Sales of the retailers affiliated with Sport 2000 Deutschland dipped by 1.8 percent, down to €1.55 billion after VAT, although the group's centralized invoicing increased by 5.3 percent.
Officials of the German cooperative blame aggressive pricing by certain online retailers, among other things. The retailers suffered also from unseasonable weather conditions last year, notably in the snow sports category. Sport 2000's managing director, Andreas Rudolf, said that there was still a considerable volume of winter sporting goods in stock in the warehouses both at the headquarters and in the shops.
Excess inventories were also recorded in the team sports segment. Notably, the retailers sold about 20 percent fewer Adidas football boots in the first half of 2013 than in 2012, which was a Euro Cup year, whereas Nike managed a small increase. In a unique cooperation with Sport 2000, Adidas has now agreed to accept returns of unsold footwear.
Rudolf indicated that the Three Stripes are still number one among the group's best-selling brands, but the number two, Nike, managed to reduce the gap with the market leaders, mainly due to a good performance in the running and football categories.
As far as the other top 20 brands in Sport 2000's ranking of the strongest vendors are concerned, the most remarkable jump was made by Campagnolo, the Italian sports apparel brand, which advanced to #10 from #18. Vaude moved four positions upward from 13 in 2012 to 9 last year. Asics is again number 3, swapping places with Puma which is now on the fourth position.
Jack Wolfskin, the shooting star over many years, dropped from #5 to #7. Fjällräven, in turn, made it into the Top 20 list for the first time, jumping to #19 from the 25th position in the previous year.
At Ispo, Rudolf described the “selective distribution” system introduced by a couple of vendors as a “failure” at this point. The termination of business relations with price-aggressive online retailers, the introduction of new general terms and the increase in minimum orders have not met the goal to reduce merchandise in the market and to preserve the minimum necessary price levels over the last 12-14 months. According to Rudolf, many brands have not been consistent in the way they are imposing new rules. He mentioned Deuter as an example of a consistent policy of dealing with internet retailers.
