The global Activewear Apparel market is anticipated to rise at a considerable rate during the forecast period, between 2020 and 2024. In 2020, the market was growing at a steady rate and with the rising adoption of strategies by key players, the market is expected to rise over the projected horizon. During this special time, we will have both challenges and opportunities, as an activewear manufacturer in USA, how to win big in the industry, here is the answer.
Has COVID-19 changed the way people buy clothes?
It’s safe to say that online business is booming as this is the only way people are able to buy clothes at the moment. And even when shops do begin to re-open, online business will probably still be favoured over visiting physical stores. People will be wary of putting themselves in a potentially very crowded situation for a long time.
In order to survive in any market, businesses need to adapt and right now it’s more important than ever. If your business is not currently online, then get yourself online! If you currently have an online presence then see how you can make things as easy and as safe as possible for your customers. Re-evaluate your delivery methods and time periods, inform your customers of the safety measures you’re taking, extend your refund periods, offer free delivery or another type of promotion.
In detail, let’s check some experience of famous activewear manufacturer Berunwear Sportswear: how can Berunwear survive During Covid-19 and even grow again their business?
Interview with American-Made Berunwear Sportswear Company
When Covid-19 hit and businesses closed and many lost their jobs, the sportswear industry took a big hit financially. Cindy, the owner and CEO of Berunwear, made a very conscious and active decision to be different from the others. She would keep paying her employees and find ways to keep the internal business going as best and as safely as she could while everyone awaited, and still awaits, any kind of normal reopening and even if external sales might go to nothing.
Q: We know that the Coronavirus caused a huge financial blow to many. Especially affecting consumers and how they are buying during these times. Can you tell us more about those affects in the sportswear vertical?
Cindy: Oh yes, the virus affected every sportswear brand at every level, big or small, well-known or not, US-based or globally. While we know many of our customers have been living in their yoga pants since day one, they simply stopped buying new ones. Everyone seemed to stop spending on clothing and that’s still continuing at present. We were doing the same. Our team is comprised of women-only and we all love shopping but, every single one of us stopped buying new clothes ourselves. We believe its temporary but expected. It wasn’t a shock to see our sales go down drastically as we expected it.
Q: So, how is your business sustainable during these current times?
Cindy: Having a strong team is key to any company’s success, especially during this time. And our responsive reaction to Covid-19 is just another example of this. Since the virus hit America, we have been pivoting and changing our business strategy to weather the storm. We have several virtual meetings per day, seven days a week, to discuss how and what we should do to keep the business going and pivot as needed. We also decided to reduce pricing to wholesale because we wanted to make things manageable price-wise as best we could.
Q: What was your pivoting strategy?
Cindy: We have been good at always addressing our core and looking at what people have found helpful from our business. We have survived because we go beyond a focus on sales and have always looked to offering information of interest and importance around health and wellness for women. Not only will you see our Blog posts with truly current news, but also with up-to-date ideas for health and exercise routines that people want now and use now and actually find useful.
One of the things we noticed early on during the Covid-19 stay-at-home requirements is that so many were turning to virtual live or YouTube exercise routines to help stay in shape. Even for us, we noticed a problem and that was finding fun, interesting or specific sport-related online at-home training options, especially if you had no equipment. With our team alone, we have competitive runners, avid gym-goers, yoga fanatics, a world champion fencer, and a new mom complaining about her post pregnancy body. So, we created a clever all-in-one-place calendar where anyone with any ability or interest could more easily see and find a variety of exercise routines, including basic core or upper and lower body exercise sessions, Tai-Chi, mindful Meditation focused ones, fun and funky dance routines, HIIT routines. And our calendar setup is much easier to scan through than individual searches on YouTube or trying to find who or when a next Live event was taking place in your own time zone. We also focused on finding full routines of various lengths and only free ones too. It’s been tremendously useful and used and shared by many. For us, it’s helped with substantial growth in our Brand Awareness.
Finding and giving information that is useful and we need too has helped other women around our brand to participate with our brand. We love it when we are all engaged!
Q: Was it just focusing on looking what people needed for new information or is there anything else you are doing now too?
Cindy: The other aspect that has brought us the most in actual sales during this time is that so many more people located in the United States are wanting to now buy from USA suppliers and manufacturers. It seems to be a trust issue along with knowing that their product doesn’t have to travel far or through a lot of different hands.
We have always been hugely supportive of USA-made and kept our focus that way because of overall quality, control and higher standards but it’s been more apparent to us that others appreciate that support from us too and now, more than ever. This has served as a strong reminder as to why we don’t want to move things to a farther or cheaper place for our manufacturing.
Q: Good to know. Are there any other things going on at Berunwear that you can share with us now?
Cindy: Well, a couple of things. We are continuing to expand our line of athletic wear with the inclusion of our patented phone pocket designed into not only our sportswear bras and tank tops but in our leggings and yoga pants and also preparing to come out with a fitted athletic jacket that will have our EMF protective phone pockets too. And, to go with your sportswear, we are about to release matching neck gaiters and buffs to help with any State-wide mask requirements we might have for a while. Those are all coming soon!
Q: Thank you for your time today in answering how you are surviving the times. Where can we get more information about Berunwear?
Cindy: Of course on our website at https://www.berunwear.com/. You can contact us from there or off our social media sites too. We love to hear from our customers and happy to help you find or fit into what you need. We’ll answer any questions you have.
Most Important Enlightenment: Qualities to consider
Squat-proof
If you want squat-proof leggings, then we would suggest going for a fabric that is about 260gsm+. GSM stands for grams per square metre and is essentially how much 1 square metre of fabric weighs. The higher the GSM, the denser the fabric.
Stretch
Stretch is also particularly important, requiring a high percentage of spandex, lycra or elastane. To test the stretch of a piece of fabric, mark out 10cm then measure how far you can stretch it. For instance, if the fabric stretches to 15cm then it has 50% stretch in that direction.
So what about new brands?
On the surface, it might not seem like the most ideal time to launch a new brand, but it could actually work in your favour. During this time, more and more people have become aware of supporting smaller businesses and shopping locally. So, as a start-up, you might find more people gravitating towards your brand.
Consumers’ mindsets have also changed due to the dramatic change in their lifestyles. People’s lives have been stripped back; living less, having less accessible to them and appreciating the small things. This then influences and extends to their buying habits, reinforcing the concept of buying less and buying better. So, it’s really important to make sure your brand resonates with the current consumers mindset in order to make an impact and build brand awareness.
If you just get your new sportswear brand started this year, and you are also new to the industry, we are glad to help you open the door of sportswear wholesale business in the worldwide, we have now created a small run business support program, feel free to contact us and let’s grow and develop together!