This is a guest post by Todd Grant, President of SquadLocker.
Innovation is altering consumer behavior in every industry across the globe. Entire industry sectors, led by e-commerce catalysts Amazon, Netflix, Uber, and AirBnB, have transformed how customers and companies interact. Competitors must innovate or perish. Those that innovate are altering how consumers research, compare, select and purchase.
Disruptive innovation has come to youth athletics, with 50 million young participants, ranging from 5-year-olds to college, playing on more than four million teams across America. Technology has brought improvement in every aspect, including player registration, payment systems, parent communications, coaching, recruitment, and apparel management. League Management Software solutions have become ubiquitous in providing online registration and scheduling tools to youth leagues. Converging with these software advancements are more recent and obvious signals that show significant change is underway.
Today, there are dozens of equity funded tech-services companies focused on the youth market and there’s big business attention as well. Media giant Time, Inc. developing new business models, like Sports Illustrated forming SI Play, bringing all the tools for coaches, players and parents together within one portal. These are all signs that the youth athletics market space is rich with disruptive forces of innovation. The end result will be an improved consumer experience all benefiting the youth athlete.
One area within youth athletics that appears particularly poised for innovation is the $8 billion custom decorated team apparel space. Needing to lead the adoption of innovation are more than 15,000 corner store operators that serve their local communities, providing an outlet for local youth leagues needing their supply of hard goods such as bats, balls and helmets for little leagues. These shops also provide decorated uniforms and player apparel.
What’s odd is that this sector seems to have gotten stuck in the ‘80s. The sector is stuck in the Old Economy, before personal computers and even the Internet. For the sake of their community coaches, players, and consumers, they need to use the Cloud and the many online tools.
Who’s losing? It’s the young athletes. Because youth league organizers, coaches and parent volunteers have no modern online experience, the youth athlete suffers. Coaches are spending their valuable time dealing with burdensome apparel coordination rather than mentoring and inspiring the young athletes.
Change is coming. Large brands, such as Dick’s Sporting Goods, and innovative smaller players like Squadlocker, Inc. are transforming the market space.
So, why haven’t free market forces and disruption occurred faster?. A hyper-local and intensely fragmented market needs to embrace change. Stores limiting to serving a half-dozen zip codes around their operation and the loyalty to each community and its members is incredibly strong but is missing a great opportunity.
But loyalty alone shouldn’t mean that buying decorated player gear today has to be a window at a past long forgotten by many. Consumers attempting to assess value and make smart decisions shouldn’t be squelched by a lack of alternatives, particularly in that there do not appear to be elegant and modern online workflows for league organizers and coaches, nor for the consumers themselves, the parents who buy the gear.
Why are we limited to a bag of catalogs? What is limiting the corner store with the glass counter, three-part carbon copy forms, and asking parents to visit stores for sizing and ordering? This just seems unfair to the league organizer, the coach, the parent consumer, and the retailer.
Choice and convenience transcend geographies and industries. Efficient, scalable, and interactive forces, complete with a feedback loop, can elevate competitive forces to real-time responses. Such competitive pressures also push out the poor performers and bring down prices.
Technology and change have disrupted the way that we think and shop. Amazon offers the best possible prices to consumers. Zappos opens doors to countless choices in shoes. Uber and AirBnB have upended the century old livery and hospitality industries respectively.
Everything Must Change….Right Now!!
The time for change has come. No longer will coaches be left behind to struggle with unnecessary paperwork to buy team gear and apparel that suits their team. Disruption is inevitable and absolutely necessary. It is a force for good. When the free market forces take hold, consumers will be served with an easy buying experience that they deserve and everyone will cheer.
To eliminate the frustrations of apparel selection and ordering, the process must be simplified down to a 3-step online workflow for selecting and making gear available for purchase by parents directly. A league organizer should be able to:
1) Identify their sport and age level;
2) Upload artwork; and
3) Receive a merchandise selection appropriate for the profile of the team.
Systems that learn and remember your preferences are now the norm. Apple does this with iTunes Genius feature; Pandora knows what music I like and Amazon certainly remembers my preferred shopping patterns. Ordering team gear should be just as easy.
Change takes time and requires a plan. Our plan for this blog is to spell out the challenges faced by too many. Our goal is to raise the necessary issues and provide viable and valuable solutions that will unearth a way too stagnant industry demanding change.
Challenging as it may be, it is absolutely necessary. Change we must and we will. Starting today. We will keep moving forward!
