Greenmaster, one of the biggest OEM manufacturers of fitness equipment, with factories in Taiwan and China, has set up its own distribution operations for the German, Austrian and Italian markets, where it has obtained the right to market a line of home fitness products under the Reebok brand name. This totally new line will be prominently shown in the fitness section of the ISPO fair in Munich next month, occuping a 300-square-meter booth near Accell Fitness and Kettler, on the spot previously occupied by Icon Health & Fitness which has decided instead to show in a Munich hotel.
The launch is being orchestrated by Frank Koch, a 47-year-old former manager of Icon in Germany who ran until a few months ago Kettler’s sports division. Koch is a partner in Green Fitness, the new German subsidiary of Greenmaster, which also covers the Austrian market. Another partner is Erik von Delius, former business unit manager of Intersport International for fitness products. A former assistant of Koch at Kettler, Erik Wachhold, has joined Green Fitness as sales manager.
Partly developed with the help of these industry heavywheights, the new Reebok line will be positioned in the medium and medium-high segment of the home fitness market, featuring a program connected with the internet to choose the right type of workout and the accompanying nutrition. Based on a new “premium dealer” concept, it will be offered only to specialized fitness dealers and to multi-sport retailers committed to set up a fitness area in their stores. The launch will be accompanied by a promotion involving some of Reebok’s sports icons, followed by some joint marketing initiatives with the Reebok brand at a later stage.
In Italy, Greenmaster’s Reebok line of fitness equipment will be marketed later this year by Greenfit Italy, another company established last May by the Asian company together with two Italian partners. One of the partners is Filippo D’Alessandro, a former category manager of Giacomelli Sport for all its European stores who specialized in fitness, cycling and football. He set up the sporting goods department of Mercatone Uno, one of Italy’s largest mass merchants, and then joined Cammax, the Italian licensee for Mizuno outdoor bicycles that bought Fassi Sport in 2005, as sourcing and product manager. Greenmaster was already a major supplier of Mercatone Uno as well as Fassi.
Greenfit has already started to supply major Italian retailers with fitness equipment under their own private label. In running Greenfit Italy, D’Alessandro is working with a sales manager, Gianluca Cornacchia, who was previously sales manager of Kettler Italia. Both of them claim to have boosted their respective companies’ sales sharply – reaching €15 million a year for Cammax, with 70 percent of that in fitness, and €8-9 million for Kettler. The target for Greenfit Italy is a turnover of €6-7 million in 2007, all in Italy, but its geographical reach may be extended to other countries in Southern and Eastern Europe at a later stage.
