they offer concrete answers, enhancing your brand’s positive image.

A Loyal Customer Consumes More Than a Customer Without a Loyalty Card

A well-targeted loyalty program attracts customers with personalized promotions via newsletter or SMS. For hesitant customers, salespeople can finalize the purchase decision and sign them up for the program.

With the customer account, you have a complete purchase history. This allows you to develop commercial operations within your sporting goods store network, showcasing key, new, or innovative products with high margins.

Invest in Solutions to build Good Supplier Relationships

Good supplier negotiations naturally enhance the profitability of your sporting goods store network. You can implement several improvements:

• A digitalised ecosystem to minimize data entry tasks for product catalogs, orders, and receptions.
• Returning unsold goods at the end of the season.
• Highlighting exclusive capsules and collections in-store.
• Implementing joint promotional operations.
• Dedicating a branded space on the sales floor.

Centralized brand management accelerates decision-making, enabling effective negotiations and minimizing risks of loss. This fosters long-term, trustworthy relationships with suppliers.

Approaching brands for partnerships becomes easier with 360 software. You have access to comprehensive customer data, identifying the most successful purchases and brands in your store. These partnerships also boost store traffic. Beyond generating curiosity, partnerships reflect mutual trust between the parties involved. They enhance your brand’s attractiveness, spark customer interest, and ultimately increase the average purchase. Customers perceive your sporting goods store as offering a unique experience and selection compared to competitors.

Develop brand partnerships

Approaching brands for partnerships becomes easier with 360 software. You have access to comprehensive customer data, identifying the most successful purchases and brands in your store. These partnerships also boost store traffic. Beyond generating curiosity, partnerships reflect mutual trust between the parties involved. They enhance your brand’s attractiveness, spark customer interest, and ultimately increase the average purchase. Customers perceive your sporting goods store as offering a unique experience and selection compared to competitors.

By implementing these five expert tips, the conclusion is clear: the profitability of your sporting goods stores should be driven by connected exchanges for greater efficiency. Automated inventory management adds value for your tech-savvy salespeople, who can significantly enhance the in-store experience. Additionally, you develop long-term, trusted supplier relationships. By focusing on these essentials, you ensure an unparalleled customer experience within your store network.