It’s hard to forget how dominant Lululemon was for much of the 2010s. From high school girls to pilates moms, Lulemon’s signature logo was a quintessential status symbol. However, in recent years new players Alo Yoga and Outdoor Voices have emerged to challenge Lululemon’s supremacy. Can the pioneer of athleisure maintain its throne, or will these newcomers reshape the athletic wear landscape?
It’s hard to forget how dominant Lululemon was for much of the 2010s. From high school girls to pilates moms, Lulemon’s signature logo was a quintessential status symbol. However, in recent years new players Alo Yoga and Outdoor Voices have emerged to challenge Lululemon’s supremacy. Can the pioneer of athleisure maintain its throne, or will these newcomers reshape the athletic wear landscape?
I used our program (Cotera) to figure this out and ran a sentiment analysis of thousands of reviews across all three brands. I decided to focus on product-specific attributes and excluded irrelevant factors such as shipping speed and customer service. Here’s the 6 performance indicators I used to evaluate the brands:
Alo Yoga: Overall leader
Lululemon: Mixed performance
Outdoor Voices: Competitive in a few specific areas
Surprisingly, Lululemon really struggles when it comes to material quality and durability - a concerning shift for a brand that once set the industry standard. I used Cotera to dig a little deeper and found these reviews that provide a pretty good explanation for why this is:
Review #1:
“These pants are the perfect fit, and they are so comfy and flattering. But they are constantly
stained. [...] I would buy more pairs. But they’re way too much work.”
Review #2:
“There must be an inherent flaw with this fabric that limits its ability to release marks/stains”
It seems that while the functionality of Lululemon’s leggings are solid, the fabric could be improved significantly especially in regards to stain resistance.
The price of each legging also gives us a little more context about each brand . I used leggings prices (arguably the most notable athleisure product) as a proxy for overall prices. Here’s how they measure up:
This suggests Alo Yoga's superior performance comes at a cost (aka a 30% premium), while Lululemon and Outdoor Voices maintain relatively more accessible price points in exchange for quality.
Alo Yoga: On the right trajectory. Their premium product justifies its high price.
Lululemon: Paramount that durability issues are addressed to maintain market dominance.
Outdoor Voices: Some potential to capture market share, leveraging its current dominance in product variety.
While Alo Yoga is consistently strong across all metrics, each brand has its distinct advantages in the market. Lululemon's durability issues present a significant vulnerability in their market position, while their strength in comfort and fit suggests potential for recovery with improvements targeted at material quality. Outdoor Voices is the weakest of the three, but shows potential to eventually become a significant competitor.