CWA Blog Archive-5 Retail Items Your Gym Should Be Selling

5 Retail Items Your Gym Should Be Selling

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This article offers guidance on gym retail through experienced retail directors, anchored by the number-one piece of advice from Todd McCormick, Director of Retail Operations at ASCEND in Pittsburgh: sell what people will use in your facility. Despite a relatively small retail space, 600 square feet of the facility's 27,000, McCormick has gone to great lengths to use it effectively. Mike Sobol, Director of Retail at El Cap (which owns Earth Treks and Planet Granite facilities nationwide), agrees, noting that while retail shop size varies greatly among their gyms, retail is a necessary component to provide for members' needs, and they try to ensure they're carrying the items the community has shown an affinity for. This member-centered, use-driven philosophy runs throughout. But product isn't everything, adds Ground Up Operations Director Rick Willison: almost as important as what you're selling is the way you sell it. He offers concrete merchandising advice: the better organized your stock, the easier it is for customers to find what they need, and the more you'll sell. His specific tips: bring brighter colors to the front, arrange stock in blocks, alternate bright and dark colors, and generally keep things tidy (the text continues into the specific retail items recommended). The throughline is that successful gym retail depends on both stocking the right items, those members will actually use in the facility and have shown affinity for, and presenting them well through thoughtful, tidy merchandising. The experts converge on a member-centered, use-driven approach to product selection: McCormick's sell what people will use and Sobol's carry what the community has an affinity for both reject generic inventory in favor of items suited to how members actually use the gym. But Willison's insight adds that presentation matters nearly as much as product, well-organized, visually appealing merchandising (bright colors forward, block arrangements, alternating tones, tidiness) makes it easier for customers to find and buy items, directly increasing sales. Together, these principles frame retail success as a combination of smart, member-focused product selection and deliberate merchandising. For operators, the article argues that a successful retail shop, regardless of size, comes from stocking what members genuinely need and use, informed by their demonstrated preferences, and displaying it in an organized, attractive way that drives sales, offering both a product-selection philosophy and practical merchandising tactics to make any gym's retail space, even a small one, effective.

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This piece offers gym retail guidance from experienced directors. The core advice: sell what members will actually use and have shown affinity for, not generic inventory. ASCEND's Todd McCormick maximizes even a small 600-square-foot space this way, while Ground Up's Rick Willison stresses presentation, organized, bright, tidy merchandising, matters nearly as much as product.