Newsletters Archives - Southwick Associates

Business growth depends on understanding consumers’ evolving needs and why they would choose one product over another. Not all firearms owners are the same, and each has their own motivation to own a firearm.

Consumer spending in both the sportfishing tackle market and the hunting & shooting equipment market grew in 2018, with sportfishing tackle posting a 12% gain and hunting & shooting equipment posting an 11% gain over 2017. Although fishing participation was relatively flat in 2018, consumers spent more on fishing equipment overall.

Indoor shooting ranges represent an essential sector of the shooting industry in the United States. However, relatively little research has been done on the customers of indoor ranges. Pertinent questions include the reasons that customers choose to use indoor facilities versus outdoor shooting ranges, preferences for various range amenities and products, and, perhaps most importantly, how indoor range operators can best reach new customers and stay engaged with current ones.

In 2016 a study conducted by, Southwick Associates and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) estimated there were roughly 24 million individuals who were not firearm owners but were seriously considering purchasing their first firearm within the next few years. Based on their primary motivations for wanting to purchase their first firearm, potential first-time buyers were divided into eight segments.

Consumers are bombarded daily with messages from a variety of media types, making the right media mix and choices critical for companies to break through the noise. Southwick Associates Media Monitor (SAMM) is a go-to source to help businesses and organizations understand the best way to reach their outdoor customers.

There are many factors influence a person’s decisions and activities, especially in today’s information age of websites, social media and 24-hour news cycles. The question is who do anglers trust to provide the most reliable information on which they base their decisions? AnglerSurvey.com, an online bi-monthly survey conducted by Southwick Associates, the nation’s leading outdoor market research and economics firm, took a look at who has the most influence on recreational anglers’ purchase and fishing decisions and the results were split depending on what decision was being made.

The state-level results from the 2016 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Viewing are questionable as new techniques and a new vendor were employed to lower costs and release funding […]

Sportfishing in Alaska’s Cook Inlet offers unique fishing experiences from emerald colored rivers sourced by glaciers to windswept waves beyond the coast. The state welcomes recreational anglers of all kinds, some looking for a trip of a lifetime or just a run to the local river after work. In fact, anglers fished a total of 907,000 days in Alaska’s Cook Inlet region in 2017. Thus, the economic contributions of sportfishing to the economy of the Cook Inlet region is an important consideration for its natural resource managers.

The national trend in fishing participation shows an increase in license sales during recent years, but not every state has shared in this growth. Some states have grown sportfishing participation […]

Two major data sources were used to determine the percentage of excise tax revenue attributable to hunting-related purchases. The first is a proprietary report produced by Southwick Associates on the […]