What's In Store for Women
April 2, 2007 - Wall Street Journal
Golf retailers have set their sights on a long-ignored customer: the female golfer
By STEPHANIE KANG
Retailer Golf Galaxy Inc. will hold one of its biggest events of the year on April 24 -- and it is for ladies only.
The chain's fourth-annual Women's Night Out aims to give female golfers a chance to shop for equipment and apparel, try free products and get one-on-one instruction at 73 stores nationwide without being crowded by the guys. Staffers and PGA of America pros will analyze swings and custom-fit putters at the event, expected to draw 10,000 women. Products throughout the store will be marked down, and coupons for drivers and gift certificates to local spas or Starbucks coffee shops will be distributed.
THE JOURNAL REPORT
are increasingly focusing on engineering shoes that promise to give golfers more stability and flexibility when swinging their clubs. Plus, about how golf has become a young person's game as well as an old man's pastime.
The goal is "not just to get women to try our stores but to increase their love affair for the game," says Justin Royer, vice president of marketing at the Eden Prairie, Minn., retailer. "That helps everyone."
Overlooked and ignored for years by an industry focused on their male counterparts, female golfers are finding themselves in an unfamiliar position: They are slowly becoming the object of retailers' attention. A smattering of chains and independent shops are catering to both new and experienced female players in a bid to nurture a consumer segment that could represent a bright spot in a stagnant industry.
The attention is a far cry from the treatment women say they traditionally receive in golf stores. A poll published in the March/April issue of [Golf For Women] magazine found that 44% of about 1,200 female golfers surveyed feel they have been treated negatively at golf retailers. Complaints include a lack of merchandise for women, and sales staffs that either push women to buy substandard equipment or assume they are buying for their husbands or boyfriends, says Susan K. Reed, the magazine's editor in chief. It's "condescending, and hostile, to disregard the customer like that," Ms. Reed says.
New Revenue
Women haven't been on the industry's radar, partly because they still represent a minority of golfers, generating no more than 10% of the industry's annual sales, retailers and manufacturers say. Women are more likely to learn to play with hand-me-down clubs, and buy equipment less frequently than their male counterparts.
Women made up about 18% of the 12.5 million adult core golfers in the U.S. in 2005, according to the National Golf Foundation, in Jupiter, Fla. But retailers and manufacturers say women represent about 40% of new golfers -- a potentially potent source of new revenue.
So, club makers have spent more time and money tailoring products for women. The advent of clubs with higher lofts, for instance, addresses the major difference between many male and female golfers -- that women typically swing their clubs more slowly than men, resulting in shorter shots in general.
Golf Galaxy, whose Women's Night Out is part of a broader plan to attract female shoppers, was swayed by market research indicating that women influence 65% of sporting-goods purchases, Mr. Royer says. The company says female membership in a frequent-buyer rewards program has risen to 15% from 6% in 2003. "They're turning into loyal customers," Mr. Royer says.
To lure and keep female customers, retailers and manufacturers are trying to better understand female golfers. Women often start learning golf at an older age than men and are more likely to be unfamiliar with the rules and lack golf partners. Many men, by contrast, learn to play at an early age through friends or professional colleagues.
Women also tend to shop for clubs differently. The typical male golfer often is inspired to buy a club after watching a pro such as Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson use it. Women are far more likely to get product recommendations from their friends.
Those differences have resulted in a small but growing number of women's-only stores. Patricia Dixon opened Empowered Women's Golf more than a decade ago, after being sold what she called "junky clubs" when she started learning the game. "I asked, 'What is the swing weight on that club?' " she recalls asking the male salesperson at a national golf retail chain. She says his response was, " 'Little lady, you just don't need to worry about swing weight.' So I said 'Well, little man, you don't need to worry about selling me clubs.' "
She consulted a Ladies Professional Golf Association pro she knew, took out a loan and opened her store in Dallas in 1993, says Ms. Dixon, a former telecommunications executive.
The store runs golf schools throughout the year, some manufacturer Callaway Golf Co., providing hundreds of women with lessons on everything from putting to fairway shots. Ms. Dixon also holds seminars to explain golf rules and etiquette.
The goal, retailers say, is to put women at ease. Golf & Tennis Pro Shop Inc.'s PGA Tour Superstores -- a chain of stores that average about 65,000 square feet and feature chipping greens with bunkers -- hosts several free women's clinics a week. Jorge Cora, the company's vice president of merchandising, says that on a typical shopping day, about 30% of the customers in a store will be female. "We've made the store an unintimidating place with friendly service," he says.
Keeping Them Playing
Part of the challenge, retailers say, is persuading women golfers, especially beginners, to buy higher-priced clubs. While women take up the game in large numbers, many of them stop playing, partly because they're using older clubs that hamper their performance, retailers say. In the past three years, the number of women playing golf has actually shrunk almost 5%, the biggest drop in any reported segment.
Retailers hope to attract women like Angie Kim, a mother of two young children and a beginner golfer, who was practicing her swing one recent day at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Ms. Kim says she is looking to replace her old set of Callaway golf clubs. "I'll definitely pay a little more -- if it means I'm going to play a lot better," she says.
Retailers also are learning they can dramatically increase sales of shoes and apparel to female golfers with the proper merchandising. Ms. Dixon's shop, with less than $2 million in annual sales, carries shoe styles in sizes from 5 to 11, narrow, medium and wide. She has a database of 6,000 women who get a newsletter filled with information about new products and a column she writes on golf rules.
Pittsburgh-based golf-shop owner Jackie Sorrenti uses fashion shows to entice women into buying golf apparel. On a recent afternoon, Ms. Sorrenti put on a small fashion show at the end of a luncheon for a local women's golf association. The nine looks featured in the show encapsulated what she thinks will be the hottest styles for 2007, including shorts of different lengths and dresses from Adidas AG, Isisport and others. Her store -- called Gals on and off the Green -- plans another fashion show at a dinner fund-raiser. "Soon we'll be almost on a weekly schedule," Ms. Sorrenti says.
Her store stocks apparel from about 20 different brands, in sizes from 0 to 24. She sends out email blasts announcing the arrival of new merchandise and hosts "Monday Night Football" events, where men are treated to food, beverages and the game while they see golf products their wives, sisters or other female loved ones have picked out. If the men choose to purchase a "gift," it will be wrapped and ready to take home by game's end. Sales at her store are growing by double-digits annually, she says.
The key, retailers say, is respecting the female golfer and encouraging her to make her own decisions. Ms. Dixon says she tries to convince women not to let their husbands buy clubs for them by asking, " 'Do you have him buy your bra?' If you can buy a bra, you can buy golf clubs."
--Ms. Kang is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau.
Write to Stephanie Kang at stephanie.kang@wsj.com
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