The weather, the termination of the stimulus measures introduced in 2021, and inflation create a difficult month, but early Easter, experts hope, will be a way to improve spring trends. According to experts, the winners of the sales season and profit dynamics for the 4th quarter were DKS (DICK’S Sporting Goods), TJX (The TJX Companies) and BURL (Burlington Stores).
TIKR
RL
PRICE
$112,06
TARGET PRICE
$124
UPSIDE
10.7%
The number of sector sales has decreased by -6% since February 15 against the background of interest rate volatility, inflation uncertainty and declining consumer interest. Analysts also note that a decrease in student scholarships, a reduction in EBT and Medicaid may negatively affect sales growth in the sporting goods sector, however, gas prices, which should decrease by more than 30% year-on-year in June, and a potential improvement in the weather may compensate for the decline in traffic growth.
Search query trends in March
Such brands as HOKA +51%, Lululemon +31% and UGG +17% had positive search Google results for 4 weeks of March. The LULU index +31% decreased compared to +63% three months earlier. For 13 weeks, the largest year-on-year growth was shown by HOKA +60%, Lululemon +50% and UGG +31%.
However, there are also negative trends in the number of search queries for shoe brands. On average, for the four weeks of March, such companies include Yeezy (52%), Foot Locker (37%) and Allbirds (35%). Over the past 13 weeks, Yeezy (44%), Foot Locker (28%) and Vans (22%) have seen the largest decline in Google search queries. On average, for 4 weeks for companies that were observed by analysts, Google search data decreased (by 4%) year-on-year. Traffic trends remain weak on major e-commerce platforms and retail chains.
As for the frequency of visits by new users to e-commerce platforms, from January 2023 to February 2023, the largest number of unique visitors was observed in Hanes.com +98%, Fabletics.com +26%, TheNorthFace.com +25%, Skechers.com +20%, Finishline.com +15%, Columbia.com +14%, UnderArmour.com +13%, Fanatics.com +13%, Wearfigs.com +12%, and GOAT.com +12%. The largest year- on- year decrease in the number of new visitors in February 2023 compared to January 2023 was HOKA.com (33%), Topgolf.com (17%), Allbirds.com (15%), kohls.com (14%), Adidas.com (14%), Puma.com (10%), and Ralphlauren.com (9%).