Having sold off its commercial fitness business, Nautilus has appointed a seasoned industry veteran, Alan Vickers, as director of international retail and business development, with goal to set up a new sales structure for the distribution of the U.S. company’s lines of home fitness equipment in Europe and other parts of the world.
Vickers, a 59-year-old British citizen who has lived in the U.S. for many years, joined Nautilus 18 months ago to set up a sales office in the U.K. for its gym equipment. That office and others in Germany and Switzerland have since been closed.
Vickers has a long track record in the broader sporting goods market, having led the former Olympus chain of sporting goods stores in the U.K., international sales at Umbro, the French market at Nike and the European market at Reebok. Recently he ran the Starbucks business in Russia, Turkey and the Middle East.
The Nautilus group sold its commercial fitness equipment business last year, running under the Nautilus, Schwinn and Stairmaster brands, because it had dropped considerably due to the financial crisis and because it was generating very low gross margins of only around 20 percent. It is now left with the successful Bowflex line of home fitness products and with various lines of treadmills, ellipticals, exercycles and other equipment for the home, sold under the Nautilus, Schwinn and Universal brand names. Sales of these products amount to about $80 million a year, but only about 10 percent of that is outside North America.
