Leo Dratwa, former sales manager for Apple, Siemens and Fujitsu in Sweden, was recently appointed as international sales director at Casall, the fast-growing Swedish fitness apparel brand. He is striving to spread Casall’s brand more widely across Europe, following a period in which this rather upscale brand has snatched sizeable market shares in Scandinavia.
Casall reached estimated sales of over 145 million Swedish kronor (€16.0m-$20.8m) for the financial year ended last August, up by about 10 percent compared with the previous year, but more than 60 percent of the turnover still stemmed from the Nordic countries. The company’s target is to double sales over the next three years, largely through international expansion.
Carl-Axel Surtevall, son of a Swedish textile merchant, started off in 1980 by importing fitness equipment. Two years later he launched an apparel line, with an emphasis on the fashionable aspect of the clothing. Since then Casall believes it has become the largest fitness apparel brand in Sweden together with Röhnisch, while in other Nordic countries it lags just behind the fitness ranges of Adidas and Nike, and in some cases behind Röhnisch, too.
In Denmark, where Casall is well represented and positioned at a higher level than the Danish Carite and in the same league as Pure Lime, the brand is doing so well that the local country manager, Darte Sommer, was given a small minority share of 5 percent in the company.
Due to the high concentration of the Swedish sports retail market, led by Stadium and Intersport, and to the strength of their private labels, Casall sells mostly in department stores and specialist outlets. One recent such venture is She Shop, which currently consists of four stores. Casall itself opened last year a store in Stockholm, on the Birger Jarlsgatan.
Carl-Axel Surtevall himself, who established the Casall brand most strongly in the United Kingdom and Spain, previously supervised the company’s export business directly. In the UK Casall sells prominently to department stores like Harrods as well as specialist chains like Sweaty Betty. On the other hand, the brand has dropped its distributor in Italy, which had problems with the Swedish brand due to mighty local competition (see previous article on Freddy).
Casall will be looking at ways to solve its problems in the United States. Until recently it was the Swedish brand’s largest foreign market but its long-time distributor, Sweat & Smile of Naples, Florida, ran into financial problems for unrelated reasons. For the time being Casall is delivering straight to its former U.S. sales representatives, who have kept a Casall store in Naples.
Another part of the international expansion should come from Taiwan, where Casall has signed a distribution deal with Makalot, a large textile company. The two companies will jointly open two stores in Taipei in November, with a view to more openings over the next few years and a possible foray into China.
Apparel currently makes up about 60 percent of Casall’s sales, but the company intends to boost the equipment part by upgrading its packaging and matching it more closely with the apparel. More than 80 percent of the clothing is produced in Europe, chiefly in the Baltic States, Slovenia and Bosnia.
