Academy Sports Adjusts New Store Strategy From Lessons Learned

Academy Sports + Outdoors has an aggressive strategy to open new stores and expand into new markets. They opened 9 new stores in 2022 and 14 in 2023. With that they have some lessons learned that they’re using to adjust their process.

They found that sales ramp-up more quickly in stores opened in existing markets where consumers are already familiar with the Academy brand. Similarly, opening a cluster of stores in one market in close time proximity helped with marketing synergy, amongst other efficiencies.