Retailing shows upwards trajectory

    Golf Datatech has shared retail audit data exclusively with GOLF RETAILING, which markedly illustrates the upturn in golf retail sales in the UK during the last two months of 2013

    Golf Datatech, the specialist independent research firm, receives sales data from the tills of over 900 retail stores across Europe, and the company has shared some of its latest data with GOLF RETAILING, which includes information collected right up to the end of 2013, and shows a marked rise in UK sales during November and December.

    The first graph, shows ‘Total On and Off course Running market value’ in the UK between January 2010 and the end of December 2013. The UK market value in December 2013 was considerably higher than it was in 2012 and 2010 (and just below the mark from December 2011), valued at just under £30 million (as opposed to £27.5 million in 2012 and £23 million in 2010), while the year’s market value peaked in June at just below the £40 million mark, which virtually matched the same level as July 2011, when £40 million market value was the highest point reached over the past four years.

    Category splits

    The graph from Golf Datatech, right, shows year-on-year sales comparisons between 2012 and 2013, split into four broad product categories. Low points for 2013 came early in the year, when many of the UK’s golf courses were covered in snow, or at best frozen over, hence a January drop of around 22% for ‘Consumables’, which are almost entirely dependent on golf course footfall, and another drop of 20% in Consumables in March.

    While club sales showed a moderate level of recovery as 2013 progressed, they never reached the mark set in 2012, although sales of ‘Trolleys, Shoes and Bags’ edged above the 2012 as a strong Christmas period left the trade with tangible reason for optimism heading into 2014.

    www.golfdatatech.com