While other retail sectors suffered during the early holiday period, sales of snow sports products surged 23 percent ahead of last year through the end of November, reports SnowSports Industries America, the non-profit industry trade group that represents manufacturers and distributors of snow sports products. This surge in sales in encouraging and the trend seems to be continuing into December even though we don't have firm numbers yet. It cooperated and brought early snow to the mountains and cold weather to the flatlands.
Nothing beats cold and snow for creating sales of snow sports products.
The weather deserves most of the credit for the bump in sales, especially in the South and the West where the new census data is very clear about where Americans are living these days. The vitality of the snow sports industry is in stark contrast to the chilling climate that overtook retail in general before the holidays. The snow and cold that helped sales of snow sports products, froze holiday same-store sales growth for retailers. Target, the fourth largest U.S. retailer, said sales at its stores fell 0.1 percent, compared with its earlier expectations for sales growth of about 3 to 5 percent. Gap reported sales fell 6 percent from a year earlier.