Adidas "Training" vs. "Tennis" Apparel?

ksixone95

ksixone95

Rookie
So I'm at the Adidas store at the mall, shopping for a tennis performance cap, and I see Adidas' "Performance Apparel" Section.

I walk over, aiming to buy a shirt, and see that the shirts are divided into two sections - "Tennis" and "Training." I look at the prices and the "Tennis" shirts are roughly 40 PERCENT MORE EXPENSIVE!!!!!!

I examine both shirts and discover that the material seems to be the same for both shirts - I tried them on and they both feel pretty much the same to me.

So what constitutes the difference between Adidas "Tennis" and "Training" apparel? Why is one so much more expensive than the other? Should I buy the Tennis shirt or just save 40% and buy the Training shirt?
 
Good question. The materials used are equal. A lot of the clothing have the contoured fit or Formotion cut. So, no, I don't see the logic either.
 
For chits and giggles, you should have asked an employee at the store what the difference was before coming on the TW forums and reporting. :D
 
LetFirstServe said:
For chits and giggles, you should have asked an employee at the store what the difference was before coming on the TW forums and reporting. :D
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Well, I don't know how it's in the North America. But I've found employees can only answer the obvious. Once you get into more detailed questions the suddenly get brain frozen.
 
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jevonclyde said:
Well, I don't know how it's in the North America. But I've found employees can only answer the obvious. Once you get into more detailed questions the suddenly get brain frozen.
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It depends on the specific retail job. Some places the employees are trained to know certain things since most of their salary is on customer service. Therefore there would be a chance the employee might no something. Other times they are taught to say something thats the half-truth.
 
LetFirstServe said:
It depends on the specific retail job. Some places the employees are trained to know certain things since most of their salary is on customer service. Therefore there would be a chance the employee might no something. Other times they are taught to say something thats the half-truth.
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True. The stores I was referring to are the 'general' stores. But the dedicated stores indeed have more knowlegdable employees.
 
ksixone95 said:
So I'm at the Adidas store at the mall, shopping for a tennis performance cap, and I see Adidas' "Performance Apparel" Section.

I walk over, aiming to buy a shirt, and see that the shirts are divided into two sections - "Tennis" and "Training." I look at the prices and the "Tennis" shirts are roughly 40 PERCENT MORE EXPENSIVE!!!!!!

I examine both shirts and discover that the material seems to be the same for both shirts - I tried them on and they both feel pretty much the same to me.

So what constitutes the difference between Adidas "Tennis" and "Training" apparel? Why is one so much more expensive than the other? Should I buy the Tennis shirt or just save 40% and buy the Training shirt?
Click to expand...

In general you are right "tennis" clothes are 30-40% more expensive the similar training type clothing from the same manufacture. Tennis clothing typically has more style and colors. IMO it is not enough to justify the higher cost so I mostly buy training or athletic clothes. I see a lot of other people do the same thing. I do have some polos and nicer outfits for the occasional country clubs and similar environments.
 
There is no difference "justifying" the price difference. The price difference is about what the market will bear. Tennis stuff is more expensive because it can be more expensive without hurting sales. Training apparel needs to be cheaper because of how prolific that market is. Price it to high and no one will buy it because they can turn to Nike, Under Armour, Champion, etc. etc.
 
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This thread may also be closely related to [thread=281677]this[/thread] thread.

I went to the shopping center during my lunchtime today and smiled when I seen the Adidas outlet store front and it reminded me of this thread. So I went to browse around.

I would went in have asked the "difference" question to anyone if they approached me and asked if they could help me. However due to the time of the year and the shopping mall where I am is a tourist attraction, they had their hands tied in the shoe department. It would have probably just been like this thread and theories why but only verbally instead of written.

Around where I live, its a rare sighting to see actual tennis apparel unless the store specializes in tennis. This also holds to "small market" hypothesis that someone mentioned in this thread or the thread I linked. The Adidas store's apparel was golf, soccer, a little bit of rugby, and of course the "training" apparel.

