Athletic apparel and footwear sales suggest that strong underlying sales have continued beyond Thanksgiving weekend. Most notably, positive sales came in despite facing the headwind of unfavorable comps for the first time since October in the case of apparel and September for footwear. Here are a few key callouts from the week:

  • Athletic specialty retailers continue to outperform both the family and mass/discount channels.
  • ASP increases decelerated considerably on a sequential basis following the holiday weekend for both footwear +1% vs. +8% in the prior week, and apparel which actually turned negative -1% vs. +8% on the week suggesting that in addition to potential mix shifts, promotional activity may in fact be picking up as well.
  • Importantly, athletic specialty retailers bucked the trend of eroding ASPs in apparel maintaining MSD price inflation offset by considerable declines in the discount/mass channel down -6% - positive for margins and DKS, HIBB, FL, and FINL.
  • New England continues to be one of the top performing regions each of the last 4-weeks.
  • Lastly, while the bifurcation in performance versus non-performance has narrowed materially over the past 2-weeks likely due to a pickup in boot sales, performance footwear continues to outperform by a wide margin.

Athletic Still Strong Post Holiday - FW App Ind 1Yr 12 9 10

 

Athletic Still Strong Post Holiday - FW App Ind 2Yr 12 9 10

 

Athletic Still Strong Post Holiday - FW Perf v NonP 12 9 10

 

Athletic Still Strong Post Holiday - FW Table 12 9 10

 

Athletic Still Strong Post Holiday - App Table 12 9 10

Casey Flavin

Director