Killick Datta, the legendary sporting goods industry executive who is now the global licensee of Beachbody for apparel and footwear, had told us at the Ispo show in Munich earlier this year that he was forecasting sales of $50 million this year for the line, after reaching a turnover of $27 million in 2019. He is now confident that the line, which was first launched in the autumn of 2018, will exceed that forecasts because Covid-19 is boosting home fitness and training and because a big part of Beachbody’s business is now coming from drop-shipping and online sales in the U.S. and Asia.
Based in California, Beachbody is regarded as a leader in the health and fitness industry. Datta is the chief executive and a major shareholder of Global Brand Partners (GBP), a company based in Singapore that has been its licensee for the brand’s shoes and clothing since 2017 (SGI Europe Vol 28 No. 9+10 of 2017). GBP also operates its own subsidiary in the U.S. and has offices in Los Angeles, Portland, London and Ho Chi Minh City.
Sales are growing rapidly now in the U.S. after just 18 months in the market, thanks in part to the use of drop-shipping with retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Roadrunner Sports, Gov X and other clients, more than offsetting the loss of the brick-and-mortar business, which was small for Beachbody last year anyway. With the retail lockdown spreading in the U.S., these and other retailers have been taking orders online and getting the products shipped directly to their customers from GBP’s warehouse in Los Angeles. Customers pay the retailer who in turn pays GBP.
GBP had already started to work well with Dick’s and other retailers like Scheels and Amazon in the U.S. with the autumn/winter 2019 Beachbody collection. It has also been doing well with other key accounts such as JD Sports in the U.K., Xebio in Japan, Planet Sports in Indonesia and Marathon Sports in Hong Kong. Retailers’ orders for spring/summer 2020 had gone up sharply, but with many physical stores closed in large parts of the world, many customers have used GBP’s available inventory to buy its products based on the drop-shipping model or directly on GBP’s fast-growing online store, the GearUp.Shop, where sales have already increased by more than 250 percent as compared to a year ago.
Meanwhile, GBP has opened its first physical Gear Up store featuring all its Beachbody products in Singapore, where the company’s head office and global logistics and distribution center are located. According to Datta, many of GBP’s distributors in Asia and the Middle East are planning to replicate the store concept along with its webstore to offer omni-channel options in each of their markets.
Thanks to the strong connections that Datta established with many major distributors during his senior management roles at Nike, LA Gear, Brooks, Skechers, Diesel and Wolverine Worldwide, GBP’s Beachbody line is now sold in 48 countries around the world. His latest recruits are Groupe Royer in France, Sennek Oy in Finland, Falaknaz Sports in Dubai and FL in Italy. The latter is a joint venture operation run by Enrico Pesallaccia, another sporting goods industry veteran who previously worked with Datta and held senior positions at Fila, Sixty Group and Hush Puppies.
