Shoe retailer Spendless Shoes has pipped The Athlete’s Foot while Rebel Sports has beaten its category rivals in the latest Roy Morgan customer satisfaction ratings.
Spendless Shoes’ customer satisfaction rating in November 2017 reached 86.7 per cent, a significant increase of 3.5 per cent compared to a year ago, and also an increase of 0.8 per cent from a second-place finish in August behind The Athlete’s Foot.
By November, Spendless Shoes had overtaken The Athlete’s Foot which has a customer satisfaction rating of 86.4 per cent, up 3.8 per cent on a year ago, and Betts/Betts Kids also on a customer satisfaction rating of 86.4 per cent, up a huge 16.9 per cent over the last 12 months.
According to Roy Morgan, all five leading shoe stores in Australia increased their customer satisfaction over the last 12 months including fourth-placed Mathers on 84.7 per cent snd Williams The Shoemen just behind on 84.4 per cent.
Michele Levine, CEO of Roy Morgan, said the closeness of the results in November with all leading shoe stores scoring customer satisfaction ratings clearly above 80 per cent shows the intensely competitive nature of the industry as retailers Australia-wide deal with the entry of US retail giant Amazon entered the Australian market officially late last year.
Rebel leads the pack
Rebel was again named Australia’s leading sports store with a customer satisfaction rating of 89.2 per cent in November, up 3.0 per cent from a year ago, as competition heats up in Australia’s billion dollar plus sporting goods market.
Rebel built on several monthly victories in 2017 although closest rival Sports Power also scored a customer satisfaction rating of 86.5 per cent in November, up a significant 2.5 per cent over the past year.
French sports store giant Decathlon entered the Australian sporting goods market in 2016 with an online presence although the Decathlon ‘warehouse’ store opened pre-Christmas in suburban Sydney is the first of the up to 100 sports stores Decathlon plans to open in Australia.
“Decathlon which is known as the ‘Aldi’ of the sporting goods world, competes heavily on price and is set to significantly ramp up its on the ground retail presence in Australia,” said Levine.
“Detailed Roy Morgan analysis of the Australian sporting goods market in the year to September 2017 reveals the market-leading Rebel capturing about 20 per cent of the $1.2 billion market equal to over $230 million well ahead of rivals Sports Power and major department stores including Kmart, Big W and Target.
“However the diffuse nature of the Australian sporting goods market, and the opportunity for both new entrant Decathlon, and the existing market leaders Rebel, relies on capturing more of the over $300 million (25 per cent of the market) spent through various online outlets and even more so the nearly $550 million (46 per cent) spent at other, smaller, stores and outlets.”
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