Last updated on November 26th, 2021
Most people in the modern world are health conscious. They put additional efforts to keep themselves physically and mentally fit to face the daily challenges of life. This has given rise to the necessity of fitness-related clothing for light and tough exercises. As a result, the market has a plethora of fitness merch in several categories. The ever-increasing demand has also prompted artists and designers to start their business of selling the merchandise that has motivating fitness slogans and artwork printed on them. In this article, we’ve shared about the fitness merch and its various types.
Given the modern, comfortable lifestyle, the chances are that people lead a sedentary life. Therefore, to counter it, they start including a fitness regime in their daily routine. Then, there are sportspersons for whom fitness is integral to their professional life.
So, right from teenagers and adults to sports professionals, fitness is the mantra everyone seems to follow seriously.
However, due to strenuous exercises involved in keeping our bodies fit, sometimes the routine becomes boring and mechanized. It is here that fitness merch comes to the rescue.
Brands use various types of merchandise that have exciting and inspirational slogans and quotes printed on them. When someone wears such clothing with motivational words, it energizes them to meet commitment toward the fitness goals of the day.
Due to the inspirational value of fitness merch, its demand amongst people of all ages is increasing fast. According to a survey, the global sports apparel market generated about 181 billion U.S dollars in revenue in 2019, which is expected to skyrocket to 208 billion dollars by 2025. This stat should prompt you as a graphic designer or artist to start selling printed merchandise from your store online.
However, before you start selling your fitness merch, have all of its aspects well covered by getting an insight into how this business works.
What Is Fitness Merch?
Fitness merch is sportswear that is worn by general people and sportsperson alike for physical exercise. So, the clotting is specially designed and created to make robust physical activities such as jogging and weightlifting in a gym convenient.
Regular clothing just would not serve the purpose as their fitting is meant for general activities such as sitting and slow walking only.
But fitness merchandise is not just about sports clothing. It also includes footwear, which is made particularly for sports activities like running, jumping, and playing games. So, sports shoes, helmets, body armor, T-shirts, pants all are included under the fitness merch category.
Some specialized garments such as wet suits for diving and surfing swimsuits for swimming, ski suits for skiing, and leotards for gymnastics activities are particularly sought after as fitness clothing.
Today, fitness clothing has become the new fashion clothing trend. You will find the latest fashion trends followed in creating branded merchandise.
What Are The Different Types Of Fitness Merchandise?
Before starting your fitness merch business, know what different types of merchandise you can use to put your artwork, slogan, or design on them. You can then explore all the gamut of merchandise to reach out to a broader section of the sports clothing buyers.
Here Are The Main Categories Of Fitness Merchandise You Should Target
i. Racerbacks
These are meant for hard-core bodybuilders and weightlifters for the male and female professionals. Mostly recommended by fitness influencers, the clothing design allows the professionals to check their form and muscles in the mirror.
But these clothing are also available for post-workout time and have a stylish look with a fashion statement.
ii. Sleeveless T-Shirts
Sleeveless T-shirts are comfortable but stylish clothing. For women, the clothing comes in short sleeves or spaghetti straps. For men, bro-tank style sleeves are mostly favored.
iii. T-Shirts
T-shirts are the most frequently worn clothing by professionals and others as fitness merch. You will have many t-shirts in your collection to sell due to their huge demand. To print your design on them, you can access a huge range of fitness T-shirts in varieties like crew-cut and v-neck.
iv. Long Sleeve Shirts
Long sleeve shirts are useful for covering your arms while going to the gym or coming from it in the cooler months. But these shirts are also the favorite of many people as they like to train in long sleeves while warming up. These shirts also make for a cool casual outfit.
v. Sweatshorts
Sweatshorts are useful for absorbing your sweat while you workout. This fitness merch as a tough-guy look and are a great alternative to nylon shorts.
vi. Sweatpants
Sweatpants are clothing for boxers and MMA fighters to give them confidence and prepares them mentally to fight. This intimidating fitness merch gives a vital edge to the fighters.
vii. Sweatshirts
Sweatshirts are fashionable fitness clothes that cling to your skin to keep you warm. These shirts are good enough to warm your muscles during warmup.
viii. Sports Bra
Sports bra are essential fitness merch for women to bring them comfort during workouts. Women can have fun wearing these functional and comfortable bras in bright colors and different patterns.
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Why Is It Important To Create Fitness Merchandise?
Fitness merchandise is everywhere these days since people opt for clothing for convenience while exercising in the gym or outside. So, the demand for these apparel is always there in the market. But what exactly could be your reason to have your fitness merch?
Here Are Some Of Them
i. Increase Your Revenue
The very first reason is, of course, to increase your income. With your online store selling the apparel to fitness enthusiasts, your revenue from this business will increase manifold. It will serve as your big source of additional income.
What is more, with PrintShop by Designhill, you don’t have to invest as you can open your online store for free and start selling the merch right away. With a little marketing effort, you can drive potential customers from social media and other platforms to your online store.
If your slogans and artworks are motivational, people will gradually start taking an interest in the fitness merch you offer from an online shop. You can also create and sell your art through the PrintShop platform.
ii. Ensure Customer Loyalty
As an online store owner at PrintShop, your major concern should be to win customer loyalty. That is important to ensure that customers come again to buy various things from your shop.
When customers do repeat buying, typically, it leads to a tremendous increase in revenue. Your fitness merch can be a means of turning your casual customers into loyal ones if they are excited by your artworks on the apparel.
With a little promotional campaign on a different platform, giving them advice on fitness, you can win their hearts and mind. You can, thus, make a gym community of your own for your online shop.
