Latest News & Analysis – Page 286
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Polish Distributor Is Going Massively Into Own Retail
Martes Sport, one of the leading sports distributors in Poland, is rapidly building up a large-scale retail operation. In the last two years it has already opened thirteen stores, all of them owned by the company, and intends to open more in the next two years to build up a ...
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Polish Suppliers Go For Controlled Retail Space
Polish outdoor suppliers have come up with a form of partnership with retailers that is proliferating at huge speed and reshaping the country’s outdoor business: they are described as semi-franchises, in which retailers take products from a partner supplier on a consignment basis and then fit their store with a ...
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Chinese Brands Set Sail For The West, But Arrival Time Remains Uncertain
A major challenge (or opportunity) for the industry may be the arrival of Chinese outdoor brands on the battlegrounds in North America and Europe in the years to come. Executives of both Messe München and Messe Friedrichshafen say they have been receiving a strongly increasing number of requests from China ...
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Georges Salomon Has Passed Away
Funeral services are being held in Annecy this afternoon to honor Georges Salomon, the man who founded the company bearing his name together with his father. Affected for some time by Alzheimer’s disease, he passed away last Tuesday at the age of 85 years. A visionary, he looked constantly ...
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Outdoor Community Shocked At Death Of Kurt Albert
With profound sadness, we heard that Kurt Albert passed away on September 28, 2010. The 56-year-old legend became famous in the climbing community in the 1970ies for developing and naming redpoint climbing (Rotpunktklettern) – the specific style of free-climbing, which at that time was only known in the U.S. and ...
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Some Ideas About Promoting Outdoor Activities From The U.S.
The Outdoor Foundation has released an interesting 9-page report, called “Turning Insiders Out,” that provides some ideas on how to get more young people involved in outdoor activities Here are some of the American non-profit organization’s proposals, which are largely based on an online survey: - Creating partnerships ...
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Salomon’S Parent Outlines Plans For Expansion
Amer Sports has set out a strategy for future growth and improvement, setting new financial targets under its new chief executive, Heikki Takala, a former Procter & Gamble official appointed to replace Roger Talermo after many years as of last April. At a Capital Markets Day in New York last ...
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Street Shoe Brands Go Outdoor
The casual segment of the branded brown shoe market registered flat sales on a global basis in 2009 in terms of local currencies, according to an annual survey by Shoe Intelligence, a sister publication of ours. In terms of dollars, it recorded a drop of 4.0 percent to a total ...
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Swiss Fair Play Takes Sustainability To The Shops
While sustainability has been mostly a business-to-business issue to this point, the Swiss section of the Fair Play buying group plans a major roll-out of a marketing campaign to make the consumers familiar with the topic. In a first step – for the fall/winter season 2011-12 – the buying group ...
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Columbia Sees Omniheat As Key To Specialty Retail
Columbia Sportswear has laid out some plans and goals for the future, and one of the goals is to expand its presence in Europe. It is also looking at the home U.S. market, where currently about 30 percent of its sales volume comes from sporting goods stores and specialty retail. ...
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Fenix Pushes Tierra Southward
Tierra, the Swedish outdoor apparel brand owned by the Fenix Outdoor Group, is to be relaunched outside Scandinavia in the next few years after the overhaul of its management and a wide extension of its offering in the last months. The brand had been sold in some European countries ...
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Peak Is Now Ready To Penetrate France
After several years of preparations, Peak Performance established its own business in France, in Sallanches, at the beginning of July. The unit is headed by Nicolas Kiffer, former manager at Plein Nord, which was the Swedish brand’s French agency for seven years. Kiffer remains involved in the management of Plein ...
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Oboz Is Boosting Its Staff
This young American brand of outdoor shoes, which is already profitable after only two years of operation, is boosting its staff as its sales are growing at annual rates of about 100 percent, with strong support from about 170 large and small American retailers including REI and Zappos. Dave ...
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Columbia Buys Outdry
Columbia Sportswear has bought OutDry Technologies, giving itself a more technical image. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Columbia’s outlay is probably minor, considering that this breathable waterproofing technology generated sales of less than €3 million for its Italian developers and its financial partners last year. ...
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Toko Glides From Mammut To Swix
Effective Sept. 1, Swix Sport is acquiring the entire operations of Toko from Mammut Sports Group. Technically speaking, the two ski wax brands will be merged under the helm of a newly created company, Toko-Swix Sport AG, which will be a 100 percent subsidiary of the Norwegian vendor. Swix takes ...
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Mammut Holds Steady For Conzzeta Group
Mammut Sports Group, a unit of Conzzeta Group, recorded a 1.2 percent increase in sales to 95.0 million Swiss francs (€70.8m-$91.2m) in the first half of 2010; without currency effects the growth would have been 2.7 percent. Germany and Japan, two important markets for Mammut, both saw rises in the ...
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Indian Supplier Takes Over Switcher
Switcher, the Swiss sports, outdoor and casual apparel company known for its use of sustainable products, is now controlled at 51 percent by PremDurai Exports Private, an Indian company that has been an original manufacturer of Switcher products for around 25 years and that has held the Indian retail license ...
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Implus Acquires European Distributor
Implus Footcare, a major American supplier of footwear accessories, has acquired its European master distributor, Eurosphere/Anticipation. The move is intended to expand the group’s presence in European outdoor and sporting goods stores, similar to its situation in the U.S. and the U.K., which represent more than 85 percent of its ...
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Wanna Buy Jack Wolfskin? It’S For Sale!
Bloomberg reports that Jack Wolfskin is for sale. The skyrocketing German brand is controlled by Quadriga Capital as well as the private equity branch of Barclays, along with parts of the management led by Manfred Hell, chief executive of Jack Wolfskin. Company officials declined this week to comment on any ...
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Rohan Plans Major Expansion
This British chain of outdoor stores is planning to expand its store network from 47 to at least 62 stores by June 2011, inaugurating a new shop concept, with a more contemporary look, that is being developed to draw more attention to the technical features of its products, all still ...
