Gym Owner's Guide To Selling Apparel to Members Part 1
In this 3 part blog, I will be sharing strategies and tactics on how to properly start, scale, and sustain a apparel revenue stream in your gym. Today, let's start with beginner tactics that every gym owner should know.
Golden rules:
- This process should cost you $0 out of pocket.
- Work with a vendor who specializes in this niche.
- Apparel for your gym is most valuable when worn outside the gym.
- You should be preordering apparel.
- Set up an apparel plan for the year.
Expectations:
Yes, some time will be required to go back and forth and approve proofs and get the word out to members but you do not need a mountain of cash to get started with this. It is one of the rare "investments" that require no money down and it is scale and sustain itself if you just follow my basic recommendations.
You should profit at least 30-40% for apparel for a minimum order. Orders of 50+, you should aim for 50-100% margin
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Choose the right items. You may want the super trendy tie dye tee or the super tight crop top. But ask yourself "will any members actually wear this?". Be honest! If you want those items for yourself, spouse, or coaches, no problem. But if 80% of the gym would not be caught dead wearing a specific style, don't offer it. You want people to actually buy and wear your apparel.
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Use best sellers and templates. The chances of you designing a shirt that will appeal to members is....not great. If you've just done logo tees up until this point and you need a unique design to give people variety, rely on our best sellers and templates. There is a special sauce formula for selling apparel in gyms. We have figured this out. Trust the templates. Tweak them a bit to fit your brand. Save yourself time, money, and a major disappointment.
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Run a preorder. As I mentioned, this process should cost you $0 out of pocket. You want to put the items up for sale for a week and collect orders during that time. Collect payments while the preorder is live. That way, when you submit the order, and get the invoice, you have all the money collected and ready to pay the invoice. DO NOT float, spot, or pay for members and collect money later. You will never get paid back. I do a mega deep dive into the preorder here:
If you would like to chat more about the basics and work on setting up your gym with an apparel program, you can book a call here: https://calendly.com/ffmatt/intro
In part 2, we will discuss the next level of apparel orders once you have the basics set.