Surprise apparel brand winner of NPD Retail Performance Awards
Market research firm NPD Group has named the winners in its third annual Outdoor Sports Retail Performance Awards.
NPD tracks retail data and, in these awards, seeks to acknowledge the fastest-growing brands in the outdoor and snow specialty retail markets in the US, based on in-store and e-commerce sales revenues.
It said the outdoor specialty market generated $7.9 billion in US retail sales in the 12 months ending November 2022, an increase of 7% year on year. Seasonal sales for the snow market brought in an additional $1.7 billion between August and November.
It divides the awards into seven categories and announced on January 10 that Thule had won for accessories, Rumpl for camping, Stanley for equipment, On for footwear, K2 for snow sports and Liquidlogic for watersports.
A possible surprise came up in the seventh category, apparel. Here, NPD named Clermont-Ferrand-based snow, ski, surf, and outdoor clothing brand Picture Organic as the winner.
Picture Organic launched in 2008, the brainchild of three outdoor-loving friends. They said from the outset that they were 100% committed to responsibility and to “sustainability-driven eco-design”.
This commitment led the company to announce at the start of 2022 a new, in-house platform for renting its products out. It said it hoped the idea would be successful and that it would sell fewer products as a result.
