Under Armour Launches ArmourBox

Sports apparel retailer Under Armour has launched its own subscription retail service, Fortune reports. ArmourBox, launched Thursday (Oct. 19), offers consumers a selection of the company’s sportswear on a monthly basis.

Under Armour joins established players like Birchbox, Trunk Club, Stitch Fix and Rent the Runway in the subscription box market. Amazon.com and The Gap have also been getting involved in the space, the former with its Prime Wardrobe service and the latter with a recently announced service focusing on its baby items lines.

The number of subscription box services available to consumers appears to be growing. In April 2017, more than 37 million visitors perused subscription box websites, an increase of 800 percent from 2014. The most popular box categories were food and cosmetics, according to data from customer insights-focused marketing company Hitwise. Apparel was the third most popular subscription box category.

There are 5.7 million subscription box subscribers in the United States alone, according to Fortune.

ArmourBox users will fill out user profiles, each indicating preferred athletic activities, and the new ArmourBox will contain suggested items based on those user profiles, the article noted. An “official outfitter,” an Under Armour stylist, will select four to six pieces of merchandise from those categories that will then be shipped to the customer.

Unlike other subscription services, ArmourBox has no monthly fee, nor will subscribers pay shipping or return costs, Fortune reported. Subscribers have a week to return unwanted items before they are charged for them. If a subscriber keeps everything in a box, he or she will receive a discount on that month’s merchandise.

Under Armour stock reached its lowest levels in four years this August, Fortune reported at the time. The company dropped expected revenue growth for the year from 11 to 12 percent down to 9 to 11 percent. Earlier in the year, it also abandoned a long-term goal of hitting $7.5 billion in total revenue by 2018. Fortune reported Under Armour had cut 2 percent of its workforce in August, representative of nearly 300 jobs, likely in response to slower-than-expected revenue growth.