ActionWatch Retail Panel Surpasses 150 Stores

ActionWatch Retail Panel Surpasses 150 Stores

The ActionWatch Retail Panel recently surpassed 150 stores actively participating in this action sports market tracking program. “We’re pleased to have reached this point and are looking forward to continued growth,” states Cary Allington, co-founder. “The more retailers participating in the panel, the more influence those retailers have on guiding their industry. The ActionWatch program helps the independent specialty channel get more attention and therefore better service from their suppliers.”

ActionWatch data is currently featured in the “Core Retail Report” in Transworld Business magazine each month as well as in a regular column on the Surf Expo website. It has also been used to support articles in the popular industry blog at Shop-Eat-Surf.com.

Most of the retailers participating in the ActionWatch Retail Panel are single-store operations, but the panel also includes a few multi-store retailers. The participating stores are spread throughout the U.S. and are diverse in size and volume, including shops under 1,000 square feet to stores over 10,000 square feet. All of the stores on the panel are surf- and/or skateboard-brand focused.

“Like similar market-tracking programs in other industries, ActionWatch provides very important information for both industry suppliers and retailers,” states Allington. “It exposes the health and trending of product categories and brands within the core specialty retail channel – the heart of the industry.”

ActionWatch is a sales and inventory tracking program specifically designed for the action sports industry. Modeled after similar programs that have existed for decades in other industries, it is a free service for participating industry retailers, who get access to a series of monthly reports that show top-selling brands and models as well as product category breakouts. The reports are made by combining data from all the participating retailers so that each member can see sales and inventory information representing the broader industry. This allows ActionWatch Retail Panel members to participate in a program that keeps their individual store data confidential, but gives them industry averages, a.k.a. benchmarks, to which they can compare their own stores.

Participation in ActionWatch involves no cost to retailers, but participants are required to be true action sports retailers and to use a computerized POS system to track sales and inventory. Aggregated data is available for purchase by industry suppliers.  For information: www.ActionWatchReports.com.