Why Should Fitness Centers Create Their Own Custom Merchandise?
Fitness centers have mushroomed all across the cities, and even smaller towns have them in plenty. With people wanting to keep their bodies fit, it has encouraged even more fitness center owners to drive more customers’ attention. This has given rise to increasing competition amongst these centers.
To beat the competition, fitness centers should come out with their own custom merchandise. Such fitness merch helps the centers to build a unique brand image of their own amid the customers. When that happens, the branded merchandise becomes your way to create a unique identity for your fitness center.
With custom merchandise, you can hope to build a solid base of loyal customers, which is so crucial to keep the center running successfully with profit for years to come.
How To Create Fitness Merch?
Now that you know the importance of fitness merchandise for your online store, your collection of the apparel must be unique. Only outstanding and impressive clothing will drive customers to your shop for more purchasing.
So, Here Is How You Should Create Fitness Merch
01. Research Your Target Market
Before you start creating artworks and designs that you will print on different fitness clothing, have some insight into the customers and market. After all, they will buy clothing for their own use, which means that you need to create designs that they can relate to easily.
Just be sure who the customers are, their age, and other different backgrounds whom your fitness clothing should target. For instance, a design for a kid or a teenager will be different than for the middle-aged or old fitness enthusiast people.
Their specific backgrounds will help you pick the right elements and create merchandise ideas.
02. Know Your Niche Market
Do not think that all the customers will buy your fitness merch randomly. They will first look for clothing that expresses their mood, age, social, and other backgrounds. Therefore, first, know who precisely is your target customer for the designs.
But it is better to consider a product mix. You should think of different types of designs, styles, and fabrics. You can research your region for the sporting profile of people.
Know what your competitive designers are displaying in their online store. Go through the exercise trends that are currently in demand.
For instance, you can find that free weight, gym, yoga, and dance merch is more in demand. Then, create fitness merch slogans, artworks for merchandise more often to generate sales.
You will then create gym bags, yoga pants, socks, etc. with slogans and artworks that speak directly to your customers.
03. Know The Shoppers’ Mindset
You should also keep in mind the mindset of the millennial shoppers. They want to go to a gym in style.
They consider shopping for fitness merch as something exciting and not to be missed. For them, the merchandise is part of their healthy lifestyle. It is an inspiration for many of them.
Therefore, tailor your merch designs accordingly in keeping their lifestyle and aspirations in mind. Create messages that express their different mental stages when they want to join the gym. Your merch design should encourage them to hit an exercise regime.
04. Consider Recent Trends
Getting an insight into your customers’ spending habits and the latest fitness trends is a key to running your print on demand fitness merch business successfully. For instance, plus size activewear has been the trend for the past few years. So, use these wears to put your designs on them for better sales.
There has been an uptrend for cycling shorts as well. Similarly, active swimwear sales are increasing fast, with most sales in active bikinis and swimsuits. Also, you should know that women dominate most of the athleisure market.
Note also that people in 25 to 34 years of age group are more likely to use mobile phones to buy fitness merch. So, design more often for these people.
05. Pick The Right Colors
Color is a vital element to grab people’s attention immediately and also to evoke the desired emotions. So, choose the right color combination that is more vibrant as compared to others.
Consider also the basic colors such as white, black, and grey as most gym-goers like these colors. Moreover, your choice of colors will also largely be different for fitness merch for men and women.
06. Use Fonts Carefully
Most fitness custom merch has slogans, quotes as a way to convey an inspirational message. These text-led apparel designs look great if created with a purpose in mind. They should reflect the customers’ or wearers’ personalities and values.
To make your merchandise stand out in a competitive market, use fonts in your unique way. Even a simple tweaking of the design can bring a considerable change in the look of the fitness T-shirt or other apparel.
07. Use The Best Selling Items
Which are the fitness merch that you should choose to put your designs on them? Surely, you should pick the products that sell more than others.
Some of the clothing will always be in demand. For instance, you can create your own shirt that will always be trending and so keep them in your catalog in great quantities.
Consider cotton as a preferred choice of fabric for fitness shirts and pants as these absorb the sweat. Cotton workout clothes may feel heavy, but most people buy them for the quality of absorbing the sweat.
Avoid putting your design on too many clothes that don’t breathe. So, avoid clothing that is made of plastic or rubber-based materials.
Similarly, when picking the clothing for yoga or pilates, pick the fabric that helps stretching of the body and that wick away sweat as well. So, incorporate your art, slogan, or design work on the apparel made of the right material that is good for stretching.
08. Create With PrintShop
PrintShop from Designhill is your ideal platform to create your unique fitness merch. You can use the site to design the merch and then order it to print the design on your choice of apparel.
There are many branded apparel available with the site. Choose them to print your artwork on the fitness products and sell from the online shop you opened with this platform at an enticing profit.
If you are not well-versed in the design skills, PrintShop can get the job done for you. This platform has a huge pool of excellent designers from around the world.
They will work on your merchandise design that fits your fitness brand theme. Then, upload those designs on the apparel of your choice and sell it from your online store.
These are the different aspects you should consider when creating your fitness merch. Focus on every step you design the merchandise and have patience before your shop starts attracting the buyers. You will also be putting some efforts to promote the shop through social media to drive customers.
Wrapping Up
Fitness merch is popular with not only sports professionals but also with the general public. The merch is not just convenient to wear while exercising but also as a fashion and style statement for people. Using the popularity of sportswear, you can create unique designs and print them on your choice of fitness apparel and sell them from your online store. Make sure that you create the merch carefully after the market research, customers’ backgrounds, and colors and fonts, etc. elements.