How Sports Retailer are being affected this Year

COVID-19 has hit us hard. Coronavirus is an unseen enemy that is not ready to leave us soon. This has affected almost all sports businesses and retailers worldwide. No-one is spared in these situations.

Apart from a huge number of deaths and an increasing number of COVID-19 affected patients, COVID-19 is a nightmare for all the businesses and sports retailers as well. Daily wage workers and the people who can’t work from home are the most affected ones. Many people have lost their jobs and many businesses have collapsed leading to less discretionary income. People are living in a restricted environment leading to disrupt the mental health of many.

There have been some surges in demand during quarantine for sports that can be done during quarantine such as kayaking but a lot of these have gone online and forced retailed to rely more on ecommerce.

Recession on Sports Retail industry

Many sports events were canceled because of the pandemic, resulting in huge revenue loss for the companies as well as countries. The sports retailing industry is equally affected. According to the surveys conducted, here are some of the major impacts that the sports retail industry faced.

·      High sales losses were being experienced by retailers. Only a little amount of retailers were able to operate through online business options. All of the local businesses were completely shut down. By April, the picture darkened and many retailers experienced a sale loss of more than 80%.

·      Many dealers put their employees on short-time work and many dismissed their employees, creating a high level of unemployment in the industry. Most of the retailers were unable to pay their employees. Some did pay their employees but they can only manage to do for up to three months.

·      The majority of the retailers are concerned about the financial obligations to the suppliers and the fixed costs such as rents and salaries. Many of the retailers did not want to take high loans, because if the situation grows worse, they will not be able to pay them back.

·      If the lockdown stays longer, many sports retailers are afraid that they have to shut their businesses. Only one-fifth of sports retailers think that they can bear the situation for a year or longer.

As long as the pandemic is here, sports retailers are in trouble because of the minimization of many sports events on national as well as local level. People are confined to their homes, and that’s a major blow to the sports retail industry. Some of the major sports events on which retailers, as well as local people, had their eyes on include Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Belgian Cup Final, African Nations Championship 2020, Copa America 2020, Euro 2020 Tournament, Women’s Football League, World Athletics Competition, Diamond League, Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix, and British Grand Prix. Most of these events have been postponed to 2021 and some even got canceled due to which major chaos has been generated in the Sports Retailing industry.

Future

Sports retailers have been working for years for preparations of these sporting events. Since the events have been cancelled for the current year, the industry is facing a major blow, from footballs to kayaks if you were not already in ecommerce stores are popping up such as online Kayakshops and the like..