Dick’s Sporting Goods Launches Men’s Athletics Series

Dick’s Sporting Goods enters a highly contested market for athletic clothing for men with the launch of its own brand VRST.

VRST debuts on Tuesday on Dick’s website and a standalone VRST.com and will expand to more than 400 Dick’s stores in the coming weeks, the company said. Items in the line, which include everything from joggers and shorts to T-shirts, quarterbacks and hooded sweatshirts, can sell from $ 30 to $ 120, placing it at the higher end of the market in terms of price point.

Following the success of Dick’s with its Calia athletics range for women, the company said it had an empty space in its stores to have a more luxurious and lifestyle-driven line for men. The line will not compete directly with the sweat-losing performance equipment sold by Under Armor and Nike. Instead, it is more similar to Lululemon.

However, Dick’s enhanced private label investments come as big brands such as Nike and Under Armor have promised to sell more goods directly to consumers. Adidas announced earlier this month that by 2025, the vertical direct consumer would account for 50% of net sales. Although Dick’s still carries the brands, the huge pressure puts greater pressure on wholesalers to have exclusive lines like Calia and VRST to drive traffic and sales.

In 2020, Dick’s increased $ 1.3 billion in sales of its own brands. Total revenue was $ 9.58 billion. The company said its own brands outperformed the national labels in the golf, fitness, outdoor equipment and team sports categories. Calia was the second best women’s clothing brand to only be behind Nike last year, he said.

VRST will be the second brand to launch Dick’s with its own website. Calia was the first.

“If you see VRST, it’s going to be a whole different product range than we have now with our core suppliers, and it’s a white space,” Dick Lauren Hobart, CEO, said during an earnings call earlier this month. “It covers a wide range of activities.”

“VRST will put us in a much stronger position to compete with similar offerings from premium clothing brands and specialty sportswear stores,” Hobart explained.

Companies such as Lululemon, Nike, Adidas and Under Armor have seen more momentum over the past twelve months than clothing brands on workwear and more attractive items. And in turn, more traditional clothing brands and department store chains have quickly shifted their merchandise and marketing to be comfortable and convenient, creating more screams in an already noisy category.

Before the pandemic, for example, Lululemon said he planned to double his men’s business in five years. Athletics brands for men like Rhone, Ten Thousand and Vuori directly to the consumer have also doubled their spending on online marketing to reach new customers. Even department stores Nordstrom and Kohl’s have refocused on active clothing in an effort to increase sales. Kohl’s efforts include an internal line called FLX, which began earlier this month.

At the same time, there was an enormous growth in space.

Last year, men’s active apparel gained market share to represent 45% of the total menswear market, compared to 39% in 2019, according to data compiled by consumer research firm NPD Group. Categories that helped drive dollars into space included sweatpants, which increased by 16% year-on-year, and sweatshirts, which rose by 3%.

But VRST is not a hasty solution to take advantage of a pandemic doll. The company has been operating for several years, the company said.

“And of course we are maximizing the current momentum,” Nina Barjesteh, senior vice president of product development, said in an interview. “But more than anything, we continue to look at the long term and make sure we build products for which you want to come back more.”

Dick’s shares have risen more than 190% over the past twelve months since the market closed on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $ 7 billion.