At an estimate of 535.500 customers in Britain alone, everybody purchasing at least one t-shirt at a price of £17.00, the value of this market is around £9.1 million. To this can also be added Internet sales around the world, which would increase this figure quite drastically.
As shown both above and below, the growth potential in this market is rather large. More and more people are now interested in skiing and snowboarding than before. An example from Nigel Lloyds article in Sunday Observer where he states that the French ski schools now recognizes the qualifications of British instructors, which means that more British instructors can now work in the French Alps, giving people a better chance to try skiing and snowboarding.
To make sense of the trends in skiing and snowboarding at the moment we have to look back at what has happened over the last ten to fifteen years. Skiing ten years ago was really stagnant, and basically not very cool - designs for skis and clothes were being refined, but there were no real breakthroughs made. It was still a sport mainly for the well off, so most skis were designed accordingly - traditionally and conservatively.
With the invention of the snowboard a whole new market opened up. Young people who had learnt to ski with their parents but were totally bored with it suddenly had a new interest in the snow, and a new way of getting down the mountain. People who found skiing difficult found they could learn to snowboard in a few days rather than weeks.
Snowboarding brought youth and all that comes with it into the ski industry. Suddenly there were trends again so the industry found itself with an entire market to cater for practically overnight. The snowboard industry was born. It brought a new style to snow sports, which was highly influenced by looks and attitude and whether something was “cool” or not. The design and style came from where the kids were coming from - rock bands and skate parks and comics.
Clothing and board manufacturers were and still are pouring money into design again because the market is so acutely sensitive to it. The three interlinked markets of skating, surfing and snowboarding influenced each other and ideas and trends sprung out from this new community.
Initially most traditional ski-orientated manufacturers simply ignored it this new trend, mainly because they saw snowboarding as a fad that wouldn’t last too long. However, consistent growth of the industry and the rejection of skiing as being boring and old-fashioned meant that the manufacturers were caught entirely off balance.
The success of the snowboard industry meant that the ski manufacturers had to go back and try and find a way to make skiing fun again. An example of what they came up with was the “carving” ski, which came out around 1997. These new hourglass shaped skis made learning how to carve a ski through a turn a lot easier. Alongside this they started making skis softer and easier to use. And people started enjoying skiing again.
Many of the traditional ski and ski clothing manufacturers re-branded themselves to cater for this new market, or in some cases started up a new company alongside the old one to cater for both markets. Influenced by the graphics of snowboards and skateboards, ski manufacturers have finally started looking at their skis as canvases.
Right now, skiing is an exciting sport to be involved in. It is shaking off its conservative history and embracing the spirit and youth and innovative ideas that snowboarding brought with it.
Although both Burton and Salomon is market leaders in their main fields (Burton – snowboarders, Salomon – skiers.) they are not at this moment directly involved in the combined snowboard and ski t-shirt market, which makes it hard to estimate their market shares.
Burton Snowboards have a 45% market share in their field, and sell over 100.000 snowboards each year, plus boots, bindings, apparels and accessories. Salomon sports market is worth around $160 billion a year, and their market shares in the ski market can be divided into areas, such as, Alpine bindings – 33%, Alpine boots – 27%, Skis – 27%, Snowboards – 8%, Outdoor footwear – 7%. This doesn’t mean much in the t-shirt market, but it shows us how big and well known the brands are.
As for Dense Clothing and Fatwear, they are both too small to be measured. They are both new companies in a market that has yet to be discovered and exploited. They are unknown outside their immediate customer base, where they dominate the market mainly because there are not really any competitors.
Burton Snowboards is the world’s first snowboard factory. According to them, they are a company solely dedicated to creating the best snowboarding equipment on the planet. Their passion is snowboarding, made evident by their commitment to involve snowboarders in every step of the product development process.
Headquartered in Burlington, Vermont with international offices in Innsbruck, Austria and Tokyo, Japan, Burton has lead the snowboard industry for 26 years. By supporting the world’s top riders, Burton Snowboards has aided the growth of snowboarding worldwide.
In 1977, Jake Burton founded Burton Snowboards in South Londonderry, Vermont. Through the years, he has played a vital role in transforming snowboarding from a hobby to a world-class sport.
“Our product development process begins, ends and begins again with riders. We never stop innovating. We never stop creating. And we never stop listening to snowboarders.” (Jake Burton, 2002)
In recent years, Burton Snowboards has started independent companies that have their own individual identities and product offerings. As Burton grows, so does its family of companies, enjoying their own success and progress.
Burton has also recently been working on its new website, complete with a new online store. “Now riders can have access to our whole line, including Burton products not available in their area.” For years, riders have been begging for the chance to purchase product online. Now they can buy hundreds of Burton products, including Burton outerwear and clothing, Gravis Footwear, Analog streetwear, directly from
Burton’s strengths lies in the fact that they are without a doubt the most famous snowboard brand in the world. They are market leader in the snowboard community and are constantly introducing new products in to the market. A weakness in this, is that they are solely concerned with snowboarding and have not been following the growing ski trend that begun with the introduction of new skis, enabling the skier to “do” the same things that only snowboarders could do before. However, with the start of their sister companies, indications show that they might start to look in to this new market.
