Fitness Consumer Trends

(10 minute read)

This blog draws from research to provide an overview of the fitness consumer market trends post-pandemic.

Compared to many industries with finite number of goods and services, fitness consumers can access an ever-widening array of tools and solutions. A growing number of people now consider wellness a top priority in their life. The fitness and wellness market is registering a rapid growth and an even more fragmented market of complementary solutions is evolving around it.

The pandemic and lockdown have impacted on the fitness industry and spurred a rapid shift to at-home workout solutions and greater focus on wellness. With global rollouts of vaccines, it remains to be seen if the fitness consumer will continue to use at-home solutions or rush back to gyms and fitness studios or adopt a hybrid fitness model.

For the fitness industry, it appears that providers of both out-of-home and in-home fitness solutions will have to reassess their consumer value propositions and adopt more data-informed approaches to prioritise building relationships with consumers.

Exercise

The pandemic intensified consumer concerns with health and fitness. With shutdown of gyms and fitness studios, the lockdown saw a sharp rise in home workouts, use of mobile fitness apps, online exercise sessions, and consumer spending on in-home exercise and fitness equipment. Research suggests that many consumers intend to maintain or even increase their online fitness routines after the pandemic eases, equally many consumers were unhappy with the length, intensity, and effectiveness of at-home workouts and dissatisfied with their own motivation and discipline working out at home. With consumers returning to gyms, industry participants will need to figure out new ways of better serving those who are accessing a variety of options.

Consumer Archetypes

The local gym and fitness studio are here to stay but equally so are at-home solutions. The breadth and quality of competitive offerings in the industry can only be good news for the consumer. However, breaks in fitness routines can be risky for gyms attempting to retain customers as drop-out rates and churns can be high.

McKinsey analysis shows four consumer archetypes.

The Wellness Enthusiast (23%) puts fitness, nutrition, physical and mental wellbeing front and centre of their life. They are motivated by performance, view their fitness schedule as a core part of their identity and life, and prioritise it. They appreciate incremental fitness innovations but are sceptical of radical change.

The Researcher Experimenter (10%) is constantly seeking new and unique experiences and is willing to try out the latest in fitness. They are early adopters of new products, open to innovation but may not remain loyal.

The Traditionalist (11%) are those ruled by habits of the morning or post-lunch run, scheduled gym sessions, and evening fitness classes. They stick to routines but are late adopters to new offerings but worth building long-term relationships with.

The Passive Participant (55%) doesn’t consider fitness a priority and may participate only sporadically in fitness sessions, sometimes as a reaction to an external event. Those who develop intrinsic fitness motivations evolve into one of the other archetypes.

Each of these consumer categories require different approaches to building and cultivating long term relationships.

Trends in Gyms and Fitness Studios

Gyms and fitness studios have been hugely impacted by lockdown, social distancing measures, and limited person-to-person interaction. The pandemic has highlighted the importance and value of these spaces, not just as fitness centres, but also as important centres of psychological, communal, and social wellbeing. These spaces may see the return of wellness enthusiasts, researcher experimenters, and traditionalists.

Gyms can reimagine their floor spaces and equipment layout to address changed post-pandemic consumer needs and provide them with extra layers of reassurance and safety.

Moreover, gyms have the unique opportunities of building on their community value propositions around influencers like fitness instructors. Options like community volunteering, running clubs etc. foster a sense of togetherness amongst these spaces. They can also partner up with providers of complementary offerings such as indoor equipment retailers, fitness apps, nutritional supplement brands to add enhanced value.

Gyms can explore redesigned membership and pricing models to offer more flexibility for those who are now exercising in multiple ways so as to enhance customer retention and build long term relationships.

Trends in In-Home and DIY Fitness

Digital enabled solutions for in-home fitness have evolved from low-cost alternatives to stand-alone offerings, providing variety for personalisation and consumer convenience. This sector has become increasingly competitive, attracting many entrepreneurs and innovative solutions from fitness apps to tailored home fitness solutions and connected equipment. Some of these products may well appeal to researcher experimenters who would appreciate innovation but not for the traditionalists who may prefer analogue equipment.

There is potential for growth in the at-home fitness equipment market, especially connected equipment that can rebalance consumer needs between home and gym. As with gyms, those solutions that have a connected element such as fitness apps with a community component, apps enabling digital live streaming etc have seen greater growth, supplementing the sense of social collectiveness and community that a consumer derives from an in-person group exercise class. Many large tech platforms are developing their own fitness ecosystems including options such as curation of fitness sessions, fitness tracking etc.

Data and Digital

The growing use of connected equipment and fitness apps highlights the importance of added security around consumer data. Sensitive consumer health data can make individual solutions as well as entire ecosystems vulnerable to hackers as well as breaching trust, jeopardising consumer relationships.

The post-pandemic recovery phase will be challenging and interesting for the fitness consumer market as consumers make a slow return to gyms but with the added knowledge of and accessibility to a variety of hybrid options in a growing but fragmented market.