Are you a full-time professional sports-person? No?
Whether you are a full-time professional sports-person, a part-time professional, a hard-core ‘weekend warrior’ or just ‘an average Jo’ who wants to keep active, having the right equipment for the intended purpose is important, if not vital, if one is to maximise performance and avoid injury.
Naturally, professional sports people have numerous advantages when selecting sporting attire, whether it be shorts, singlets, footwear or anything else. Not the least of which is being able to ‘write off’ these costs against their taxable income. And in most cases having these outfits provided as part of a sponsorship package.
Hard-core ‘weekend warriors’, may in some instances be sponsored by sporting goods manufacturers or suppliers. In some cases they may also be remunerated for their services. However, in most cases they fall under the category of dedicated amateurs, lucky if they finish their careers without permanent injury to their body and bank account.
Like many millions of amateur sports-people who receive neither sponsorship nor income from our athletic pursuits, we have to research and then research again, before spending our often meagre resources. Gaining only pleasure from the achievement personal goals, and a sense of general well-being is the best we can hope for.
Once we’ve decided on a new item of sporting apparel, we’re faced with a mind numbing assortment of locations from where we can do our purchasing. Today we can choose from:
- Sporting goods store (vanishing fast)
- Sporting goods chain store (Rebel, A-mart etc)
- Department store (Target, Big W ..etc)
- Supermarket (Limited choice)
- eBay and similar online sites
- other Online stores
- ……. and so the options continue
Sadly, the one thing most of these alternatives have in common is the near total lack of specialised advice or guidance. One of the contributing factors to the overall success of online stores is that when visiting a physical store we’re often lucky if we find any staff available, much less one that has specialised experience or knowledge in the sports equipment we wish to buy. Product knowledge appears to be confined to reading the label.
Seems to me that In the pursuit of ‘containing costs’, and the drive to ‘increased efficiencies’, stores are often populated by young part-time shop assistants whose primary task appears to be to replenish shelves, and collect money at the exit. So called self-serve checkouts are now becoming the norm, replacing the need for human operators. Is it any wonder so many buyers are moving to on-line purchasing?