Overview of Sporting goods market in Bulgaria

Sportrax, local sports firm, has somewhat surprised many by announcing plans for 3 new stores in Bulgaria. Specialised independent sports stores have never been the most popular choice in the country but the market seems to be changing and Sportrax has been one of the first to react to this. Although Bulgaria is one of the poorer countries in the European Union, this good news will be well received especially as Sports Depot, the main sports goods chain, already has 17 outlets in total. The biggest seller is specialist sports equipment and the biggest increase in sales for Sportrax were seen in the capital’s Mladost one region which is home to a number of high quality fitness complexes and spas.

Mr Tsonov, Director of Sport Depot, has said “The worldwide economic climate has not yet significantly impacted on the sports goods market in Bulgaria, simply because when individuals are not able to afford to buy apartments, they would then prefer buying goods such as trainers.” He also went on to note that sales of sports goods are more likely to be affected by things such as the weather as opposed to the economy at the moment. For example, as the cold weather comes around, sales of winter equipment and clothing increases dramatically. Mr Tsonov also stated that branded sports goods made over €100 million in revenue last year which is relatively small considering Bulgaria has a population of over 7 million. However, the final figure doesn't include the high levels of imports from China/Taiwan.

When it comes to other companies in the market, Adidas is the biggest with revenues of over €40 million per year, a 40% market share in the country. This is extremely high when compared to other big names such as Puma and Nike who have revenues of less €10 million each in the same time period.  The small amount of sales in Bulgaria is still putting off some of the big name brands but the market is growing slowly and steadily. The future could see this change as consumers, when buying, prefer the brand names which is just one of the reasons why Adidas has a large proportion of the market share. Intersport has also been in Bulgaria for over two years now and did have plans to expand into more cities but this has yet to come to fruition.

As a result, many retailers are responsible for the amount of sales that Bulgaria makes. For example, in Sofia alone, you can find over 30 different retailers, most of which just have the one store. Similarly, across Bulgaria, it is though that there are around 120 different sports goods retailers. Although distribution on a larger scale is yet to take off, as soon as larger brand names go to Bulgaria to attempt to reach the untapped markets, this is expected to change.

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