Already well tested by Intersport’s Finnish licensee, Kesko, the low-cost Budget Sport format of Intersport International is going to be introduced on the Swiss market in the spring of 2011, and retailers in other countries are expected to adopt it soon as well.
Intersport Schweiz is setting up a separate independent company with a dedicated team to manage a network of franchisees. The first one of them is going to be Otto’s, a very special hard discounter that is involved in many other sectors. Owned by the Einechen family, it has nothing to do with the Otto mail-order catalog and e-commerce company by the same name in Germany.
Founded in 1978, Otto’s runs a network of over 90 stores of between 300 and 3,800 square meters that sell food, furniture, cars and a variety of close-out merchandise of all kinds. For Intersport Schweiz, which claims a market share of 26 percent in the Swiss sporting goods market, the Budget Sport operation is going to be complementary with its own two Sports Factory outlet centers, which handle close-outs from the retail members’ stores.
