You are in:
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Burton goes online
Burton goes online at the end of October to sell apparel directly to the customers. In the focus are the textile sub-brands Mark XIII, iDiom and AK, that means the high valued clothing lines of the snowboard supplier. The Europe-headquarters in Innsbruck/Austria promises its retailers two things: Burton doesn’t want to experiment in making prices, and the core business hardware should stay out of the internet.
Spyder Europe: New staff
The US-American sportswear supplier Spyder strengthens its sales and marketing team in Europe: Maria Moure (former Columbia) takes over the position as Sales Manager of all markets where Spyder is represented by importers. By that she disburdens Christophe Weissenberger who concentrates on the markets which are attended by agencies (German-speaking countries, Low Countries, France). Moreover, Jürgen Eichenberger is new in the team taking over the new created position for sales and marketing especially for freeride.
Sport 2000 International: Pedro de Andrade takes over the textile unit
Sport 2000 International strengthens its management: Pedro de Andrade takes over the new position as Business Unit Manager Textile. The 34-year-old comes from the Dutch retailer Perry Sport B.V. According to information, Sport 2000 is active in 25 countries with 3500 shops (turnover: 5.1billion Euro).
Fischer restructures its group
Gregor Dietachmayr, General Manager of Fischer Ski (Ried i. Innkreis/Austria) and spokesman of the Austrian ski industry, is still optimistic despite the dramatic figures of last winter. But he grants that the cautious pre-order of the retail, according to a study of the market research company GfK (30 per cent), is problematic because it could lead in the worst case to a decrease of 40 per cent in the entire market.
Although the overhangs in stock of the ski industry (altogether 300,000 – 400,000 units) represent only one tenth part of the world market volume (3.6 to 3.8 million units), the Austrian ski industry recognized that the life cycle of one winter is too short a time for people to panic over.
Dietachmayr sees the crisis also as a chance. It works more and more to adjust the capacities. Nevertheless, it will last one or two years until the consequences of the winter 2006/07 are neutralised. The new Fischer Sports (without Löffler and Fischer Composite Technology, FCT) balanced an overall turnover of 159.4million Euro in the business year 2006/07 per February 28 and expects 2007/08 only 120 million Euro.
Dietachmayr reckons a deficit for the current business year, too. Per October 1 the company’s name was changed. The reason for these changes are “product liability topics”, as Dietachmayr declares. As a consequence, the original Fischer GmbH is now a shareholding and administration corporation, under which operate from now on separately FCT, Löffler and Fischer Sports.
The sales discussions concerning the Fischer Advanced Composite Components AG (FACC) are still on the run (supposedly with the French group Zodiac and Italian company Finmeccanica). The proceeds of FACC (Fischer holds 47.5 per cent of the company (turnover approximately € 200 million) should run in the expansion of FCT which builds especially for the automobile industry. In 2006/07, FCT made about 3.5million Euro with 80 employees.
Falke opens its first partner store
The functional wear-specialist Falke got together with the running retailer Frankfurter Laufshop and opened its first partner store for its segment “ergonomic sports system” in Frankfurt am Main. The 100 square metres large shop presents the whole spectrum of Falke’s sports world: products for running, skiing, urban outdoor and yoga/fitness. Falke plans the opening of five further partner stores next year.
Planet Sports purchased by Arcandor
The new trade platform Myby.de directed together by Arcandor (former Karstadt-Quelle) and the publishing house Axel Springer is now online. After the taking over of the sports and bike specialized retailer Planet Sports by Arcandor’s dispatch division Primondo it seems that Myby.de doesn’t offer only electronic articles but also sports and trend articles in the future.
According to information, Primondo wants to strengthen its special dispatch with the takeover of the Planet Sports GmbH (Starnberg near Munich). Planet Sports offers via internet equipment for snow and skateboard fans and street wear. Moreover, the specialist conducts shops in Munich, Starnberg and Weilheim. So far, it is still unclear how Planet Sports’ online shop should be carried on. Primondo wants to include its new acquisition into its so-called community strategy within the e-commerce which should attract the target group interested in sports and internet. Primondo and Arcandor hope to strengthen by that the dispatch business and respectively the internet business. As a consequence, insider think that the integration of other ranges is just a question of time. Primondo purchased the online platform Planet-Sports.de just a few days after Myby.de went online.
