Gymshark.com – A Fashion Growth Champion

It is a lightweight that might win this year’s title as Fashion growth champion in the UK: gymshark.com. Founded in 2012 by two 19-year-old students in Birmingham, UK, the fitness apparel and accessories online store has developed into a well-known fashion brand for gym lovers especially in the English speaking world, supported by millions of followers on social media and backed by big names in the YouTube fitness scene. Compared to the old hands in the UK eCommerce Fashion business like next.co.uk or asos.com, which record net sales of well above a billion US$, gymshark.com is still a lightweight in terms of global net sales. When it comes to growth, however, there will hardly be any competitor that can outstrip the UK fitness apparel store.

Although gymshark.com is still rather small when talking about total net sales, the growth rates of the past years have been stunning. In 2017, gymshark.com more than tripled its net sales in just one year from US$17.3 in 2016 to US$52.2 million in 2017. This year-on-year growth rate of 201% is unchallenged to date, but gymshark.com doesn’t need to hide its results of the following years, either: The fitness fashion online store increased its net sales in 2018 and 2019 by 164% and 63% year-on-year, respectively. This resulted in 2019 overall net sales of US$224.8 million. For 2020, ecommerceDB.com expects gymshark.com’s total net sales to amount to US$296 million, following an increase of 32%. In other words, the British online store increased its net sales by a factor of 20 in only five years, and there is no end in sight.

gymshark.com sells internationally, but most of its net sales are generated in the English speaking world. With a share of 37% in overall net sales, the United States is the most important market, followed by the United Kingdom with a net sales share of 19%, and Canada, accounting for 7% of net sales in 2019. In its home country, the UK, gymshark.com was the undisputed growth champion in 2019 in the Fashion category. The top 5 stores in the category, for instance, all registered growth rates below 10% between 2018 and 2019. To find out more about the UK eCommerce market, check out the Country Report by ecommerceDB.com.