Matt Muller consistently has his eyes tuned to compelling products he might bring into Ken Combs Running Store, his Louisville, KY-based retail shop. While footwear can demand outsized attention – and particularly so given the supercharged options flooding the market right now – Muller is careful not to overlook accessories. Whether nutrition, recovery, injury aids or insoles, Muller wants to offer appealing, relevant solutions to his customers and he’s willing to take a chance on accessories.

“The truth is a lot of accessories aren’t super high-priced items, so it’s not a massive investment to bring interesting items into the store,” he says. “If certain products resonate with our customers, then we’re solving more problems for them while increasing our sales in the process.”

To be certain, run specialty is an ever-evolving retail environment with a history of embracing innovative products and novel accessories. Over the years, for instance, we’ve seen numerous product categories grow from curiosities to run specialty staples. Consider compression, recovery sandals and percussive massage devices as a few notable examples.

So, what accessories categories hold some intriguing potential and might be on the verge of popping?

Shoe Care

With the price of footwear accelerating, Muller noted many customers wanting their shoes to last longer. To help customers extract more bang for their buck, Muller began investigating different shoe care options and eventually brought in a collection of products from Shoe MGK, including the brand’s premium quick wipes as well as its cleaner and conditioner starter kit. More recently, he began stocking Sidas’s Cedar Wood Dryer Bag, a handy product promising to absorb moisture from running shoes four times faster than air drying.

Other stores, like Atlanta-based Big Peach Running Co., have similarly noted rising interest in shoe care products from customers eager to maximize every mile. Running retailers have responded with items from brands like Jason Markk, which offers an assortment of products for footwear cleaning and conditioning, and Storm, whose Footwear Care Kit pledges to lift stubborn stains, restore water repellency and remove trapped odors on running shoes.

Skin Care

Once upon a time, the skin care category in running stores consisted of a single product: an anti-chafing stick like Body Glide, which continues to be the gold standard in the essentials category.

Today, however, skin care is a growing category at run shops, particularly when it comes to sun protection – and for good reason: an estimated one in five Americans are expected to develop skin cancer before the age of 70. Consistent sunscreen use plays a role in reducing the prevalence of this common disease. 

KINeSYS was an early entrant into the skin care category at run shops with its clear spray sunscreen, an oil-free product offering UVA/UVB broad-spectrum protection while also being sweat and water resistant up to 80 minutes. Others have entered the run specialty arena of late, too, including Dermatone and Utu.

Daily Nutrition

Nutrition has long been a powerful category for running stores, largely dominated by energy gels and chews as well as electrolyte-packed endurance drinks. Other sub-categories under the nutrition banner, such as bars and waffles and recovery drinks, have certainly added to the nutrition category’s overall performance. 

Increasingly, though, consumers, and especially fitness-minded consumers, are turning a more critical eye to everything they put in their body and seeking natural products as well as items contributing to their overall daily nutrition. It’s led run shops to investigate stocking a diverse array of new products, from collagen to immunity to branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), which some research has tied to improved muscle mass and performance as well as reduced muscle damage from exercise. 

Meanwhile, upstart “clean eating” brands such as Clean Simple Eats and Realand Nutrition are making a spirited case to earn a spot on running store shelves as a potential add-on sale. Realand’s Grass-Fed Whey Protein Isolate, for instance, features a tidy ingredient list delivering 22 grams of protein and 5.3 grams of BCAAs per serving. 

“There’s a level of trust people have when coming into a store like ours and we can give education and solutions side by side,” says Stephanie Pereira de Silva, owner of Oshkosh, WI-based Fusion Footwear, which carries products from Clean Simple Eats. 

SAUNA BLANKETS

For years, runners have heard about the sauna’s training and recovery benefits, such as improving cardiovascular efficiency, enhancing muscle recovery and reducing inflammation. Of course, there’s a significant hurdle to capturing those benefits: obtaining easy, regular access to a full-standing sauna is tough.

Enter an at-home alternative — the sauna blanket. Resembling a sleeping bag, the portable solution distributes heat across the body and features adjustable heat settings for personalization.

Brands like HigherDOSE and MiHigh offer some of the market’s higher-end infrared sauna blankets with retail prices hovering around $700. On the more accessible front is a brand like Lifepro, which offers its bang-for-your-buck BioRemedy Infrared Sauna Blanket for a retail price well under $300 — a price point run specialty retailers have shown a comfortable ability to hit with super shoes, percussive massagers and GPS watches.  

CAR SEAT COVERS

While car seat covers are not new in the run specialty marketplace, companies like Orange Mud and Sprints have enlivened the category with added features and panache. At the same time, broader trends in the running world are stimulating sales opportunities for car seat covers in run specialty shops.

Orange Mud’s Transition Wrap 2.0 functions as a car seat cover, yes, but also as a changing towel with a clip and belt. Sprints, meanwhile, has injected fun design into the rather utilitarian product with its collection of colorful and festive car seat cover towels.

As run club culture accelerates alongside social runs and brewery runs, more and more people are driving to their run rather than simply heading out their front door, Muller observes. It’s opened a door for running stores like Ken Combs to promote car seat covers as a practical, problem-solving solution to their customer base.