In the first six months of 2008, the German and Swiss sporting goods retailers affiliated with Sport 2000 raised their retail sales after VAT by 7 percent to approximately €650 million - a figure that is not necessarily accurate because it is based on those supplied by a selected panel of group members. Centralized invoicing and fulfillment increased in the same period by 12 percent to €276.1 million.
The number of affiliated retailers slipped slightly to 789. While the group welcomed 25 new retail partners between January and July, 36 dealers had to leave the group. According to Jens Fischer, Sport 2000’s managing director, most of the casualties ran very small shops that could not stand against stiff competition any longer. The majority of the lost members did not go bankrupt, but simply gave up their business, partially also because of age and succession problems.
The vast majority of retailers who quit the buying group came from Germany; only two were Swiss. On the other hand, most new partners were Germans, basically specialty retailers for outdoor and team sports, while Sport 2000 grew enormously in Switzerland in terms of points of sale due to the fact that Manor, the local department store chain, joined the group. Sport 2000 in Germany and Switzerland welcomed 108 new doors between January and July, but lost 45 outlets.
In Germany, Sport 2000 is re-shuffling its portfolio of different types of retail formats. As reported last year, the group has cancelled the former concept called Big Point, a price-driven approach to retailing that could be called a “Mini-Décathlon.” Instead, Sport 2000 is now developing so-called flagship stores of 800 to 1,400 square meters. According to Andreas Rudolf, the other managing director, Sport 2000 would like to see 16 stores of that type by 2013. The concept is not necessarily price-oriented, but the headquarters intends to provide 80 percent of the merchandise and 80 percent of the marketing activities to the members who operate these stores. The concept is designed for locations outside city centers, in towns larger than 80,000 inhabitants. The flagship stores should not necessarily be located in shopping malls, but in the neighborhoods of attractive specialty retail chains such as Media-Markt or Saturn, the local heroes in electronics retailing.
The other new project is to adopt the original French strategy to open so-called S2 stores. The members of Sport 2000 France currently operate 48 doors of that type of retail, which offers 80 percent footwear, 15 percent apparel, and 5 percent equipment and accessories. The plan is for the group’s retail partners to open two S2 stores in Germany next year. Sport 2000 expects to have 10 S2 outlets in Germany by 2010 and 40 by 2013. Approximately 50 percent of the stores are planned to be in top downtown locations, while the rest are to be positioned in shopping malls. Sport 2000 confirmed that there are negotiations with ECE, the mall operator of Otto Group, to install S2 stores operated by affiliated members in ECE malls.
Sport 2000 recently announced that it was about to outsource its entire warehousing to a third party, G.L. Kayser, a subsidiary of Kühne + Nagel, a major logistics provider in the country that operates a warehouse just around the corner from the group’s headquarters in Mainhausen close to Frankfurt. Kayser will also take over Sport 2000’s employees who worked in the warehouse and provide a surface of 17,400 square meters. In a next step the logistics of Sport 2000’s parent, Ariston-Nord-West-Ring, are to be shifted to Kayser, too. The move was necessary due to space problems at the Mainhausen headquarters. Rudolf hinted that the newly gained space might be used for larger order shows.
The buying group is preparing its 30th anniversary next year. As it is common practice, Sport 2000 is encouraging its vendors to commit themselves financially to various marketing activities for the anniversary. But Sport 2000 intends to make a difference here, because only two-thirds of the money provided by the brands will be used for marketing tools like fliers, POS marketing etc. One-third of the amount shall be granted to a charity project, an S.O.S Kinderdorf, a children’s village in Kenya which will take advantage of the money.
