Wellness Spend Rises, Activity Falls: Outdoor's Challenge

Plus: Jeep and Energizer go big on trail tech

Author

Avinash Duggempudi
August 20, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Sports & Outdoors

Here's what's happening this week in the world of sports and outdoors:
- Wellness up, activity down; sustainability pressure mounts
- Military’s deep ties to outdoor gear go mainstream
- Big-box retail vs premium: outdoor stocks diverge
- Jeep x Energizer lights push hybrid, high-lumen tech
- Minimalist utility capsule blends city and trail needs

💸 The $200B Miscalculation Marketers Can’t Afford

On stage at eTail Boston, Fospha’s Chief Product Officer, Dom Devlin, warned that retail’s reliance on last-click metrics is outdated, and it’s costing brands $200 billion in under-credited sales.

The missed connection is clear: shoppers often discover on TikTok, Meta, or Snap, but complete their purchase on Amazon, Walmart, or Target. Traditional attribution frameworks rarely connect those dots. As a result, channels that spark demand are stripped of credit, while budgets overweight the “closers” - whether or not they truly created the sale.

Dom called this the bottom-of-funnel trap: over-investing in channels that finish the purchase while underfunding those that generate demand. The fallout is higher acquisition costs and shrinking pipelines of future customers.

Fospha’s Halo platform was built to break that cycle. By integrating marketplace and DTC sales into one unified ROAS, it captures the full impact of discovery spend across the funnel. For brands like Nécessaire and Give Me Cosmetics, that visibility has unlocked the confidence to double down on demand generation while protecting profitability.

📥Download Fospha’s Halo Report to see how leaders are funding growth where it really starts.

📌WEEKLY MUST-KNOWS

ISPO aggregates 14 studies showing a paradox: wellness spend is rising while global physical activity rates decline, and sustainability pressure intensifies as textile consumption grows. The signal: brands must pivot toward holistic health narratives and circular models while defending demand in a cooling athleisure cycle. Expect sharper differentiation through materials innovation, repair/resale programs, and community-led experiences.

SUPPLY CHAIN AND POLICY
Podcast Probes U.S. Military’s Grip On Outdoor Apparel
Articles of Interest launches a seven-part series mapping the U.S. military’s influence on outdoor performance wear, touching the Berry Amendment, material innovation, and how garments became “gear.” This mainstreams a structural story marketers should watch: procurement, R&D, and cultural legitimacy in gorpcore are increasingly intertwined. Implication: sourcing narratives and compliance-savvy storytelling become competitive moats.

Nike and LEGO are expanding their partnership into apparel, sneakers, and accessories, moving fandom beyond footwear into broader wardrobe and gifting moments. The move leverages nostalgia and family co-shopping to drive cross-category AOV and drop cadence. It impacts kids, family, and lifestyle segments across wholesale and DTC.

🧐 What Does Brand Building Really Mean in eCommerce?

I had an engaging conversation with Alex Brownsell for the latest episode of the WARC Podcast. | Sam Carter, CEO at Fospha

We discussed where most brands get it wrong when it comes to brand building, with bad measurement and poor organizational structure amongst the biggest contributing factors - and how Fospha is aiming to solve the biggest questions around brand measurement with Glow.

Thanks Alex and team again for having me (and for offering a brief airconditioned respite from the intense heat and chaos of Cannes!)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3HM2ocInRhwbCOaCzT0zK3?si=KSfFfTmHTfWFJNBUNLTY4g&nd=1&dlsi=4df12afc65ba44a6

⚡QUICK READS

Daiwa Pier39 Drops Minimalist Utility Capsule: A four-piece FW25 capsule blends WINDSTOPPER tech with clean tailoring, reinforcing the urban-outdoor crossover at mid-to-premium price points.(More)

Runner’s World Refreshes Best Running Shoes: Updated editors’ picks drive affiliate search and retailer conversion, a signal to align PDP content, reviews, and creator seeding around ranked models.(More)

Smart Adventure Lighting Features Go Mainstream: Hybrid power, motion sensors, battery indicators, and dual charging appear across new outdoor lights, pressuring roadmaps beyond lumens arms races.(More)

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