Amer Sports B2C acceleration targets doubled sales in three years, own stores planned

Amer Sports has issued an investor relations update within which the Mavic and ENVE parent outline ambitious plans to double sales in the next three years and open 25 own-portfolio stores annually.

Shifting its business to have an omni-channel approach, Amer is busy implementing measures to double traffic to its web stores, targeting a 30% compound annual growth rate for its e-Commerce trade. The firm is investing in developing customer’s online experience, implementing methods to grow the typical basket size and value.

“Overall in the market, brands are growing their Direct-to-Consumer sales as consumers increasingly seek to engage directly with brands and receive personalized product and service offers. Over the past year, we have re-organized into “Amer Sports Omni”, bringing together wholesale and B2C,” says Chief Commercial Officer Michael White.

”At first, a lot of business was based previously on good relationships with retail customers. Today, we are a modern, professional sales organization driven by the achievement of KPI´s. Second, we were focused on selling in as much as possible. Today, we focus on sell-through, which is highly attractive to our retail partners. We have also made the change from offering mass assortments to dealers to segmentation, which ensures the right consumer offer.”

With the plans to open its own stores serving the outdoor segment, the firm is keen to identify “winning accounts” to develop joint business plans for the future.

White added: “Some retailers are struggling, but others are doing well. Our role is to identify those winning accounts and then set up strong teams and joint business plans so that we grow with those accounts. High quality specialist accounts also continue to be important for our brands. Our consumers like the high service, high advice environment that the best specialists can provide.”

A five point plan to grow in an increasingly omni-channel market centres on being found online, the aforementioned winning accounts, a focus on the best specialists, a further acceleration of B2C channels and an exceptional customer experience.

On product sales, the firm revealed that 25% of soft goods sales already stem from B2C, while in China that figure rises to two thirds of sales. In the first half of 2016, B2C was said to have contributed 200 basis points to sales growth and 50 to gross margin.

“First we used events and our own retail stores to drive traffic, but now we also make extensive use of online search, social media, and digital dialogue to drive ever more consumers to our sites. We already have millions of contacts in our database, and we will multiple that by four in next three years. We have mobilized the whole Go-to-Market organization for that task. At the same time, we want to give consumers a frictionless experience on our websites as well as a great experience when they go to our stores or events.”

“Our portfolio enables scale and synergy in areas such as key account negotiations and sales management as well as in back office functions such as finance and HR. We plan to continue to grow the business in a healthy and sustainable fashion whilst improving our opex productivity,” concludes White.

The Amer Sports portfolio is made up of Saloman, Wilson, Atomic, Arc’teryx, Mavic, Suunto, Precor, Demarni, Louisville Slugger and ENVE.