Challenge

New Balance, a global athletic footwear, apparel, and accessories company, was looking to improve its merchandising strategy and inform distribution targets for its key franchises by identifying the retailers and channels consumers shop to purchase running shoes for Everyday running, Road race day, Trail/outdoor, and Track & field (terms used by New Balance for its different runner types).

New Balance wanted to address the above challenge among its ‘Global Independent’ segment and a Gen Pop group between the ages of 35-54 in its priority markets of the US, UK and Japan. The company was looking for a research partner with high quality data access and global expertise to reach their key targets.

Solution

New Balance partnered with Dynata and leveraged the robust, high-quality Dynata panel to conduct a survey among 3,600 (1,200 per country) ‘Global Independents’ and Gen Pop consumers across the three countries. Dynata provided programming, translations, field management and data processing for the study. In addition, while New Balance developed the questionnaire and handled the reporting/analysis, Dynata provided valuable consultation on the survey instrument to ensure that all New Balance’s research and business objectives were thoroughly addressed.

The survey uncovered the following details specific to each country:

• Pre-shopping activities
• Top retailers and channels shopped
• Drivers of retailer and channel selection
• Overall satisfaction and retailer loyalty

Impact

The findings of the study helped New Balance’s Global Marketing Team improve and better target its merchandising strategy by revealing deeper insights across its Global Independent and Gen Pop targets:

• Use of a search engine (53%), social media for general search about athletic shoes (39%) and visits to websites dedicated to athletic shoe reviews (35%) were the top pre-shopping activities prior to purchase.
• Amazon (US – 43%), JD Sports (UK – 46%) and ABC-Mart (Japan – 37%) were the top retailers for running shoe purchases.
• The ability to try on a product (45%) was the top driver for retailer purchase while convenience (31%) was the top driver for channel purchase.
• Overall, satisfaction with the retailer experience as well as retailer loyalty was very high:
  • Over 9 in 10 (94%) were somewhat/very satisfied with their experience.
  • Over 9 in 10 (91%) were somewhat/very likely to shop at the same retailer for their next purchase.

The resulting study data enabled the New Balance team to tailor their strategic recommendations and adapt their guidance across countries to reflect unique market idiosyncrasies.