Intersport International Corp. (IIC) intends to fine-tune the development and adoption of its own private brands, further raising their share of the affiliated retail members’ sales.
Positioned as mid-priced, high-quality offerings with good margins against those of the major brands, the group’s exclusive brands currently represent around 10 percent of its total retail sales, compared with less than 6 percent before Steve Evers became IIC’s CEO at the beginning of 2019.
Excluding affiliated retailers that don’t carry the Intersport banner, which represent about one-third of the total turnover, they have a penetration of around 15 percent. The rates vary from one region and country to the other, with Scandinavia at around 16 percent, the Central European region at around 10 percent and Southern Europe at 15 percent. Germany sits more or less in the average, France is well above the average, and the Eastern European countries at a much higher level of adoption.
The goal is for the exclusive brands to grow to at least 20 percent of the Intersport-bannered retail stores’ sales by 2025, said Evers in an exclusive interview. He indicated that brands like McKinley and Energetics probably have the greatest potential for improvement.
Because of big regional differences in consumer tastes and other reasons, it’s going to be a challenge to reach this goal with Intersport’s exclusive apparel products, Evers admitted. “We are doing more with less,” he said, noting that the number of styles has been reduced by more than 30 percent in the past two years, as part of a strategy to simplify and better monetize the range, with higher volumes per style. On the other hand, the national operations and their members have to place some minimum orders to help negotiate the best possible prices.
As previously reported, Intersport’s private label business is going to be steered by a new dedicated general manager, Katja Adrienne Erbe, who will be taking over the responsibilities of Jessica Mair from the month of March.
At the same time, Intersport intends to continue its strong collaboration with several big sports brands, including Adidas and Nike, which have officially elected Intersport as a “strategic partner” in the sports performance segment of the market. According to Intersport’s management, in spite of their own growing emphasis on direct-to-consumer operations, they continue to value Intersport’s extensive coverage of the local markets and its focus on sports performance products.
