The Demand for Licensed Merchandise in Sports—On the Purchase Channel Choice

Abstract

Clubs and third-party operators offer licensed sports products via offline and online stores. Although a few papers have previously focused on sports merchandise, no study has ever analyzed the factors associated with the purchase channel (PC) choice. Based on representative survey data of sports club members, we empirically test the statistical association between consumers’ characteristics and their PC choice. Econometric results suggest that the PC choice is affected by membership characteristics and sociodemographic attributes such as gender, education, income, and place of residence. Comparisons with results from studies conducted in more general settings suggest that the transferability of findings from general to sports-specific settings (and vice versa) is limited. Moreover, the finding, that the impact of these characteristics depends on the type of operator (club vs. retailer) rather than the type of product, highlights the relevance to distinguish between vertically integrated and third-party-operated PCs in both managerial decisions and future research.