MUNICH — Movement was key at this year’s ISPO Munich as the activewear exhibition boosted diversification toward digital innovations and retail strategies and focused even more on women in sports as a new target group.
Mobile applications, smart devices and wearables like ski poles equipped with sensor technology or digital ski trainers with inlay soles were among the products boosting the digital profile of the fair, which also attracted new exhibitors from the tech industry like Samsung and Casio.
“The interconnectivity to smart devices is really becoming more interesting. We were specifically looking for watches with digital functions this year,” said Dudu Ghe Negoesco, a managing partner at Tennis & Golf Mall, a specialty store in Bucharest, Romania.
German luxury ski heritage brand Bogner already employed that interconnectivity with virtual reality headsets to enhance customer’s journey at their booth at ISPO Vision. But Alexander Wirth, the brand’s chief executive officer, pointed out that digitization is not the only challenge. “The changing seasons are a real issue for winter sport brands. We are reconsidering delivery rhythms at the moment, and we already addressed the seasonal shift with a segmentation of our retail between city and ski resorts and a push-back of sales dates which lead to an increase in turnovers by 5 percent in the stores and 20 percent online in November and December.”
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While emphasizing the heritage of founder Willy Bogner, the brand is also looking to boost the sport fashion side and the premium line Fire & Ice to address younger clients. Besides the core market of Germany, the upcoming Olympics in China will account for new market opportunities, Wirth added.
A move toward fashion is sported by many brands in an attempt to counterbalance milder winters and shortening winter sport seasons: Swedish brand Peak Performance, for example, presented its first ski collection with British designer Nigel Cabourn. “Urbanwear and sportswear are moving closer together, and we propose more and more products that are suitable on the slope and in the city. We’re introducing jackets that perform, but that are thinner and look better,” a company spokesman said.
“Winter resorts have to become really creative now that they have less snow. People are willing to pay for good functional clothing, but it’s still really hard to find beautiful skiing clothes. We are also looking at lifestyle aspects and want to offer products you can wear for sports and in the city,” said Ambros Strolz, who runs a network of winter sport and concept stores in the Austrian ski resort Lech. He added, “Besides sportswear, our new concept stores sell design products, cosmetics and even organic dog food. And they have outperformed all my expectations.”
“We need to diversify our proposal to address the risk of not having a winter,” echoed a buyer from a large European sports retail chain, who requested anonymity. “We particularly look for very high-quality materials, but we already placed most of our orders in December.”
“The fair is too late. We already ordered most of our stock in December,” repeated Lukas Imhof, head buyer of Bächli Bergsport, a mountaineering retailer in Switzerland. “With regard to our portfolio, we go back to our core competence and focus on products that are embedded in mountaineering and biking sports. We just need to accept that there is less snow and that it’s coming later. We need to think seasons differently. Summer can now last until Christmas and winter may start in January and last until April,” he said.
Ronie Reuben, director of Canadian Thindown, which weaves fabric using down for companies like Brioni and Kanuk, agreed: “Brands and retailers of winter sport brands need to rethink their rhythms entirely. Shops start to mark down before winter even arrives, and summer clothes arrive when people are still looking for parkas,” he said.
It’s an outlook that may have shifted the overall focus of the fair. Besides digital innovations, the outdoor segment saw the strongest growth with 40 new exhibitors, as did the Health & Fitness division, which offered more gear and nutrition.
“Yoga and Pilates are still growing, and people want to go there straight from work and from their classes, they want to go out. So there’s definitely more ath-leisure because they want clothes that suit all situations,” said Giovanna Sinibaldi, sales manager at Eurojersey, a textile producer for brands like Lululemon Athletica and Karla Colletto.
“Fabrics are becoming lighter because customers expect more performance,” said the representative of Swiss textile manufacturer Schoeller Textil AG. In collaboration with membrane manufacturer Osmotex and science laboratory Empa, the company presented an electro-osmotic membrane that regulates water and heat. “There’s an immense potential in smart textiles and we’re optimistic that these kind of products will be ready for the market very soon,” she said.
In the outdoor section, clothing company Páramo set a new mark by almost entirely shifting production to Fair Trade Organization members, gaining 80 percent First-Buyer Labels on its product range. “Fair trade is still a niche subject, but it’s spilling over to outdoor and sportswear from fashion since Patagonia started the conversation,” a company spokesman said.
Even as many brands introduced new materials and digital applications, Frank Geisler, managing director of Ochsner Sport, asked for more: “There seems to be some slacking with regards to innovation in comparison with the past,” he said during a symposium on “Digitization as Growth Stimulus for Industry and Retail,” with representatives of German e-tailer Zalando and Swiss omnichannel retailer Ochsner Sport as well as Adidas, which was returning to ISPO after a 16-year absence.
Setting new records, the winter sports-focused trade show attracted 2,732 exhibitors and more than 85,000 visitors from 120 countries, with the largest increases coming from Italy, Russia, Great Britain, China and the United States.
Klaus Dittrich, chief executive officer of the trade show’s organizing company Messe München GmbH, said that “fresh new starters must learn about established business and the established businesses must be open to new ideas and innovations from the fresh starters,” with regard to the exchange between established industry and new digital players.