Exclusive Q&A: Academy Sports + Outdoors merchandising head on customer focus
Academy Sports & Outdoors pays close attention to local customer demand signals when designing its merchandising strategy.
Chain Store Age recently spoke with Matt McCabe, executive VP, chief merchandising officer, Academy Sports + Outdoors, about the sporting goods and outdoor recreation retailer’s use of technologies like artificial intelligence to help ensure it maintains a strong customer focus, including local and regional preferences and shopping trends, in its merchandising efforts.
[READ MORE: Academy Sports + Outdoors continues AI pricing optimization]
How does Academy Sports + Outdoors adapt your merchandising strategy to calendar-driven events like America 250 and the World Cup?
At Academy Sports + Outdoors, our merchandising strategy is influenced by seasonal demand and shopping priorities, trends and newness, and building an assortment that is anchored around the moments our customers gravitate toward.
Whether it's a patriotic holiday, a major sporting event, or the start of a new season, we offer a compelling assortment at a strong value so customers can have fun with their families.
While planning begins well in advance for our general strategy and milestone moments, we also stay nimble monitoring consumer demand and adapting assortments as shopping patterns evolve. That balance between long-term planning and day-to-day agility enables us to remain relevant and to deliver the products and brands our customers are looking for when they need them.
How do you balance factors such as value, national brands, private brands, and regional demand in your merchandising strategy?
We aim to offer customers a merchandising strategy that features a strong assortment, inclusive of both private and national brands our customers love, and compelling value every day. We design our strategies around the needs of our shoppers and focus on delivering a relevant and personalized customer experience.
We recognize customers are looking to stretch their budget while still getting everything on their shopping lists by seeking value. We are proud of our best-in-market value proposition, and you see that across our assortment in a number of ways, including ongoing price monitoring and adjustments o ensure we maintain our value leadership and the Academy price match, which beats competitor pricing by 5%.
Our balanced assortment is comprised of hundreds of brands in a "good, better, best" model. This allows Academy to feature reputable national brands, our private brands which are our best expression of value, and a regionalized assortment which tailors brands and products to reflect the sports, outdoor activities and lifestyles that are most important within each community we serve.
Our fishing category is a great example of our regional strategy offering select baits and combos based on whether the market is freshwater or saltwater. The connective tissue throughout our assortment is a commitment to newness. We regularly evaluate customer preferences, divisional and category performance, as well as market trends to ensure our assortment reflects what our customers want. Our strategy ultimately provides customers the right combination of choice, quality, and value.
What are some of the current consumer trends shaping assortments and how are you adjusting to them?
We see a consumer environment that remains under pressure, but one in which shoppers still want to create experiences with their families and friends when they can. To do this, they seek convenience, expect products to be reliably in-stock and high quality, and choose retailers like Academy where they know they can stretch their spending power.
Whether it's sports, camping, fishing, fitness or spending more time outdoors, customers are investing in activities that create lasting memories. That means our merchandising strategy is focused on building assortments around how customers live. For example, we're seeing running shoes resonate well beyond the running community, with many consumers embracing the category as an everyday lifestyle and streetwear choice. Insights like that influence how we think about assortment, merchandising and product mix across our stores and on Academy.com.
We stay close to customer feedback and purchasing trends so we can respond as preferences evolve, ensuring we're delivering the right mix across our outdoor, sports and recreation, apparel and footwear divisions.
How are you integrating AI-based pricing and markdowns into your broader merchandising strategy?
We view AI as a decision-support tool that helps our teams move faster and make more informed choices. One example is our agentic AI tool Scout, which was launched on our e-commerce site during the holiday season. Shoppers are leveraging Scout to assist in their online search journeys, and we are learning more about our customers and what they’re looking for from those searches.
Are there any future plans for your merchandising strategy you can discuss?
We will continue to remain true to our value positioning and methodically execute against our long range plan and objectives all of which are designed to support our customers.
