The UK sports and apparel market is in good health. eCommerce performance within it is not keeping pace, and that gap is exactly why Velstar built Peak Performance, our new guide to mastering eCommerce in the Sports & Apparel sector. 

The Athleisure Sector Keeps Growing

The numbers on the demand side are hard to ignore. The athleisure sector is projected to hit £17.8bn by 2026, sports nutrition is on course to exceed £1bn by 2030, and nearly two-thirds of UK consumers now wear activewear outside the gym. Participation is rising, demand is strong, and the category shows no sign of slowing down.

Growth on the demand side hasn't made trading any easier. Customer acquisition costs have risen 40 to 60% in two years. Cart abandonment sits above 70%, and mobile now accounts for over 70% of all traffic but converts at just 1.8%. Clothing returns run at around 23%, the worst rate of any online category, costing direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands between £10 and £25 per parcel before the refund is even processed. On top of that, every platform in a typical brand's tech stack is claiming credit for the same sale.

None of that means the category is struggling. It means that the successful businesses are fixing what drains performance instead of spending more. Brands like Castore, Up & Running, and Hearts FC are building the infrastructure that turns a first purchase into a second, third and fourth. 

The Changes Shaping the Athleisure Sector

A handful of changes are shaping the category right now, and they show up across every chapter of Peak Performance:

• Acquisition costs have hit a wall. Over 200,000 brands are now active on TikTok Shop in the UK alone, and brands still relying on a single paid channel are running out of runway. The ones growing are diversifying into affiliates, social commerce and owned channels that compound over time rather than charge by the click.
• Retention is where the margin lives. Existing customers convert at 60 to 70%. New prospects convert at 5 to 20%. Most brands still spend the majority of their budget chasing new ones, even in categories built for repeat purchase.
• Social commerce is no longer optional. Apparel already accounts for 30 to 35% of all TikTok Shop transactions globally. The brands that treated it seriously early are now running creator programmes that generate content, affiliate revenue and community at a fraction of what paid social costs.

Inside Peak Performance

Peak Performance brings together Velstar specialists across paid social, affiliates, design, SEO, email, data and web development, each writing on what actually moves the needle for sports and apparel brands right now. The guide includes case studies from Hearts FC, Up & Running and Castore, showing what good looks like in practice rather than in theory.

If any of the above sounds familiar, from rising acquisition costs to unreliable reporting to a website that isn't built for how sports and apparel customers actually shop, the rest of the guide sets out where that performance is lacking and what to do about it.

Get the full guide

Peak Performance is out now. Download the eBook to read the full breakdown, chapter by chapter, with the case studies in full.