Perhaps the closest competitor to our venture, but also one of the hardest to find data about. Dense Clothing describes themselves as a “clothing label creating designs that are a wee bit different from the other stuff you will find in the shops”. Their designs are inspired by the different activities that the owners are into, such as skating, snowboarding, music and “chillin’”. They are also innovative in the aspect that they will customize their designs to suit the customer’s own specifications.
They are a very young company and have only been trading for a couple of years, but have in the short time been smart about establishing their brand name. They did this by getting together with some young talent on the UK skating and snowboarding scene and providing them with free products.
Their aim is to bring “fresh designs which can represent UK boarding on/off the piste, on the streets, in the clubs”.
Although a young company, with only a few designs and styles, Dense will over the coming seasons expand their team and range, and also try to promote homegrown talent, designs and style.
Dense is as a company a follower. There is nothing new about selling t-shirts on the Internet, but they are innovative regarding their designs and the fact that they have realized the potential in the snowboarding market. Their weakness lies in that they concentrate on thing they like and not in what the consumer wants. They are a little too narrow in the way they operate. Their big strength is the way they have gone about to pushing their products and brand, by using young talented local board riders. That is a very good strategy, which will help them expand in the future.
Salomon has been the leading producer of ski bindings since their launch of the first cable binding system in 1952.
Salomon, who in the late 90’s joined forces with Adidas, belongs to the company’s “Action Freedom Sports” family of brands. Their aim is to provide the consumer with cutting edge products based on unrestricted sensation, quality, style and adventure.
With leading position in winter sports, Salomon plays an important role in expanding the hardwear, footwear and apparel offered within the Adidas-Salomon Group.
Salomon strives to be the global leader in the sporting goods industry with sports brands made for competition and a sporting lifestyle.
They have recently entered the snowboard market, thus further developing their winter sports offer. In order to get a better understanding of this market, Salomon bought Bonfire, who was specialised in snowboard apparel.
Salomon continues to diversify and innovate by offering new type of skis, Freeride and Freestyle, made for the growing new ski market.
Salomon is now what they call a “three-dimensional” structure with an equipment dimension with technical products under the Salomon brand, a soft goods dimension with shoes, apparels and accessories under the Salomon and Bonfire brands, and a cycle components dimension under the Mavic brand (took over the French company in 1994).
Salomon are planning to continue their diversification in the “Freedom Action Sports” territory by buying Cliché, which is a leading skateboarding brand and also a Canadian outdoor specialist, Arc’teryx.
Salomon’s strengths lies primarily with their willingness to diversify, and also the size and resources of their company. They have a solid brand name within the skiing community, which is now also rubbing off on the snowboarding community, due to the quality of their products. Although their clothing is stylish, their t-shirts are more like the kind you print up for your little company with your logo on it to give away to customers and friends. They don’t seem to have realized, as Burton has, the growing market in streatwear connected to skiing.
Started and operated by individuals who has been skating and surfing for years, which means that they have a good idea of what people want. Fatwear is situated in Bari (southern Italy). They enjoy sharing their passion with their buyers and see skaters and surfers more as friends than as customers. Fatwear are now trying to win the same success on-line having the same earnestness and determination. Frozen, which is their sister company, specialises in skiers and snowboarders and is represented only in very few countries of Europe. This is an unknown brand outside of Italy, but with the potential to grow.
The suppliers and printers have been selected specifically for their prime quality items but are also fond of these kinds of sports. The designers and managers themselves are very often actually practicing surfing, skating and snowboarding, so that they perfectly know what is practical, comfortable and hard-to-wear-out clothing.
Fatwear is follower. There is nothing new about them, but still involved in selling t-shirts, however small and local, in the ski and snowboard market in Europe.
Although nothing could be found about future intentions, Fatwear, and their sister company Frozen, could very well decide to expand their operations throughout Europe and the UK.
Task 2
Additional information needed:
- Where to find retail outlets to sell to?
- Where to advertise in order to maximize exposure to the target market?
- What new designs exist on boards and skis?
- Latest fashion in relevant area (t-shirts)?
- How target market shop (on-line, retailers)?
- Customers, who and where are they?
- Customer buying patterns?
- Pricing Policy?
- Interest shown by prospective customers?
Secondary Research
- Research competitors and other producers and distributors of t-shirts, similar to the proposed venture (surf, skateboard, scuba diving etc), websites for information on design, distribution, pricing policies and retailers.
- If unsuccessful, write to them requesting brochures and literature.
- Contact retailers who may provide this information.
- Find retailers in the local and national market to contact about the proposed product. In phonebooks or on the Internet.
- Look through related magazines for ideas and information about designs, advertising pricing and information about the customer.
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Primary Research
- Personal interviews with shopkeepers to find out if there is an interest. At this stage it would be helpful to have a sample of the product to show.
