10 Reasons To Sell Fitness Merchandise In Your Club

Last updated on February 3rd, 2023

In the modern age, people ensure that they are physically fit to cope up with the competitive world on a daily basis. Therefore, a majority of them join a gym or club to exercise regularly. While keeping a check on their fitness level, they like to wear or carry versatile fitness merchandise that helps in keeping the motivation level up. Also, fitness clubs play a major role in that. If you own a fitness club, you can achieve its business goals and benefit in many ways if you are selling fitness merchandise. This post will let you know 10 reasons why you should start thinking about selling fitness merchandise as a fitness brand. Have a look!

Most people have taken up tough fitness workouts as part of their daily life. They run for miles, jog around their place, and do a lot of physical training just to keep themselves fit.

Sportspersons are already known for their high fitness level so that they are able to compete hard against their rivals. Considering this enthusiasm for keeping sound health, gyms or fitness clubs have mushroomed in the big and small cities.

These clubs run a business of maintaining people’s good fitness levels. For that, sometimes, the right equipment in a fitness club is not just sufficient to entice customers.

The clubs sell fitness merchandise that helps make the members comfortable while doing their workouts with heavy equipment. The clothing also motivates them to continue their membership with the club.

While you run the club and want to do a roaring business, note that with little efforts you can lure more customers. The demand for fitness merchandise is increasing by each day. This can be gauged from some stats.

According to a survey, the revenue in the fitness segment has gone up to a whopping US$17,937 mn in 2020. This shows that the demand for fitness clothing will continue to rise for many more years and your club business will flourish.

However, before you start selling fitness merchandise in your club, you should be aware of the different aspects of the merchandise. Let’s start from the basics.

What is fitness merch?

Fitness merchandise is the clothes that you wear during workouts. So, T-shirts, hoodies, etc clothing, as well as accessories such as custom hats, fall in the fitness clothing category.

So, all the clothes specially created and designed for comfort during an exercise regime are merchandise to keep fit. Also, a normal T-shirt, for instance, turns into a fitness merch when it has a motivational message or an artwork related to keeping great physical health printed on it.

What types of fitness merch you should sell?

Fitness clothes are no more restricted to conventional cotton pants or shirts. Many types of useful clothes are available now for fitness enthusiasts and professionals such as sportspersons.

Your club should sell all of these clothes to meet the demand. There are already plenty of fitness merch ideas in the shape of the clothing. Your club should be selling most of them.

So, you should sell racerbacks to the hard-core bodybuilders and weightlifters in your club. These clothes are meant for exposing their big muscles for comfort during the workout session.

Sleeveless T-shirts are popular amongst both men and women as these are stylish and comfortable. But, T-shirts are everyone’s favorite merchandise, and your club should have its larger stock in V-neck, crew-cut, and other styles.

Think of having a good stock of custom long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts as well as to keep the athlete warm during winter and to help absorb sweat in a better way.

Sweatpants, sweatshirts, and sports bras are other major types of fitness merch that your club should sell due to their increasing demand for fitness brands.

 

How to create a fitness merch for your club?

Your fitness merch is important to advance the interest of your gym or club in many ways. But a useful, attractive, and unique such merchandise can entice many more customers toward your business.

Here Are Some Basics To Consider When Creating The Merchandise For Your Gym

01. Know Who Is The Ideal Customer

The first thing you must adhere to is that you have an insight into who is your ideal customer. Which set of consumers is likely to search for your merchandise and buy.

But if you run a fitness club, you can perhaps categorize them in terms of age, and educational, social, and economic backgrounds. Considering that, you should order creating the types of branded merchandise they are more likely to buy from your club.

02. Research The Market For Trends

Remember that merchandise that people wear during training in a gym or club should be trendy. This is because modern-day fitness enthusiasts want to enter a gym in style.

Plain and ordinary clothes may be useful but these are not attractive and fashionable. Therefore, sell trendy clothing to your club members.

For that, you should research the fitness industry and market for the latest trends. You can even talk to the young people visiting your club to find out about the emerging clothing trends in this field. Then, consider those tips to create and sell the finest clothes and accessories from your club.

 

03. Know Your Competitors

Since your fitness club is one amongst dozens of other such facilities for people in your locality, they all are your competitors of business.

To make your club stand out, create the clothing for your members that is different from the other clubs. In this way, you can get new branded merchandise ideas that help build your unique brand identity of the club.

Therefore, take a look at the clothes from other clubs and analyze the trend they are following. Then, try to come out with something new and attractive in terms of colors, fonts, icons, messages, etc for your clothing’s.

04. Pay Heed To Colors And Fonts

Colors and fonts are two key elements to create your fitness merchandise. While colors evoke our emotions and feelings, fonts give personality to design or artwork.

Therefore, first determine the emotions of your customers when they hold the custom hoodies, T-shirts, and other such clothing from your club. Often, they are ecstatic as there is a nice artwork printed on the apparel.

The artwork or message encourages them to pursue their goal of achieving optimum health.

Your club has a personality. Mostly, gyms want to project a robust personality as both men and women aspire to look strong.

So, use the fonts that add this element to your artwork on the clothes. You can use a mix of fonts or handwritten lettering for a message of encouragement and slogans.

Why should your club sell fitness merch?

Are you looking for a unique way to give a boost to your fitness club business? Well, consider selling fitness merch. It will benefit your club and its business in many ways.

Selling of the merch is a proven strategy to leverage your customers and enhance their spending on your club.

You should sell a wide variety of merchandise in your club. These include clothes like T-shirts from big brands as well as other products such as protein bars and earbuds.

But clothes are the most sold items from such clubs. So, keep a good collection of fitness clothes in your club for your member customers.

But increasing sales is not the sole reason for selling fitness merch in your club.

