Amer Sports’ Business to Consumers exceeds 100 million euros

Amer Sports ©

This week Amer Sports’ annual Business to Consumers sales passed the 100 million euro mark for the first time. This result is a real milestone and manifests the power of the company strategy laid out in 2010.

Amer Sports’ Business to Consumers (B2C) covers the company’s own brand stores, partner stores, factory outlets and e-commerce stores. The company’s B2C strategy complements the traditional wholesale model by offering  the consumer  a great brand experience, communicating the brand essence and offering the consumer a wider set of choices of  when, how and where to buy, with special focus on markets where the wholesale channel remains underdeveloped, for example Russia, China, and Latin America.

“Our new strategy in 2010 called out winning in softgoods, winning with the consumer, and expanding our Go to Market into new channels. B2C was a logical and important part of the strategy", says Heikki Takala, President and CEO of Amer Sports.

“What we had back then was an approximately 20 million euro business, mostly built on partner retail model. First we set the B2C sales target to 100 million, naturally at target level of profitability, and we put the building blocks in place for the growth. These included a significant expansion in the number of brand stores and factory outlets in more countries, across more brands, whilst first piloting an e-commerce format and then moving fast to global expansion. Now, a few years later, we can be pleased to have reached this first milestone fully in line with our plan.” 

Amer Sports ©

“During the past four years, we have quickly expanded the Salomon retail and the cross-portfolio factory outlets, and we have started e-commerce with Salomon, Suunto, Arc’teryx, Wilson and Precor. We have also created and validated a very strong Arc’teryx retail model”, says Victor Duran, Senior Vice President, Marketing & B2C at Amer Sports.”B2C is a great way to win with the consumers, support commercial expansion and accelerate our softgoods.”

By the end of 2014, Amer Sports will have approximately 260 branded stores comprising of 110 own stores and approximately 150 partner stores. Additionally, Amer Sports will have 62 e-commerce stores globally, led by Salomon with 196 branded stores and 29 web stores.

Amer Sports ©

Moving to an increasingly balanced channel model

“We continue to evolve the company toward a balanced wholesale and B2C model, engaging the consumer at multiple touchpoints and reinforcing our brand demand, with a proven positive impact on the wholesale business. The key to success has been our B2C integration into both the brand and go to market strategies,” explains Duran. “This balanced model also includes our e-commerce which drives the consumer interest and purchase intention across the channels."

Amer Sports’ e-commerce first piloted with Salomon which opened the first webshop in France in December 2010. Since then the rollout has been rapid, across the brands and the countries.
“Now, after four years, it is obvious that we have been able to create a proven, scalable, global e-commerce platform”, says Victor Duran.

Amer Sports ©

Looking into the future


Where will Amer Sports B2C be in five years from today?

“We continue to pursue a balanced channel-strategy, aiming to increasingly surround the consumer with better brand experience, in more usage and purchase occasions. In our Capital Markets Day in August we said we are aiming to build B2C to minimum 10% of the Group sales, naturally profitably.  We continue to learn and improve, and we continuously re-set our targets and ambitions, based on the consumer learnings and our own success”, says Heikki Takala.

“We want to become an omni-channel capable company, move fast enough and be prepared for the 360° shopping experience revolution with consumer touch-points allowing them to buy anytime, anywhere and anyhow”, says Victor Duran.

“We are encouraged by this achievement of 100 million euro sales, and as always, we remain hungry for more”, continues Takala.

"Finally, I’d encourage all our partners, investors, and other stakeholders to visit our stores or e-commerce sites for a great brand experience. Happy Holiday shopping!”




Source Amer Sports ©