#360business: SportsOne going for GCC

Joy Chakravarty 07:45 08/06/2015
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  • Right mix: SportsOne.

    The youngest member of Landmark Group, SportsOne is one hyperactive baby. Launched less than three years ago, the multi-brand sport retail group now has 15 stores across four countries and hopes to have a pan-GCC presence with 25 shops by the end of the year.

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    Charting this course of explosive growth for SportsOne is their business head, Shivam Goyal. Having been a part of the Landmark Group since 2004 (except for a brief spell of two years), the 41-year-old Indian has been primarily responsible for the growth of the company.

    SportsOne opened its 15th store in Mecca last week, and the plan is to have 40-45 stores by the end of 2016. They will add a fifth GCC nation in September with the launch of a new Oasis Centre in the heart of Muscat in Oman. They have also signed up a location in Kuwait and will have a store there by end of the year, or early next year.

    Being part of a massive group like Landmark – which expects to cross $5 billion (Dh18.35bn) in sales this year through their 1,900 stores and multitude of businesses – definitely helps, but Goyal points out that the biggest reason of their success so far is the fact that they have made a conscious effort to understand the market and tailor their offerings accordingly.

    Leaning back into the chair of his main office in the Oasis Centre, Goyal explains: “There are a few things that we have done right. We conducted a very thorough research before we entered this line of business. So, we exactly knew where the vacuums were.

    “Dubai has got no dearth of good retailers, and the same goes for Abu Dhabi now. But one of the biggest mistakes most international or local retailers do is that they do not look beyond these two cities.

    “However, at the Landmark Group, because of our pan-GCC presence, we do look at life beyond the UAE as well. The UAE is very important to us, but we have always thought of ourselves as a GCC-wide group.

    “Saudi Arabia, for instance, becomes very important, because out of the 50 million population of the GCC, almost 30-32 million stay in Saudi. Not many companies have the courage to enter the Saudi market, but Landmark has a long and successful presence there. We operate in more than 40 cities there.

    "So, we created the concept of SportsOne not from UAE’s point of view, but with the GCC in mind.”

    Apart from its geography, SportsOne also concentrated on the demography.

    “Another important fact that came out of that study was that our industry catered mostly to males and almost ignored ladies and kids,” adds Goyal, who moved to the UAE in 1997.

    “We have made sure that if you visit a SportsOne store, we have given equal weightage to women and children. This has helped us big time, because times have changed and it’s no longer a male-centric market.

    “The way things are now, especially with the social media, women are probably more aware of health and fitness issues for themselves and their kids than men. Just to give you an example, our sister company Fitness First now has almost an equal percentage of male and female members.”

    Goyal says SportsOne has benefitted immensely by staying true to Landmark Group’s business ethos of concentrating on the middle income group with their pricing.

    “Another thing that we never lost sight of was the mid-market bracket. It is very easy to be enticed by the top-most rung of the ladder and cater to the premium market.

    “But fact of the matter is that out of the 50 million population of GCC, very easily 40 million would fall in the middle-income group. It is the philosophy of the entire Landmark Group. We never wanted to create a concept that would intimidate the mid-market bracket from entering our store.

    “If you start identifying these factors one by one, you’d think they are very common-sense things, but you’d be surprised how many retailers have gone wrong.

    In stock: Babolat.

    “Another thing we found out, and we have always tried to avoid, is to focus more on the expats. We have guys on the floor who can speak Arabic and make the local people feel at home. We look at ourselves as a bilingual group, and this is fetching us fantastic results, especially in areas beyond the UAE, where Arabic is the more used language.” 

    The detailed study, which was carried out in the first half of 2012, also helped SportsOne get its product mix right in the stores. For instance, Goyal reveals there is a very valid reason why his stores are not overloaded with football products.

    “When we conducted our survey three years ago, we contacted almost 1,100 people across the Gulf asking them for feedback on certain perceptions,” he says. “One question we asked was which was their favourite sport, and almost 80 per cent of the respondents said football, the remaining 20 per cent said cricket.

    “But, when we asked them which sport they played personally, football and cricket were way down in that list. The No 1 sport was swimming. You have pools in your buildings, and you get into it as a family. You go to a resort, and you use the pool there.

    “A lot of retailers have made the mistake of thinking that if football was the most popular sport, it also meant it would have the most sales. That’s where they go wrong in the product mix offered to the customers. Football is big, no doubt, but swimming is the No 1 sport if you go by sales. Football sales are confined mostly to children and youth.”

    Going ahead, there are three very clear trends Goyal sees in the sports retail business, something that SportsOne are keen to inculcate in each of their new stores.

    “I think the biggest trend in our business today is that the consumer is becoming very brand conscious,” he says. “Five-10 years ago, you would have picked any good T-shirt and walked out of the store. Today, if you want to buy a T-shirt, you will look for certain brands. If you want to play tennis, you will not settle for a cheap, fake racquet. You will surely buy either a Wilson or a Babolat or a Prince.

    “The second trend is personalisation. Golfers want their names on the cap and the balls, footballers want it on the jerseys. Tennis players want their initials or names embroidered on their shoes.

    A range of top brands.

    “The more you can think of personalising things for the consumers, the more they like it. Money is not a limiting factor as long as you can make things unique for them.

    “The third one is a timeless trend…services have become even very important. If you play tennis, you want to buy your racquet from a shop where you know you can go back and get it strung again if you have any issues.

    “If you are buying a bike or some gym equipment from our store, we have got a complete delivery and installation team. And this is something we do free of cost.

    “But services do not only mean after-sales services. There are things you can do even before the sale takes place. Like you train your staff to know the products better. We have some 45-50 buying tips in Arabic and English across the shop floor, which makes it easier for a customer to make their choice.”

    Despite their rapid growth, and being members of a group like Landmark, SportsOne has kept a low profile as far as marketing and promotion is concerned, but that is about to change in the near future.

    “We are just three years old, and this brand has to live for 100 years. Micky Jagtiani, the founder of our group, always tells us not to worry about the first 10 years, worry about the other 90,” adds Goyal.

    “So, we are in no hurry. We want to make sure we do everything properly. This is a growth stage for us. The focus, at this point, is to establish ourselves and win the loyalty of our customers,” he added.

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