The German Keller Group – umbrella company of Keller Sports, Keller X, Keller Premium and Keller Smiles – has filed for insolvency proceedings in self-administration at the Munich District Court, according to German trade magazine TextilWirtschaft. The main reasons cited are the supply chain crisis and the significant deterioration in consumer and market conditions. An assessor has been appointed, business operations will continue unchanged.
Keller Sports was founded in Munich in 2005 as an online specialty sports retailer. A first brick-and-mortar store in the company’s hometown followed in 2016, and in 2020 the company was rebranded as Keller Group after expanding to lifestyle products with the Keller X online store and launching its own fitness affiliate program app, Keller Smiles.
At the Internet World Business Shop Awards, Keller was named the best online retailer in Germany in 2019, and the company also received the German Design Award 2018 and the Shop Usability Award 2017 in the category “Most Innovative Shop” and the Shop Usability Award 2015 in the category “Best Online Shop in Germany.” In 2021, the company received the “Excellent Communications Design - Web” award as part of the German Design Award 2021 for the Keller Sports and Keller X stores.
Before the pandemic, Keller Group had planned to reach sales of €100 million in 2020, according to TextilWirtschaft, but Covid and the Ukraine war had caused the economic situation to deteriorate extremely, and the company found itself in the red. As a reaction, only in October of this year, Ingo Stober had strengthened the management around co-founder Jakob Keller and Marcus Trute. In May, Moritz Keller, who founded the online retailer in 2005 with his brother Jakob, had left the company.
