At the OutDoor show in Friedrichshafen last week, Kim Roether and Jochen Schnell, chairman and member of the executive board of Intersport Germany, respectively, gave an insight on the evolution of the buying group in the first half of 2015.
Compared with the previous year, the affiliated retailers improved their turnover in terms of euros by 3 percent in Germany, 12 percent in Austria, 10 percent in the Czech Republic, 6 percent in Slovakia and 5 percent in Hungary, but they were down by 3 percent in Poland. The managers, who expect an overall small plus for the full year, were particularly glad that the increase occurred in the absence of any major sports event – such as the football World Cup last year.
After two years of flat sales, the outdoor category was up by 5 percent, mainly driven by shoes which grew by 8 percent while apparel remained challenging. Evidence of the developing footwear segment is the latest ranking of Intersport's top suppliers in the outdoor business. Lowa is in number one spot, followed by Schöffel and Campagnolo. Lowa's competitor Meindl also improved and took the fifth position right behind Jack Wolfskin.The list was previously led by Jack Wolfskin, which has fallen to the fourth position. Besides the “Paw,” other large apparel and/or full-range suppliers saw a decline, including Mammut (#6) and The North Face (#8).
The German part of Intersport alone, while suffering a double-digit decrease because of the absence of a large sporting event this year, enjoyed a massive plus in the funwheels category where it grew by 18 percent over the previous year's period. That came mainly from successful sales of the trendy longboards. Snow sports improved by 25 percent, but sales in that segment in early 2014 had suffered from poor weather conditions. That was more or less the same in Austria where snow sports performed splendidly in the first quarter of 2015.
