Outerwear Brand: SportChek Specialty Sports Launch With Pre-Season Sell-Through Discipline
SportChek Canadian specialty sports launch for an insulated outerwear brand, built around the weekly pre-season sell-through cadence that determines reorder commitments in this temperature-sensitive category.
Growth in Conversions
Outerwear brand entering Canadian specialty sports retail needed multi-category placement and seasonal sell-through proof to earn permanent slot.
Content Optimization
MOART negotiated 6-category placement, executed 2 seasonal floor-set drops, and ran a regional rep training program for in-store conversion.
Organic Traffic
1682%
Dramatic Increase
Project Overview
Insulated outerwear at SportChek operates on an unforgiving calendar: pre-season buy commitments lock in August, sell-through is measured weekly from late September, and a soft November can erase reorder potential for the entire winter. The brand had department-store experience but no specialty sports history, and SportChek's category buyer was direct. A flat first-season sell-through curve would mean no Year 2 expansion. The strategic problem was building a program that could hold its sell-through curve against unpredictable Canadian winter temperatures across regional climate zones from Vancouver to St. John's.
Execution
MOART negotiated initial placement in 23 high-volume SportChek doors weighted toward markets with reliable winter onsets (Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City), built a 2-tier assortment with a hero parka anchoring the lineup and a mid-weight insulated piece for shoulder-season weeks, established a weekly sell-through review with the buying team starting Week 1 of September, and pre-built a markdown-cadence proposal for late January in case sell-through softened. Which the buyer cited as the operating discipline that earned the trust for mid-season expansion.
Project Results
23 launch doors activated, weekly sell-through tracking ahead of plan from Week 3 onward, mid-season expansion to a further 89 doors approved in November, full-season sell-through landing at 73% (category benchmark 55-65%), and Year 2 reorder confirmed for the full 247-door SportChek chain.
Conclusion
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