What people buy

[JamesSwim]

Originally Posted by SwimTeamSpeedo

Hi Jamesswim,

Great post and I am impressed by the numbers you cite. I shop and SwimOutlet and MetroSwim frequently for my serious swimming needs. I also like Funky Trunks, Jaked, Aussiebum and CaRioCA (maybe some others). I am an older guy, so when I started swimming we used to go to the local sports store and buy our suits or got them through the team. Then along came the catalogs, like the old Worldwide Aquatics and Keifer that offered more selection and variety, I love the web because I can go on and get six or seven awesome suits at a time. I swim between 3000 and 5000 yards a day or two miles or so open water in the summer. In the winter I find the chlorine eats up my suits (and my skin). so I have been known to buy two or three of the same suit if I really like it.

I am exclusively a briefs or racer cut swimmer. I tried jammers once in the 90's and hated them. I guess it is just what I grew up wearing. I am very comfortable in a race cut swimsuit. I find that local swim shops mostly sell jammers. By the way, I also like board shorts, but wear them as shorts only and I have never bought them on the web.

STS

I agree that the variety of the suits encourages one to try one new ones.

Also, if briefs or racer cut swimwear start to wear out, you want to replace them since loose ones don't look or feel good if they don't fit well. So maybe that's another reason why the web sites do brisk business.

Board shorts are made of hard wearing fabrics (they were originally made for surfing). So people may buy only a few over time.

If board shorts start to wear out, it won't bother you much. Depending on the style, some people may like having them wear out, just like blue jeans.

But: their fabric area is larger so it's easier to get a larger variation in the style (cut or pattern), so people who are fashion conscious may like the ability to have a different look that's more obvious. The board shorts can vary the width of the legs -- narrow and tight, or wide, or change the draw string style, or put on pockets.

Practically, a solid color navy blue 3" brief and a solid color black 3" brief look very similar. So one needs to try to get more interesting variations in the fabric design, or even the cut (side length)