Sports Clothing Retail Shop Business Plan

Gear Wear will reach the road to profitability by exploiting its competitive edge of an incredible selection. Gear Wear offers true one-shop stopping. Gear Wear’s marketing strategy will be multifaceted, one facet for each market segment.

For the hardcore athletes, Gear Wear will market themselves as the most complete source of products. For the newbies Gear Wear will be marketing themselves as the knowledgeable source for all different sports. Newbies are in search information in addition to the gear for their new activities and they are more likely to value a salesperson to help inform them.

5.1 Competitive Edge

Gear Wear’s competitive edge is its unsurpassed selection. It is able to offer the same complete selection as the sport specific stores, but Gear Wear has multi sports all under one roof. This creates a truly one stop shopping option where a customer can stop by and have the most complete selection available.

As the demographics indicate, the target customers participate in more than one sport so the value in being able to go to one store and find a anything you might want or need is of tremendous value. While having a large selection is not an inherent sustainable advantage, for now there are no indicators that would suggest that any other competitors are going to try to enter this same space. The retail space seems to be content in not getting too specialized in any one or groupings of activities.

5.2 Marketing Strategy

The marketing strategy that Gear Wear will employ takes into account the two different market segments. Gear Wear will market itself to the hardcore user group as the complete resource for all the different types of male sports clothing.

Gear Wear will use a combination of magazine/journal advertisements to reach this group. In addition to the advertisements, Gear Wear will also be quite visible at the different competitions that the athletes participate in. They will be sponsoring the events as well as handing out flyers as a way to develop visibility for the hardcore athletes.

The marketing strategy for the newbies will a bit different, in addition to advertising itself as a complete source/selection of clothing, Gear Wear will stress the fact that in addition to the selection it offers unprecedented knowledge/advice from its sales people. This will be attractive to the newbies who are just getting into the different sports and could use knowledge and guidance regarding their new activities. Gear Wear will rely on advertisements in the local outdoor sports journals as a way to reach this target audience.

5.3 Sales Strategy

Gear Wear’s sales strategy will be to supplement its outstanding selection with salespeople who can provide good information about the different features of the clothing and the differentiation between all the products. Having just the clothing out on display will not in itself sell the products, there must be supporting staff that can explain the relative differences between the products as well as discuss the need for purchasing the gear. Most newbies will just assume that they can use their traditional cotton workout clothing and they need to be educated as to why specialized clothing makes all the difference in the world.

The sales staff will be well trained in knowing the technical details of the different fabrics and products as well as proper fitting. This training will occur before the staff reaches the sales floor. It is presumed that having the sales staff properly trained will have a significant effect on making the conversion from a casual shopper into a qualified customer.

5.3.1 Sales Forecast

It is forecasted that the first three months will not have any significant sales activity. The first two months will be used to set the business up to be ready for retail. The third month will have a trickle of sales activity. This is to be expected as the business is just opening its doors and there are not a lot of people that are familiar yet with Gear Wear. Sales are expected to grow slowly during first year. Profitability should occur by month 26 with sales revenue escalating continually through year three.

5.4 Milestones

• Completion of business plan
• Securing retail space
• First month the doors are open
• Profitability
• Explosive sales revenue