Q&A THE NEW BRAND OF SANMAR SPORTS

SanMar has been in business since 1971 and created its sporting goods channel in 2013. But the company was looking to make a bigger impact in the sporting goods industry and believes it will have more brand recognition as SanMar Sports. In this NSGA Q&A, Rachelle Manning, the Senior Manager for SanMar Sports, discusses why the name change was made and the impact it will have on the industry.

Q: WHAT WERE THE REASONS BEHIND THE REBRAND TO SANMAR SPORTS?

A: SanMar Sports is the authenticity that SanMar alone doesn’t provide. We represent and call on all facets of sport and choose to position ourselves amongst the top brands in the industry. My team attends a significant amount of end-user events, trade shows and clinics throughout the year. We do this to promote our brands and assist our accounts during these events while providing product solutions for their customers.

“What do you wear on game day?” is our slogan and www.SanMarSports.com is a time-saving asset for our customers. The emphasis is on creating more authenticity across our brands, providing a massive assortment of apparel, hats and bags to service everyone’s “game day” needs. From player packs to fanwear, we even outfit the parking attendants to the concession workers as SanMar Sports is your gameday apparel solution.

Q: WHAT TYPE OF IMPACT DO YOU SEE THE ADDITION OF “SPORTS” TO THE SANMAR NAME MAKING WITHIN THE SPORTING GOODS INDUSTRY AND THE ATHLETIC COMMUNITY?

A: As SanMar moved into selling to team dealers it was seen solely as a basics provider. When you add Sports to our already great SanMar name, it helps exemplify our company focus and where our SanMar sporting goods division thrives. Sporting goods companies are often initially identified and recognized by their names, but as these companies grow, the brand icon evolves into a worldwide known logo/ brand. We also launched our new “S” logo that will help identify our SanMar Sports brand.

While SanMar is a giant in the promotional products world, we are in the early innings with our SanMar Sports team which was built approximately 10 years ago. End users alone in the sports industry neglect to recognize SanMar as a brand. SanMar Sports identifies as both a distributor and a brand! We aren’t a “sexy” brand, we are just efficient and trustworthy in this ever-changing economy.

Q: HOW LONG HAD THE CHANGE TO SANMAR SPORTS BEEN DISCUSSED AND WHY WAS THE TIMING RIGHT TO ANNOUNCE IT NOW?

A: We have always tried to be more relevant to the team and sporting goods industry. Since our inception in the team channel, we have launched the following assets for our customers:

• SanMar Color Guide so a team’s organization won’t go from red today to green tomorrow.

• SanMar Team & Fanwear guide specifically for sporting goods customers.:

• The Launch of “What Do You Wear on Game Day,” which is trademarked and copyrighted.

• The Re-Launch of our Game Day site to www.SanMarSports.com, which showcases LIVE inventory.

• The Launch of our new brand SanMar Sports where customers can search by product, color, brand or sport and can utilize other important resources. Over the past several years, we have discussed how this would affect our business as well as the right timing to launch our new brand. Due to the challenges associated with the global supply chain, labor issues and transportation setbacks, which all negatively affected our industry, the decision was made to launch NOW! These resources were created to help our customers and end users find instock available inventory with one click of a button. SanMar has been known to be the go-to for companies that thrive on selling what is in stock, and now we have added an end-user feature that allows them to be more successful and efficient as ever!

Q: HOW WILL THE SANMAR SPORTS BRAND IMPACT/ AFFECT TEAM DEALERS AND RETAILERS? DOES IT MEAN ANY CHANGES IN HOW THEY WORK WITH YOU?

A: There are no changes in how our customers (team dealers/retailers) work with SanMar. We are all one company. Our goal is to develop and create SanMar Sports fans. The biggest impact is simply the commitment SanMar has made to the sporting goods business. Our goal is to continue to offer our customers and end users best-inclass service, quality products and subject-matter experts to support the process. SanMar Sports end users are finally able to associate with brands they are familiar with, including but not limited to Sport-Tek, Port Authority & Port & Co. Adding “Sports” to our company name has already changed how we are perceived in the marketplace. We have seen an immediate increase in traffic to www.SanMarSports.com website from team dealers utilizing the assets provided to help build online stores for coaches and teams throughout the country.

Q: WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE LONG-TERM BENEFITS FOR THE DEALERS, RETAILERS AND CONSUMERS FROM THE BRANDING CHANGE TO SANMAR SPORTS?

A: The rebranding gives our customers the ability to promote our authenticity in the marketplace. All our marketing tools and sales support assets will be specific to the athletic space. SanMar is now positioned in the sporting goods industry as a leading distributor of commodity items. Since the inception of the sporting goods channel, SanMar’s perception within this space has tremendously changed. The need to create a more authentic presence was needed. The SanMar Sports brand name, our newly branded logo, and new website has now propelled us to new milestones. The future is bright!

We have seen tremendous growth throughout the past five years. We have also been recognized by the NSGA Team Dealer Trends report on soft goods as the company with the highest ratings in “All Attributes” and “Overall Feeling Towards The Brand.”

The new SanMar Sports Brand will showcase our sporting goods channel and was developed to benefit our team dealers, retailers and consumers for years to come! Our company will continue to focus on growing our product assortment under all of our proprietary brands. We have specifically devoted new resources around product and fabric development which will positively impact our customer base and will provide them with more specialized products to sell as they work to build their business. The long-term benefits are endless as we are just seeing the beginning effects of this new brand evolve.

What are some of your new and innovative products the industry should know about?

Chipply is full of innovation. Each year we map major enhancements with our primary goal to eliminate bottlenecks in executing web stores. With automated image placement, work orders, inventory management and auto pricing already in place, Chipply dealers are growing much faster than the industry average. We most recently deployed our full-service automated purchase order utility so all those products can be ordered directly from vendors with just one click. This tool is feature-rich and industry specific. It