UK Golf Retail Sales Update

Phil  Barnard is founder of Xpos, the golf industry’s leading Epos solution, and Partner of Golf Datatech, part of the Circana market research company.

At first glance, the UK golf retail sales figures for June may seem disappointing.  The market is down -1% which, although not ideal, it is the second-best month this year and the smallest drop, comparatively, since 2023.   Sales were up vs 2023 in May and I’m quite happy with a slight bump in the road when it comes to June sales, especially given the European Cup tournament and an election. Oh, and ‘the’ weather.

Believe it, or not, the weather in June was drier and sunnier than average.  According to the Met Office, there was significantly less rainfall, with 13% fewer rain days and only 70% of normal rainfall. However, it was also colder.

Sales of consumables, such as balls and gloves, were up against last year, which confirms that people were out playing on the courses.  Balls were up +4% and gloves +3% – not bad in a market that was down -1% overall.  With that in mind, I suspect the Euro’s may have caused more disruption to golf sales than the weather. 

Best and Worst Categories

Unfortunately, apparel sales were down -4% for June, with the best performances coming from outerwear and tops, and sales of men’s bottoms coming in, well, bottom.

Club sales were generally down (-1.5%) for the month but there was a clear difference between the on and off-course channels. It was a strong month for the off-course stores as sales increased over +3% – this could have been due to a promotion of some kind. Sadly on-course sales were down -6% although putters saw strong sales.

Taking Stock

Interestingly, despite grumbles from retailers that they are carrying too much stock, we seem to be in a better position than last year: with 17 categories down on stock units and only two up.

In terms of stock value, five categories are up for June, which means 14 are down. 

The only category that has seen a real growth in inventory is distance devices. However, it is a small category and so not a big cause for concern. On the other hand, apparel and the two biggest clubs categories are down in both stock value and units. 

Although many retailers have been panicking over having too much stock, we are in a fairly relative position to last year. Things do look healthy in the market.  It seems that people are managing stock levels better and there is certainly no need to panic right now.

Despite concerns about the weather in June, we have still had an uptick in the market. Fingers crossed for good sales to come out of July, August and September. There is certainly still plenty of time to make up for lost sales this season. Retailers should continue to run regular stock takes and act on slow-moving items as soon as they can.