Here Are Some Major Reasons To Sell Fitness Merchandise

01. Boost Your Club’s Earnings

A major reason to sell fitness merchandise in your club is to increase its earnings. You need a consistent flow of cash to keep the club running. Also, you will need the funds to expand your business.

All of this requires you to earn handsome additional money from selling fitness merch besides earning from membership fees.

But, instead of buying multiple brands for your club, you should start by selling low-ticket items such as custom T-shirts, powder and protein bars.

Once the business picks up, you can add some more space to the club to start offering sportswear, clothing, and boxing gloves, kettlebells, etc.

With the club selling a wide variety of merchandise, the customer spends more per visit. Even low priced items will boost your revenue significantly.

02. Build A Solid Base Of Loyal Customers

Your club can prosper if its customers trust it for offering merchandise solutions as per their needs. When you sell unique fitness merchandise, it helps in converting your first-time customers into loyal ones.

They will repeatedly come to buy from your club. This also helps in maintaining and strengthening your gym community.

But the customers must view your club as a ‘go-to’ place for all fitness advice. It should also serve them as a point of sale for their gym equipment. In this way, your gym becomes a highly social group where the members can share their thoughts and give advice.

So, you can surely build a strong community of loyal customers as you offer them the merchandise that they want to buy. Your customers thus have an emotional bond with your club.

03. Offer Customers Nutritional Solutions

Nutrition is important for any athlete and it is especially so for people who regularly do strenuous training in a gym. So, as you fill your club with nutritional merchandise you are helping them with the additional nutritional stream.

This keeps them going well with your club for many more months. Then, by selling the nutritional products, you are adding more revenue to what you are already earning through club membership and other fees.

With these products sold from your fitness center, customers start associating it with healthy foods and healthy eating. Note that the healthy eating market is growing at a rapid pace and so your customers will buy it regularly from your club.

 

04. Take Advantage Of The Growing Merchandise Market

The market for fitness merchandise is growing fast. It is now a multi-billion dollar industry, meaning that the chances of your club’s growth are bright.

According to surveys, in North America alone, the sports apparel industry is expected to grow to over 48 billion dollars in 2024 from 27 billion dollars in 2015.

You can take advantage of this fast-growing market by selling sports apparel and other merchandise from your club.

05. Project Your Club As An Expert

Your gym or club has already won the trust of its members. They know your club as a home for high-quality equipment for workouts. When you sell fitness merchandise in your club, it adds to your reputation as an expert in this industry.

They see you as someone who has vast knowledge in the sport and wellness field. You can also be known amongst the fitness influencers who have a say in this industry and business.

So, offer them yoga gear if you run yoga classes. Give them boxing gloves to your customers who come for training in your boxing classes.

In this way, they can maximize their performance. When you sell such specialized merchandise, they start seeing you as an authority on different aspects of their activities in your club.

However, be honest to them and offer the merchandise solutions that you truly believe in that will help in building an enormous amount of credibility to your gym.

06. Compete Well In The Market

All of your competitor gym owners have already accumulated a good stock of fitness merchandise. They have a wide range of custom clothing and accessories. Now, if you do not have these items in your club, the loss is yours.

You will be unable to meet your members’ demand for merchandise and they may migrate to your competitor gyms. So, start selling as many fitness items as you can to the customers to retain them with your club.

07. Be A Dependable Alternative Shop

Your customers wear trendy sports apparel. But did they buy it at your club? If not, then they surely purchased those CrossFit shoes, T-shirts, sweatshirts, and other fitness clothing, branded water bottles, sweatbands, etc. from elsewhere.

Someone who comes to your club in cotton sweatpants and t-shirts will surely buy new gear soon.

For them, your club becomes a dependable alternative fitness merch shop. Instead of buying from elsewhere, they will start buying it from your club. This means that your members will come to the club in the gear you sell.

08. Help Your Gym Become A Brand

A gym becomes more than a gym when it is a brand in its own right. When you create your own fitness merchandise and sell it with your logo design, people will start recognizing your club as a brand.

When your club members roam around in T-shirts with your club’s logo and visuals, many people look at the logo.

Remember that people like to be part of something such as your club and they proudly display its message, logo, etc. identities. So, by selling the merchandise you are helping your club turn into a brand. But it is a steady process that takes time.

 

09. Add Value To Your Service

When selling fitness merchandise in your gym or club, it means you are adding value to your main service of training people to fitness. People basically join the facility to train their bodies to be fit. But, give them some additional value as well.

They will appreciate it, therefore, when your cub becomes a shopping center for gym merchandise. It will not only help increase your revenue but also uphold your credibility as a trainer.

10. Strengthen Your Member Community

With a wide variety of fitness merchandise such as custom tank tops, long sleeve shirts, hoodies and sweatshirts available in your club, you can hope to build a strong community of members in the days to come.

A consistent increase in the number of members is essential for steady growth of your business. With more members joining your club it also results in more referrals from them for your gym.

These are the reasons that should prompt you to sell fitness merchandise in your club. However, creating unique fitness merchandise is equally the most crucial job to attract customers and win their loyalty.

When it comes to creating impressive fitness clothing such as custom sweatshirts, T-shirts, etc., remember that only experienced artists and graphic designers can do the job.

You can easily access their services at Designhill, the leading creative marketplace. Just launch your T-shirt design contest or any other fitness clothing design contest with your brief.

Many designers and artists from across the globe will try hard to win the contest. You will then get winning apparel designs or artworks on them that you can sell in your club.

Wrapping Up

A gym or fitness club is a happening place for people who wish to keep their bodies fit and healthy. But, a fitness club can sell fitness merchandise to make additional earnings, win new customers, and retain the existing members as well as project it as a brand. Selling the merch comes with many other advantages if you can plan the sales well.

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