In earlier coverage on health and fitness business ideas selling exercise, gear came up as a great business idea. With people, in general, becoming more health-conscious over the last few decades, coupled with the gradual ageing process of most of the people you know exercise has become more important. I’m all for the “just do it” kind of thinking but I would just like to remind you that the company that ran with that slogan made billions of dollars selling exercise and sports gear to people. Gear is important, the right gear is priceless.
Exercise gear
Exercise gear covers a wide array of things and you really have your pick of products and product lines. This includes shoes, socks, underwear, sports bras, tights, belts, skins, thermals, limb supports and so much more. We will just use shoes t make the case for exercise gear here. If you know any runners one piece of advice they will give you is to get running shoes. Shoes specifically designed for running. This is because the shoes are designed with the challenges that runners go through in mind. For every piece of gear I mentioned and those, I could not include this as the case. A sports bra is obviously designed very differently from a fashion bra and this is the reason why people will readily place a higher value on exercise gear.
Function not fashion
The exercise gear industry is of course very fashion conscious. Looking good is certainly a very important thing to many who look for exercise gear. Just remember that function is more important than fashion if you ever have to choose between the two. In many cases, you won’t have to choose between the two but you may be faced with the choice. You will see later when we discuss the market that you have people who are serious about their gear. You can look at this as a niche of sorts and they place a value on the function of the gear.
Suppliers
Let’s be real, the source of the majority of any type of gear is our all-weather friend China. Chinese manufacturers are churning out billions of units of gear every year. And in case you’ve been living under a rock, the notion of Chinese products being cheap quality is long dead. We are now fully aware of the reality; if you want cheap China has it just as they have quality. Given the market we are targeting here you want quality. So while hopping onto Chinese eCommerce sites your first instinct is to view products from lowest price to highest price you might want to pay more attention to the suitability of the product for its purpose. We have a list of some eCommerce websites you can look at for supplies.
Market
Your market will include people who have decided to take a greater interest in their health and fitness. They want to exercise and they want to do it with the right gear. So you will need to turn your A-game on when it comes to selling. These are the type of people who buy product specifications over product. They are more likely than not to be aware of the problems that can occur with using inappropriate gear and some may have experience with the effects of using inappropriate gear. You want to market the solutions you offer rather than the products you offer. Perhaps the best thing about fitness enthusiasts is they tend to move in groups. Not literally of course. You will often find people who exercise in some sort of communities and that makes your task of finding customers much easier. It will help you a lot if you can speak their language and understand what is important to them.
Onboarding
You can go back and look at this article here about onboarding the customer and how important it is to businesses. This will be one of your best tools when selling exercise gear. I’m sure you’ve experienced the frustration when trying to buy something when faced with a choice between two or more products and when you enquire about the differences you get the clear idea that the person selling these things to you has absolutely no idea. When you are dealing with products and a market where details are really important customer education will help you a long way in securing and growing customer relationships.
This industry is huge and will continue to grow. Do not be quick to assume that all customers want something cheap. You will find that many people in this market are willing to pay for quality whether it’s a waist trainer or running shoes.
