Upgrade Your Winter Gear for Outdoor-Focused Customers

When the weather gets cold, consumers turn to outdoor retailer brands for apparel, footwear, accessories, and gear. However, skiers, hikers, campers, skaters, and ice fishing enthusiasts aren’t just looking for safe, functional, and effective products. Today, they want more out of their cold-weather product investments — and “more” often means more technically advanced options.

Take infrared fabric, for instance. It’s become a differentiator for manufacturers selling to outdoorsy types. Infrared clothing captures and returns the body’s energy comfortably. As a result, consumers often report feeling more invigorated as they engage in physically demanding, intense, long-duration outside activities. And infrared fabric is just one of the many kinds of smarter choices.

A Changing Landscape for Retailers Wooing Winter Shoppers

A recent piece published by ISPO talks about this rise in smart winter clothing trends. Specifically, the author cites an upsurge in lightweight materials as well as those that have sustainable components. One of our CELLIANT® partners, Tecnica, is noted for its innovative ski boot recycling program.

The point here is obvious: Consumers have raised the bar on their expectations. Yes, they still want weather-specific, high-performance apparel that helps them regulate their temperatures. But they’re more educated than ever before. They’ve heard, at least in some capacity, about the value of cold gear infused with infrared technology. They understand that they have myriad choices — and they want to put their investment dollars behind products that align with their needs, beliefs, and values.

For any outdoor retailer, this switch in consumer behavior presents both challenges and opportunities. The challenges column might be somewhat obvious. Investing in newer items that do more than just keep the body warm takes time. Building relationships with partners that add more value to products isn’t something that happens overnight. However, the challenge isn’t insurmountable. It just requires setting up talks with companies that might become strategic partner assets.

Another obstacle involves the need to deliver both fashion and function. It’s no secret that outdoor retailer gear has made it to the runways around the world. Though it might seem strange to see clunky winter boots on the red carpet, luxury items like parkas have made their way across the high-fashion circuit. With this in mind, outdoor retailer establishments are finding it more important than ever to marry aesthetics with functionality. As a result, more and more cold-weather high-tech and infrared clothing appeals to more than winter sports lovers. It appeals to consumers who are unlikely to trek through the mountains but want to look like they could — in luxurious style, of course.

A final challenge to meeting consumers’ demands is to ensure that all winter clothing maintains a range of motion during light and intense winter sports. Consumers, as noted, are willing to pay premium prices for high-quality gear that looks good. However, it can’t feel awkward or restrictive. Consequently, any type of add-on, such as infrared fabric, must cause no loss in terms of movement ability.

A good example of a collection that’s overcome this challenge is UA RUSH™, an Under Armour collaboration with CELLIANT. UA RUSH garments use infrared technology in ways that don’t hinder wearers’ motions. That’s critical for people who are serious about engaging in their preferred sports at the highest level they can. Even if they’re simply recreational snowboarders, they want clothing manufacturers to prioritize their ease.

CELLIANT: Elevating Winter Outdoor Retailer Gear

For its part, CELLIANT helps its outdoor retailer and manufacturing partners overcome all the challenges inherent in creating winter gear that checks off all consumer “must-have” boxes. CELLIANT provides both physical and physiological benefits advantageous to outdoor enthusiasts and winter athletes.

For instance, our company’s mechanical, methodical testing results demonstrate that CELLIANT infrared fabrics absorb more heat and retain this heat for significantly longer (approximately 35 minutes) than non-CELLIANT polyester. Additionally, CELLIANT materials are shown to dry up to 35% faster than non-CELLIANT polyester fabrics. And CELLIANT also provides improved shielding from harmful UV radiation with UPF ratings of 35 dry and 45 wet. (Standard polyester has a UPF of 25, both damp and dry.)

Another attractive element of CELLIANT is that it fits seamlessly into textile-based products. As a light infrared technology, CELLIANT doesn’t add additional weight or bulk to outdoor gear that already has the potential to be heavy and cumbersome. Rather, it reflects the wearer’s body heat into infrared energy, which increases the wearer’s local circulation and cellular oxygenation to support thermoregulation in cold weather conditions.

Making CELLIANT Part of Your Winter Gear Apparel Strategy

According to a 2021 report, the international winter sporting goods market is expected to clock in at $578.4 million by 2028. If your brand is looking for innovative ways to add functionality to your current and future product lines without diving into years of research and development costs, consider speaking with CELLIANT.

At CELLIANT, we’ve worked with leading outdoor and athletic brands, including Tecnica, Oxeego, BLACKROLL, OccuNomix, XCEL, and Under Armour. In fact, our mineral-infused infrared technology is growing in popularity with manufacturers, brands, and even consumers. We have 10 peer-reviewed, published studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of CELLIANT, and we’re happy to share those studies.

Interested in delivering all sorts of wearable products this winter that help users increase energy, strength, stamina, and endurance? Click here to learn how to get in touch with our team. It’s never too late or too soon to upgrade your winter apparel lineup. After all, it’s always cold somewhere on the planet — and that means consumers will be looking for outdoor items to keep them protected, fashionable, and on the go.

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