According to preliminary figures, Germany's leading sporting goods chain managed to increase its overall sales by 6 percent during its 2011-12 financial year which ended Feb. 29. Altogether, SportScheck reached a turnover of €408 million. This indicates that this subsidiary of Otto Group made a difference to the general German market which was down by 3 percent last year.
The increase was largely organic as there were no major changes in the store network except for the shutdown of one store in Wolfsburg that is being replaced by another one in neighboring Braunschweig. Stefan Herzog, Scheck's managing director, told this publication that the share of mail-order sales remained stable at a share of 50 percent. Within the mail-order sector, the share of online sales grew slightly to some 73 percent.
Meanwhile, Scheck's activities outside Germany have come to a halt – as of now. Herzog said that the retailer ended a testing period in the Netherlands last year which was basically aimed to understand the Dutch market better. The same for Russia, but Scheck wants to come back to this country after some improvements. There is currently no schedule for the come-back on the Russian market.
By 2014, Scheck plans to open two more stores in Germany, increasing the total number of doors to 18 across the country. With the new two stores the chain will employ more than 1,500 people on a total selling surface of around 66,000 square meters.
One of the new stores will be located in the heart of Düsseldorf, on the Schadowstrasse, a completely revamped street near busy Königsallee (“Kö”) which will be transformed into a pedestrian zone. The four-storey outlet will have a selling surface of 3,500 square meters and is set to open in the autumn of 2014.
Already in spring of the same year, Scheck will move into the center of Kassel, a city in the north of Hesse. The store will open on three floors on a surface of 2,400 square meters.
