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French Boardsports Market Insight February 2021

On October 28, 2020, France entered into a second phase of lockdown (confinement) to combat the second wave of the COVID19 epidemic. In terms of returning to life as it was before, i.e. walking down the street, going shopping and celebrating Christmas with family, the lockdown easing strategy in France comprised of three stages.
By Benoit Brecq

The first stage began on November 28, 2020 with the opening of all shops and therefore retailers, albeit with strict sanitary protocols. The Christmas holidays marked the second stage. From December 15, French people were allowed to move around freely and if the situation improved, there would be no need for a travel certificate during the holidays. For winter sports resorts, this was tainted by the fact that the ski lifts remained closed for the holidays and would have to wait for a third stage before (maybe) opening. The third stage was supposed to start on January 20, 2021, with the chokehold on predisposed spaces to be loosened. This is related to places where mask wearing is not possible like restaurants, bars and sports halls.

On November 24, 2020, Emmanuel Macron announced this gradual easing or ‘deconfinement’ plan but the President also clearly stated that new infection rates had to drop to around 5000, an objective which was far from achieved. This situation gave the government a real problem when it came to the second stage of ‘deconfinement’. The available options were to delay the reopening of cultural activities or to impose an earlier curfew, from 9pm to 5pm. However, the government’s main fear was that the infection rate would not be low enough by the critical Christmas and New Year celebration period and that a proliferation of family gatherings would reignite the epidemic.

At the time of writing these words, the pandemic situation in France and on a global scale is far from being sorted. Despite the vaccination campaigns being launched, new variants of the Coronavirus have emerged all over the world, notably in the UK and South Africa. In January 2021, the situation in France seems to have been maintained and the fear of a spike after the end of year celebrations finally put to rest. However, the government imposed new measures on January 16 in the shape of a nationwide curfew brought forward to 6pm to try to limit the spread of the virus with the presence of these new variants all across Europe, thereby postponing the third stage initially set for January 20.

Non essential retailers and so clothes and sports shops had to once again close their doors from October 28-November 28 and had their opening hours curtailed to 6pm on January 16. How have shops fared with this second closure? How have they adapted?

Depending on the shop, this second round of closures seems to have been quite different. Shops with little online visibility and without an E-commerce platform seem to have suffered the most from this new phase of closures. As François Berthier, manager of ClicNRoll in Nîmes explains: “We set up a CLICK&COLLECT and local delivery system (20km) but the loss to turnover in this second confinement is in the region of 50%,” although he does add that “despite all that we are actually up thanks to a really good summer.” Louis Adrien, manager of Clinique De La Planche in Caen explains: “we were forced to suddenly close our shop and just keep the web operation going and the CLICK&COLLECT. These sales remained limited because watersports were prohibited.” He states: “we had a really sharp drop in turnover in November and at the beginning of December when we reopened – the travel restrictions did not help at all considering how large our catchment area is.” It was a similar story at Terre de Surf in Saint Quay Perros where Hervé Euzen tells us that: “Although turnover for the whole year is pretty stable, having to close and attempting to maintain our business through CLICK/CALL&COLLECT meant we lost 85% of our turnover for November.” At HOFF Outlet in Bayonne it was the same story, shop manager Damien Trautmann confides that: “Not having an E-commerce website as such, we tried to bring in sales through social media and CLICK&COLLECT but that didn’t work. So we had to close the shop and had no turnover in November at all.” Shops with greater online presence seem to have better withstood this period of administrative closure, as is the case for the shop SEN NO SEN in Arcachon where manager Mathieu Desaphie tells us: “We did a bit of CLICK&COLLECT but because people were confined it didn’t really make much sense. Fortunately the online sales did work pretty well and partly made up for the lack of turnover in the physical shop.” He adds: “Despite 3 months of administrative closure, this year our turnover is pretty much the same as last year thanks to a really good summer.” At Hawaii Surf in Paris, sales manager Maud Tonin explains that: “With the Paris boutique closed, we concentrated on the E-commerce site, supplying it with stock from the physical shop. Online sales went pretty well and we even had better turnover in the month of November and over the whole year than last year.”

With Black Friday falling at the end of November, this year it would have been during the lockdown so the government decided to put it back a week (start of December) to allow physical shops to set up once they reopened. Shops took differing approaches to deal with this situation: some like SEN NO SEN or Clinique de La Planche decided not to do Black Friday, a choice justified by the strange year and having the right stock levels. At HOFF Outlet on the contrary after their non-existent November turnover, Black Friday seems to have worked pretty well, tripling the turnover for this period. It was the same feeling at E-shops like ClicNRoll and Hawaii Surf where Internet orders did more than just perform in this key online sales period.

When it comes to the best-selling products, as already seen after the first lockdown, skateboards, scooters and also rollerblades seem to have provided the best sales during this traditionally strong Christmas period. For watersports, being prohibited in November didn’t help sales at all but wetsuits and surfboards were the best sellers this winter. We are also told of the significant rise in interest in wing foils with its growing number of participants. As for the mountains, the government announcing that ski lifts were closing didn’t exactly drive sales although we have seen a resulting interest in splitboards to keep on riding in spite of the closures.

In resorts, shops are debating whether to open at all, as is the case for Laurent Descaves, owner of the No Limits shop in Cauterets. He explains: “with over 25 years of experience, the years with a good month of December are good years,” he adds: “December normally makes up 1/3 of our turnover and with a tourist office detecting zero activity, from ski lifts to hotels and restaurants being closed, the resort is empty and there are no seasonnaires, I can’t see any reason to open my shop. With a potential reopening on January 20, two months late, I had to cancel my winter orders from my suppliers and my curtains will definitely stay closed this season.” With a rise of over 40% in turnover last summer thanks to an influx of tourists to the mountains in summer 2020 some resort-based shops are wondering whether they should bother opening at all this winter.

This unparalleled health crisis has not yet settled down, possible hopes for improvement are pinned on the arrival of a vaccine. We’ll see if the impact of the vaccination campaign can raise hopes for a better situation for spring/summer 2021.