The Italian buying group has signed a five-year contract as exclusive distributor of Völkl’s sports clothing on the Italian market. The retail members of the group will carry the line exclusively in the areas where they trade, but Sport Alliance will try to sell it to other stores that don’t belong to the group through a network of agents.
Guaranteed by the strong buying power of members such as Sportler and Sportland, which dominate Sport Alliance, the deal is similar to the exclusive contract that the group previously had with Anzi Besson or Gramicci for the Italian market.
Both of these deals are off now. Instead, Sport Alliance continues to represent the home fitness equipment of BH exclusively in Italy, and it has signed new exclusive contracts for Sherpa outdoor clothing from the U.S., Chanex snowboard clothing from Germany and Singing Rock climbing gear from the Czech Republic.
Sherpa is a line of outdoor clothing that is produced at 90 percent in Nepal, with the remaining 10 percent coming from China. It is being initially carried in Sportler and Sportland stores exclusively for the spring/summer 2010 season. These lines complement the private-label collections of Euro-Family, the European association of major outdoor retailers that includes Sportler, Globetrotter, Transa and A/S Adventure, among others. These collections have been placed at the disposal of Sport Alliance’s members.
Völkl recently spun off the development of its summer and winter clothing lines to a separate entity on Lake Constance. This policy has apparently generated positive results in Germany, Austria, Russia and the U.S.
