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Swiss Market 2022 Annual Roundup: Christmas The Only Constant, Region Struggling With Strength of CHF
To bake up a batch of Christmas frownies, the economic situation is highly unstable, consumption is decreasing and the catastrophic weather forecast isn’t promising anything good before plunging into the uncertainty of 2023.
By Fabien Grisel
As I’ve said before, years may follow each other but they are not the same. The fact that snow is rare or almost non-existent at Christmas seems to be the only constant year after year while the rest seems to change all the time, the cards are redealt each year and each season, what was true yesterday is no longer true today and although this may present opportunities for some, it tends to take its toll on most players in the boardsport market.
This autumn was really mixed, deliveries and supplies were sometimes good, sometimes catastrophic, other times surprising. Supplies of certain boots were troublesome with some brands unable to deliver to shops, thereby benefitting others. At other times, some retailers lacked bindings even though the gear seemed to be available (online for example) and they were given some dubious explanations as to why they were short or even cancelled. To top it all off, the supply chain is now under so much pressure that the deadlines for the next year’s orders (and no longer just for softgoods) are getting earlier and earlier, sometimes even before the season’s equipment has been put on the shelves. This puts some shops, and some distributors, in a difficult situation.
Consumption and attendance were generally down at the beginning of this winter and with purchasing power decreasing (and yes, even in Switzerland), the figures from this autumn were not very good. The outdoor sports rush we saw during the Covid period seems to be long gone. Nowadays people are well equipped and are either saving up or using their money to go out and bask in the sun. As a result, we are seeing a clear decrease in demand for splitboards. This time there is stock… and plenty of it. Retailers may have even gone a bit overboard when placing their pre-orders. As a result, stocks are well above what they should be this Christmas.
When it comes to foreign competition, it’s still fierce in Switzerland and, as explained many times, the strength of our currency poses seriously problematic price differences on the same products available in the Euro zone. As a result, Swiss retailers have had to react by lowering prices right from the start, and quite drastically, very often displaying -20% discounts as soon as they get the equipment; something that was extremely rare a few years ago is starting to become commonplace nowadays. Margins are therefore becoming increasingly tight for our shops, who find themselves in a rather precarious situation. The situation is even more difficult knowing that the warm weather at the end of December has forced some mid-altitude resorts to postpone their opening days while others were forced to close having only opened a few weeks earlier; they will not be able to accommodate winter sports enthusiasts during the Christmas-New Year period – an obvious disaster for tourism and all the businesses that depend on it. Let’s hope that January will be colder and whiter but for the moment, snowboarders will just have to wait.
