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Analysis of the status and development prospects of the sports goods market in Ukraine. Vision of Retail & Development Advisor Director Taisiya Litovchenko

A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE TREND, CHANGE OF CONSUMER PREFERENCES TO THE FUNCTIONAL AND COMFORTABLE CLOTHES FAVORS THE GROWTH GOODS FOR SPORTS RETAIL. ALL THIS MAKES SUCH COMPANIES MANDATORY AND DESIRED TENANT OF SHOPPING CENTERS IN UKRAINE.
 
SPORTS IN TREND
 
Health monitoring is not only good, but also fashionable, and this trend has captured almost the whole world. This creates additional demand for goods and services related to sports and outdoor activities. This trend has an impact on retail real estate. Debenhams, a British department store chain, and Kohl's, an American supermarket chain, are opening fitness centers in their facilities. Similar steps are being taken to attract additional audience and meet the increased demand for sports services. Some Ukrainian shopping centers also open fitness rooms and sports clubs at their sites. Although the effect of the placement of such tenants is called doubtful by some experts. But the answer is unequivocal regarding sporting goods stores: such retail operators should be represented in shopping centers / shopping centers. “And the larger the area of ​​the shopping center, the more this category is to be represented in it and the more important it is for the object. For a large shopping center, it is very important to have the widest range of products and large anchors that attract consumers”, - says Maxim Gavryushin, Operations Director of the Budhouse group of companies, whose portfolio includes shopping centers in Lviv, Cherkassy, ​​Kherson.
 
Lessors' increased interest in sports goods retailers is due not only to people's desire to take care of their health and have an active lifestyle, but also to other trends. Tatyana Markovskaya, deputy director of the retail real estate department, Colliers International (Ukraine), notes, that the buyers of sports goods is constantly growing and is not limited to professional athletes. “For many of us, sporting goods have become part of the everyday and even office style,” says the expert. This trend is also confirmed by Irina Kruppa, General Director of IFC Gulliver (Kiev): “Sport casual style is now at the peak of growth. Sportswear and shoes are used today not only for healthy and free pastime - walking, going out for picnics, but also for the office version of clothes”. Such changes in consumer preferences contribute to an additional increase in the turnover of sporting goods retailers, as confirmed by Arricano Real Estate, which owns and operates a shopping mall in Kiev, Zaporizhia, and Krivoy Rog. “Such tenants show a steady increase in sales per square meter, which is an indicator of the audience’s interest in these products and a consequence of changes in consumer preferences,” says Anna Chubotina, director of the department of retail space, Arricano Real Estate. “Therefore, this category of retailers is interesting to shopping centers.”
 
It is interesting that some players in the retail real estate market equate operators of the sports goods segment with anchor tenants of shopping centers / shopping centers. For example, DCH Infrastructure & Real Estate notes that the share of visitors to sports shops in the overall traffic structure of three shopping centers in Kiev, Kharkov and the Dnieper is about 5%. “Therefore, we can confidently say that such tenants are anchors for any modern shopping center,” says Galina Cholovskaya, head of the rental department, DCH Infrastructure & Real Estate.
 
 
THE CHOISE
 
The structure of the market of goods for sports in Ukraine is diverse and saturated. According to CBRE Ukraine, mono-brand operators prevail on it - they occupy about 55% of the segment, while the share of multi-brand stores is about 45%. So, monobrand networks such as Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Under Armor, Reebok, Puma and others are represented on the market. Multi-brand networks - Sportmaster, Intersport, Megasport, Marathon, Delta Sport and others. “Today in Ukraine the majority of popular international monobrands are represented, as well as several multi-brand stores that are actively developing not only in Kiev, but also in the regions of the country. At the same time, foreign networks Adidas, Nike, Puma and Delta Sport have been operating in our market for over 20 years, ”said Radomir Turcan, managing partner of CBRE Ukraine.
 
The largest retail operators of the Ukrainian sporting goods market in terms of the number of outlets are Sportmaster-Ukraine and Adidas-Ukraine. Both of them are subdivisions of foreign companies. It should be noted that Sportmaster-Ukraine, the market leader with 83 single and multi-brand stores Sportmaster, Sportlandia, Columbia and Weekender, intends to open eight more outlets in our country in the next two years. Other major foreign players include the Serbian operator Delta Sport (a division in Ukraine is called Delta Sport Ukraine), the German Puma (Puma Ukraine) and the Chinese Peak (Peak Sport Ukraine).

“At the same time, a significant part of the market is represented by Ukrainian companies, which, however, develop either multi-brand store chains or single-brand franchise points,” says Taisiya Litovchenko, Director of Retail & Development Advisor (RDA). - For example, Megasport and Marathon retail chains sell sportswear of international brands such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Jack Wolfskin, Columbia, New Balance, Asics and others. The monobrand network New Balance in Ukraine is being developed by the official distributor - the company STL Group, and the stores of another well-known American manufacturer Under Armor have been brought to the Ukrainian market by one of the largest local fashion retailers - MD Fashion. ”
 
In terms of origin, foreign brands dominate the market. “The Ukrainian sporting goods market has certain specifics,” says Irina Kruppa. - So, we practically do not have our own production, since the profit of enterprises in this segment remains small. In addition, there is a high level of competition from foreign manufacturers. Therefore, demand is satisfied mainly due to imported products. ”
 
 
 
Link to the source: https://commercialproperty.ua/analitics/sport-novyy-fashion/