Sporting goods retail chain Finish Line is setting its sights on mobile as store sales falter.
Finish Line, No. 114 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 500, reported digital sales of $70.0 million during the first quarter of its fiscal 2018, up 3.1% from $67.9 million last year. Finish Line also reported sales from its bricks-and-mortar locations of $276.7 million, down 4.3% from $289.1 million last year.
Finish Line CEO Sam Sato told analysts on the retail chain’s Q1 2018 earnings call that the retailer relaunched its app during the first quarter aiming to better tie together online and offline shopping.
“With this new mobile application, we can best leverage the strengths of each Finish Line customer touch point in-store, desktop, mobile and social for a more holistic approach that brings the total brand experience to the highest level,” he told analysts on the call, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. “Additional features include a curated inspiration feed, tailored product recommendations and access to upcoming product releases.”
The retailer’s tech team is working on adding functionalities including “in-store beacon and geofencing technology to launch tailored offers and in-store opportunities based on customer preference,” Sato said. Geofencing is where a store has a digital “fence” around it that allows a shopper who has location services enabled in a retailer’s app to know when that shopper is in that store. Beacons are small transmitters that can sense a shopper’s location via Bluetooth low energy.
Finish Line’s customers increasingly are on mobile devices. Mobile accounts for more than two-thirds of Finish Line’s online traffic, Sato said.
“We’re seeing an increase in where revenue is happening and big growth in mobile through the app, specifically,” he said. Usability within the app has “dramatically increased, and that’s really driven a lot more people to use the app as their primary place to shop and research,” Sato said.
For the fiscal first quarter ended May 27, Finish Line reported:
- Net sales of $429.8 million, down slightly from $430.0 million in the year-ago quarter.
- A year-over-year comparable sales decline of 1.1%.
- A net profit of $8.1 million compared with $9.6 million.