For the golf apparel, I could make a full blown thread about it. It seems in the last few years golf polos have changed, following the fitting trends but also the material. The material has more of those polyester wicking technologies that tennis, etc. has and are closer to tennis polos. If anything modern golf polos can also be used for tennis and have similar designs and seams.

For the training apparel, I use a lot of training apparel for tennis because that's whats more available to me. Of course I have some actual tennis shirts that indeed look better and also perhaps its a psychological thing that if you play tennis, you might as well own at least one "tennis shirt" just to put a number on the stat sheet....lol. I am sure that a lot of people browsing these forums own a lot of the training apparel as well.

As I looked at some of the rugby and soccer apparel, it was $45 compared to the training stuff which was mostly $25-30 confirming the OPs rough price percentages. The training apparel did look good, but the other soccer apparel colors and designs I admit did look a lot cooler before I checked the price. I could imagine that there will be some percentage of the sporting population would justify spending that extra money for that cooler looking shirt. The soccer or rugby shirt (I forget which it was and I am emphasizing) was a black with lime color and had something text going around the collar.

It seems that with the emergence of these golf polos, it would give a tennis player even less of a reason to buy expensive tennis apparel. You can choose a modern golf polo or training apparel instead. This could drive up the actual tennis apparel up even more or it may become obsolete.

The only problem then is the tennis shorts. I believe tennis shorts are still made different than other athletic shorts with the pocket size, having pockets, and the way they fit. It seems to me that tennis shorts are on sale less than the shirts because of even a smaller market.
 
the difference i've noticed is, the training apparel seems to be lighter. at least the running/training. if they have the same material chances are they mgit be the same with a different label slapped on it. when i got to my local stores, the fabric is most of the time different and sometimes the ones that do feel the same have no adidas tags, just a sticker on it with the price.
 
ksixone95 said:
Yeah but they knew absolutely nothing... lots of store employees seem to be like this.
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That's because most of the employees are there to handle the money transaction, that's it. They are told enough to help them sell a product for a toe-the-line customer but not much more. Usually the colors/design and celebrity endorsements have already sold the shoe to the customer before the customer even walks into the store.
 
Obviously the tennis clothing is more expensive because they are paying top tennis pros lots of money to wear them. Knowing that people will buy what the top pros are wearing they jack up the prices, simple logic really.
 
Andyroddickfan said:
Obviously the tennis clothing is more expensive because they are paying top tennis pros lots of money to wear them. Knowing that people will buy what the top pros are wearing they jack up the prices, simple logic really.
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Yeah, that's a huge part of it, I should think. Gotta pay those guys. And I do think there is some tennis-specific engineering involved in terms of where mesh is placed on the shirts and that kind of thing, and I feel the quality of the fabric in the tennis line is a bit higher than it is in the training line; a bit weightier, maybe. And, of course, the logo is bigger on the tennis shirts, so that adds a good $25 to the price. :) But I really don't know more than the rest of y'all, and I know a lot less than many. I'm just a fan of the brand - I have no official affiliation with adidas.
 
adidasman said:
And I do think there is some tennis-specific engineering involved in terms of where mesh is placed on the shirts and that kind of thing, and I feel the quality of the fabric in the tennis line is a bit higher than it is in the training line; a bit weightier, maybe.
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Not even a little. My sister said the same thing about Murray's outfit during AO. She thought the blue and "tennis" yellow shirts were designed for tennis. I pointed her to their running and basketball apparel which had the same designs....a year ago. In fact, take a gander through Adidas' apparel line and you'll see a lot of similarities, if not the exact same cuts etc, between sports. Shoes and clothing, their design and colors, are researched year to year by companies. They design ALL their clothing lines for mass appeal regardless of sport.
 
ksixone95 said:
Yeah but they knew absolutely nothing... lots of store employees seem to be like this.
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At the retail level, I think most of the people that are selling apparel are there mostly to help with sizes and give some knowledge of performance. Especially if this is their part time job, not making much they probably went through a seminar about the stuff and gradually learned more. Its not the same knowledge and service as a sport pro shop.
 
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