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Swiss Market Insight, Autumn 2020
The health situation in Switzerland remains precarious, much like for the majority of her neighbouring countries. On the whole, the protective measures and restrictions, as well as the aid packages put in place in summer, are still with us this autumn. Like many other countries, the government are now focussing more on tracing and quarantining than on another potential lockdown.
With the summer over, the results are in and it’s quite a positive outcome, if not really positive, for those in tourism as well as for sport shops. While many were worried about having no customers, it seems to have had the opposite effect and in fact, they got somewhat overrun. Obviously this didn’t apply for all types of activity, it was mostly the outdoor sector that exploded in Switzerland this summer. In particular it was cycling, trekking, hiking, camping as well as watersports, SUP, wakeboarding or more urban sports like skateboarding that really came through as big winners. As a general rule, sports that you could do outside in a free environment were highly sought after while every kind of team sport suffered a lot because of the restrictions.
The success of outdoor sports is primarily explained by the simple fact that our fellow citizens stayed in our country for the summer holiday period, a large number of which would have normally headed abroad. Lots of people stayed in Switzerland, either to have a holiday, or to make the most of long weekends to enjoy the alpine air, saving those dreams of going to exotic destinations for another time. As I said in my last article, there was government aid in place that meant many of these people kept getting their normal salaries. This aid, along with the money saved from not going on an expensive foreign holiday, meant that buying power has become stronger in recent months. To keep it simple, a large number of the population had money to spend and this time it was spent inside our borders. The frustration of not being able to go away and the fact that people’s pockets were full unleashed an unprecedented frenzy for buying and consuming outdoor activities. This was particularly the case for biking.
That’s not to say skateboarding was pushed to one side and according to most retailers this was a really good year for skateboarding with pleasing numbers. This strong appeal surpassed all expectations and very quickly there was no more stock of completes left, and this was the case for all brands.
These results bode well for shops with the winter season approaching and snowboard equipment being sent out for delivery. Furthermore, and probably thanks to this in part, we are seeing very few cancellations or reductions on orders for winter equipment, at least, a lot less than we feared in spring with all the uncertainty. The same goes for requests for payment extensions and delivery staggering; it seems as though most people have the cash flow to make payments for winter 20/21 equipment. Obviously there’s a lot of underlying uncertainties but just being able to start the new season without having to make up for too many losses is already really encouraging.
