Future Playbook Sports Retail: Impulses for a successful transformation

The Future Playbook Sports Retail Whitepaper is exclusively available to members of the ISPO Retail Club. The ISPO Retail Club is part of the Retail Initiative 2025with which ISPO is putting the focus on retail. The aim is to provide orientation, impart knowledge, build networks and open up concrete business opportunities. The initiative is based on four pillars: key account management, knowledge transfer, promotion of young talent and the ISPO Retail Club. With the Retail Club, ISPO aims to provide retailers with a platform not only during the three days of the trade fair from 30 NOV. - 02 DEC, but throughout the year.

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The white paper impressively shows how market structures are shifting: Around half of the entire sports market is still driven by specialist retailers - both brick-and-mortar and digital. The largest sales channel is traditional sports and outdoor specialty stores with a 26.4% market share, closely followed by online platforms such as Amazon with 13.3%. This raises the key question for retailers: why do customers buy here? The answer lies in clear positioning, service quality and experience character.

Five focal points of the playbook:

• Market overview & dataAnalysis of key segments and sales channels.
• 12 core challengesFrom consumer change to skills shortages.
• Trends & developments: Sustainability, direct-to-consumer, AI and omnichannel.
• Impulses & best practices: Inspiration for experience areas, KPI management and new revenue models.
• Digital opportunities: From AI-supported customer service to omnichannel logistics

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The trend radar makes it clear that pure product logic is no longer enough. "Sport is more than just a product. It is a lifestyle, an identity and increasingly also an attitude (sustainability, purpose). Retailers and brands that serve these dimensions create relevance and differentiation." If you want to survive, you have to rethink processes and exploit digital potential.

At the same time, the white paper is encouraging. It shows: The sports industry is undergoing profound change. Global challenges, new consumer habits and technological innovations are changing the rules of the game. Sports retailers and brands are equally challenged to review and develop their strategies and to boldly break new ground.

The Future Playbook Sports Retail thus provides retailers and brands with practical answers to key questions: How can spaces be designed to be experience-oriented, how can efficiency be ensured through digitalization and KPI management, and how can succession, expansion and new revenue models be successfully implemented?

The Future Playbook Sports Retail is available exclusively to members of the Retail Club. Those who become part of the community gain access to knowledge, exchange and impulses and actively shape the sports retail of tomorrow.

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