The sell-in figures for the outdoor trade in Europe were still quite positive in 2011, according to the first indications from the European Outdoor Group's research panel, with interesting differences from one country to the other. However, according to the NPD's consumer panel, the European outdoor market fell by 1 percent at the retail level. In fact, adverse economic and weather conditions, particularly in the second part of the year, made the 2011 retail picture look different. European retailers' inventories are high, and EOG officials are now expecting a slowdown at the wholesale level for this year. Releasing a few figures from its interim 2011 report to the press during the OutDoor show last week, the EOG said that the outdoor industry's sales grew at the wholesale level last year in all the 19 countries covered by its annual survey. Overall, the sell-in rose from around €4.5 billion in 2010 to almost €5 billion, aided in part by higher average selling prices, or about €10 billion when translated into retail prices. Growth rates differed from one country to the other. Sales grew by less than 5 percent in the Benelux countries, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, the U.K. and Ireland. They rose by between 5 and 9 percent in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. Increases of more than 9 percent were recorded in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Russia and Sweden (more in The Outdoor Industry Compass, which also carried some data from a joint report on the German outdoor market by GfK and NPD).

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