Keller Sports, the first online retailer in Europe to have chosen a premium positioning in the market, won a couple of important prizes a few weeks ago in a prestigious contest for the “Shop Usability Award,” organized by a German retail consultancy, Shoplupe. Competing against 533 other e-commerce websites in sports and many other sectors, including major players like Zalando, it was voted by a jury of e-commerce experts as the best online shop overall as well as the best online shop for sporting goods in Germany.
Keller Sports' declared mission consists in selecting the best products in certain categories - tennis, running, outdoor, training and winter sports - and in presenting them in the best possible way for customers all over Europe to make their best choices. It doesn't want to swamp the visitor with a catalog of thousands of products. The 500-odd products offered on the Keller Sports website, have been carefully pre-selected by the company's buyers, in concert with experts in each sport, to guarantee a high quality level. They are presented in eight different languages.
Some of the products, like the Ultra Boost running shoe by Adidas, are illustrated in all their most significant details, using a parallex effect to let the user scroll down through the product presentation. This and other navigational tools make it easier for the visitor to understand the technical aspects of various products and to compare them with one another through a sophisticated advisory tool, the “Keller Sports Product Matching Engine.”
At the same time, customers are given a chance to enjoy the experience of shopping online through an eye-catching web design, intuitive handling and innovative effects. Price is not supposed to be the key factor of choice, but Keller Sports claims to be offering fair and competitive prices. Special filters allow the consumer to look for special offers and second-season products.
The website offers other special tools to help customers choose the most suitable products for their individual needs and their physical characteristics. It shows how to make the best use of them, for example in lacing up a pair of running shoes. As part of the online shopping experience, visitors to the website can watch videos where sports pros talk about the products. For expert advice, they can chat online with a running coach, a tennis coach or another member of Keller Sports' multi-lingual team of 15 customer service employees, who practice different sports activities intensely.
Starting ten years ago with Babolat, when they founded their company in Munich at the ages of 22 and 18, respectively, the brothers Moritz and Jakob Keller have managed to win the support of nearly 100 major brands in tennis, running, outdoor, training and - most recently - winter sports. A year after launch, Keller Sports added pages in English to its German website and began to do business with Adidas, Nike and other major sports brands. In the process, the company has obtained .
The online retailer is also working closely with Asics, Under Armour, Salomon, The North Face and many other leading brands. It is co-branding a special tennis ball with Wilson. Keller Sports participated with Asics in a product demo at the recent Berlin Marathon, and the two companies plan to work jointly on other events.
While remaining strong in the premium segment of the tennis market, Keller Sports has diversified into other categories. Starting with the current autumn/winter season, it is adding some key winter sports products by premium brands such as Peak Performance and J.Lindeberg next to Patagonia and Pyua. For the moment, the website offers snow goggles, snow helmets and other accessories. Skis and ski boots by brands such as Head, Rossignol, Blizzard and Tecnica, which are already stocked in its warehouse, will be available shortly.
With an annual growth rate of around 50 percent, Keller Sports has apparently enough on its plate to afford to remain selective. Noting that it is selling also the products of smaller brands like Super Natural, the elder brother at the helm, Moritz Keller, says his company is open to collaboration with other brands as long as their products are in line with the highest standards in terms of design, quality and technical innovation. But, he points out, Keller Sports has stopped working with brands that did not deliver on their promises.
Keller Sports expects to be welcoming its 1,000,000th customer next year. The company says it gets about one million unique visits on its websites, almost half of them through mobile devices. It declines to mention its turnover, indicating that it sits somewhere between €10 million and €100 million a year.
The company says it is getting more and more repeat customers. They can return products, but the selectivity of the purchasing process and the wide range of advisory tools has led to a return rate that has continuously decreased, down to 15 percent as of today.
About half of its sales are generated in Germany, which is growing as fast as the rest of Europe, but Keller Sports has a clear international orientation. Most of its 100-odd employees are German, but English is the official language spoken within the company.
To help finance its rapid development, the Keller brothers and Florian Otte, who joined the company as chief technical officer in 2006 and became managing partner in 2012, obtained the support of other investors through three rounds of financing in the past two years. However, the two founding brothers still control jointly a majority of the shares. They have no plans to go public anytime soon.