- Surveys, in the form of questionnaires or face to face interviews, for example at a trade show, like the London Ski & Snowboard Show:
- To find out what magazines, radio channels, TV programs and events the potential customers like in order to get an idea where to advertise and promote the product.
- To find out where and how they shop, what buying patterns they have.
- How much they are willing to pay for a product like the proposed one?
- If there is an interest at all.
- What kind of t-shirts they purchase?
- What kind of t-shirts and designs they would like to see?
What we intend to accomplish
Upon completion of the market research, our company will have an understanding of the t-shirt market, and specifically the ski and snowboard related t-shirt market.
The study will benchmark both our company’s market potential, optimum channels of distribution, and competitive positioning in the marketplace.
Step 1
Define our information needs and develop the full range of project parameters, factors and market segmentation. We will on top of this search for secondary data using the following techniques:
- Internet research, e-mailing etc.
- Proprietary databases on company financial information.
- Magazines, newspapers and press research.
This step produces the following answers:
- Market determination including sampling frame (segmentation)
- Definition of variable data and required metrics (indices)
- List sources of information
- Specification of research techniques
- Methodology options
- List of retailers both locally, nationally and internationally
- Recent developments in the related market
- Design ideas
- Information on distribution channels
- Advertising ideas
Step 2
We will conduct pre-tests using telephone interviews with representative samples of our market called respondent blocks. We will find them using mailing lists of skiers and snowboarder obtained on the Internet. This is called ideation. Here we will be testing the questions, range of possible answers, and relevance/appropriateness of questions/response to the survey objectives. This step produces the following answers:
- Final definition of variable data and metrics.
- Preliminary analysis including ideation findings, definitive research plan, and expected results.
- Preparation of control frame and a priori weighting
- List source for respondent base
- Base on how to gather our primary data, and what date we need
Step 3
We will conduct personal interviews with member of the retail industry. Questionnaires are to be drawn up for the customers to answer. The design of these questionnaires and its questions are very important in order to maximise the quantity of data gathered, as well as the quality of the data.
Events and trade shows might have to be visited in order to reach out target effectively. Some or all of the following techniques might have to be used to gather the data we require:
- Personal interviews
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Questionnaire (Appendix I)
- Face-to-face survey
- Sampling
- Telephone interviewing
- Off site fieldwork, mystery shopping, exit surveys etc.
This step hopefully produces the base data we need in order to make decisions regarding our venture.
Step 4
While the quantitative research will produce definitive findings, we may find that, in order to make the most informed decisions, we may want additional information about specific findings or we may want to experiment with various scenarios to prove or disprove that which is indicated in the market survey as it directly applies to our product.
Depending on what we find, there are several methods available to conduct a follow up. These methods range from conducting depth interviews (similar to the ideation process), to assembling focus groups.
Task 3
We expect information gathered to be very reliable. However, we also realise that it will be hard to analyse both the secondary and primary data. Mainly the secondary data because this is a very new market, and a very specialised one with very little relevant data available. A huge amount of data has to be gathered, filtered through, to find and analyse what information is needed for us. Considering human error, we can see that the information we get can easily be misstated. As shown above, competitor information is hard to find for various reasons. One, being that there are very few companies that operate in this market and the ones that do are so small, no information is available on them. For the larger companies, the selling of t-shirts is such a small portion of what they do, no information is available from them. Ultimately what this means is that there is a lot of guessing and estimating, which makes the information unreliable.
As for the primary data collection, we think this is more reliable than the secondary data. Personal interviews and face-to-face surveys are by their nature fairly flexible instruments, giving the respondent a chance to qualify and explain their answers. Also because such a high percentage of communication is visual, gestures and other visual clues will give the interviewer a truer and more reliable picture.
This being a highly specialised market with a clear target group sampling is quite straightforward. The idea to visit a ski or snowboard event or a trade show, such as the London Ski & Snowboard Show, to conduct our surveys and interviews means that pretty much anybody we approach will be in our target group.
As for the questionnaire, we have tried to make the questions as relevant and easy as possible, in order for us to gain the information we need, and also so that they are understood by the respondents. A disadvantage of written questionnaires is the inability to probe responses. We have for that reason allowed frequent space for additional comments, should it be required.
With our target market being young, there is always the chance of them not taking the questionnaire seriously and respond to it as a prank, we will have to take this into consideration when analysing the answers.
In view of analysing the questionnaire, we feel that a structured questionnaire is easy to analyse. They also reduce bias, where there is a uniform question presentation and no middleman bias. The researchers own opinions will not influence the respondent to answer the questions in a certain way.
To conclude: We will rely more on the primary data gathered than the secondary, but only because the lack of, and difficulties in, obtaining it. The secondary data obtained, we feel is reliable, even though our analysis of it might not be.
Of course, there are a lot of opportunities facing our little company, but there are also a lot of threats. Below is some of them:
Opportunities
- New and growing market
- Revived interest in skiing
- Huge potential overseas
- Possible link-up with retailers
- Chance to be local market leader
Threats
- Inexperience
- Distribution difficulties due to distance to markets
- Lack of funds to break in to market
- Competition from strong brand names
