Website Closers® presents a beautiful opportunity with this business in the sports apparel sector. While many new brands have jumped into the industry, this business has the history, knowledge, expertise, and customer base that only longevity in the field delivers.
Over time, they’ve kept their focus on a large market and found a niche sector of triathlon gear, where they’re enjoying the outcome of their tenure.
This trademarked brand is known as a leader in the apparel industry; however, over the years, it has developed a more comprehensive range of accessories that are also highly popular and make excellent upselling cart items online. Accessories include water bottles, race belts, triathlon bags, and compression socks and sleeves. Customers usually come back year after year to get a piece of the new collection, whether shorts, tops, or suits, and the business enjoys a repeat customer rate of 20-30% on its website and 10% on Amazon.
The brand’s collections are designed to go with matching items, shorts and tops with the same design, for example, which encourages customers to buy two pieces instead of one.
Its top-selling SKUs include, but are not limited to, men’s tri-shorts, men’s and women’s tri-suits, and compression recovery systems, which are popular in the wholesale market.
In the US, the main selling items are triathlon shorts, and in Europe, the leading items are triathlon suits. The season starts in March, peaks in July, and tapers off in October.
Triathlon is a summer sport, but the brand has added some winter items, like beanies, to offset this seasonality.
A key selling point for this company is its SBA pre-approval, which allows a buyer to potentially acquire the company for a 10% down payment and amortize the loan balance over the next decade. Given the historically low-interest rates, it’s an appealing consideration, with the benefit of freeing up cash flow for rapid expansion or other business interests.
The logistics are first-rate. Over time the management has systemized this business well, and the owners spend little time running daily operations. They have one prominent manufacturer for apparel and several smaller ones for accessories and the recovery system.
All apparel is made explicitly for the company with its patterns and designs, and everything is sold under their brand name. The company stocks 100% of its inventory and fulfills orders themselves or via FBA through Amazon.
The existing business owners operate as a two-person team and endure a varying workload, which includes:
One owner focuses on:
• AP/AR
• Accounting/Bookkeeping
• Payroll
• Taxes, Licensing, Permits
• Administration
• Production, QC
• Design, Development
• Inventory Management
• Shipping and Receiving
While the other handles:
• Amazon
• PPC
• Inventory Management
• Email Marketing
• Social Media
Besides Amazon PPC, the company does little else marketing-wise, leaving boundless opportunities. One of the most significant is that COVID restrictions have been lifted, and races are again taking place. There were almost two years without these races, and given the fact that Triathlon became a full-fledged Championship Sport just a few years ago, the impact of that goes without saying.
The enormous plus side is that more and more recovery centers are emerging, and the brand has already acquired one in San Diego as a wholesale client.
These centers offer compression recovery systems which they buy from the company for their clients. They are high ticket sales and offer an entirely new vertical and revenue stream for the business.
In addition, growing the product line into different outdoor competition events could prove an astute move. Expanding into trail running, with products like hydration systems and obstacle course racing, where compression running shorts are popular, are just two of the additional rapidly growing markets a new owner can explore.
With the right marketing skills, the opportunities to grow the business are immense. Social media is prominent in the sports apparel industry and shows a lucrative return on strategic ad campaigns. By utilizing Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, the company can showcase itself to millions of potential customers and build a loyal following.
Google ads and affiliate marketing are obvious next steps. After that, the company can quickly begin email marketing to its database of 11,000 subscribers while growing it and keeping existing and potential customers constantly aware of specials, new products, and the brand in general.
Incorporating a blog with keyword research onto their Shopify-built website would help drive organic traffic to the site and put the brand on an even playing field with the competition, if not surpassing it.
With the company already selling to seven different countries, these strategies could be implemented across the board and increase market share dramatically. Many brands in this niche use event sponsorship as a marketing tool, which is ideal because it showcases a brand to their specific target market. There are 4,300 US nationwide sanctioned triathlon events every year, and 4 million people participating in them.
Of course, selling on secondary eCommerce platforms is an option, but simply adding bundle alternatives on Amazon and the DTC Website would likely increase the AOV significantly.
If you’d like to hear more details about this business and the vast amount of scale potential it has, contact Website Closers today.
