From our friend, Scott Papich, whose company Trackfly, monitors what’s up, what’s down, and so forth:
TrackFly is a data aggregation and analytics platform, connecting specialty retailers, brands and sales professionals. They are helping Angling Trade track key industry trends.
Economic researchers reported in mid-September that consumer sentiment had begun turning back downward. When that happens it can be due to any number of factors – economic measures like inflation, unemployment, interest rates; and due to other factors like global military conflicts, pandemics, political unrest, etc.
No matter what causes consumer sentiment to swing, when it turns downward, it affects peoples’ level of comfort with spending money, especially on discretionary items.
What is discretionary? Well, in this business, we know that people are going to fish, no matter how shaky the economy (and consumer sentiment) gets. And for that, all anglers must have the “consumables” — flies, leader & tippet and basic accessories & tools. But if you already own a fly rod or two, plus a decent reel, and waders, then buying the latest and greatest might just be “discretionary.” So, we sometimes characterize fly fishing product categories as being either “consumables” (must-haves) or “discretionary” equipment. There is some subjectivity, but overall it makes sense.
Anyway, you understand the consumables/discretionary distinction. And we at TrackFly have been talking about it a lot in recent months because it seems to have been the story of specialty sell-through ever since tariffs became the lead economic narrative in Q1.
The consumer sentiment story, relating to consumables and discretionary equipment, is not going away. We’ve seen anglers buy big on consumables all year, confirming they have been on the water. But during the spring, a significant portion of them were holding off on the more discretionary purchases. Then in July things picked up a bit, and in August they really picked up even more, which felt like some kind of recovery.
But recovery can be slippery. Again, September sell-through wasn’t bad, but not as strong as in August. At this point, year-to-date product sell-through is up just slightly over comp months of 2024.
Important note regarding tariffs: the situation may feel stable today, but any piece of the tariff picture could change at any time. And that means continued economic uncertainty, which historically is not good for overall consumer sentiment and discretionary spending. So, we all continue to hope for less volatile economic news.
In addition, we all have to be super sharp on everything we already know to do. And we simply cannot say enough about building upon existing brand-dealer relationships. Especially with Holiday now upon us, retailers should never stock out of their most core, high-volume “giftable” SKU’s, not even for a few days. When retailers and brands connect through TrackFly Sales Insights, it helps everyone avoid painful and expensive stockouts. And that’s a win-win, for both brands and retailers.
As we often say, TrackFly is here for you, analyzing real POS data in every category every month, and together we can dig deeper into the backstories behind the numbers. And we are now building custom analytics, designed to answer your specific questions about angler/consumer behavior. Call us.
TrackFly: “You have to make business decisions every day; why not do it with real data and insights on your side?”
