One hundred Salomon Shops

From Next magazine issue 1/2010. Text by Markku Rimpiläinen

White and blue light, glimpses of the mountains, well-lit products: the 79-square-meter Salomon Store in Mega1, Moscow’s most popular mall with 250 shops, has a carefully designed look.

The Moscow store represents Salomon’s latest shop format – the compact store – which only sells footwear and apparel. The range is surprisingly wide nevertheless, offering 150 models of shoes, as well as six complete collections of clothing for both men and women.

Werner Schneider, General Manager of Amer Sports Russia, is extremely satisfied with the store, Salomon’s ‘business card’ in the country.

“A store like this is an excellent way to increase brand awareness. We can offer Russian consumers our top-notch products, which are rarely ordered by other customers.”

Salomon has high expectations for the agile store format. Easy to run with a small staff, the concept can be quickly set up in a variety of markets.

One hundred stores in four years

Salomon has developed its retail sales swiftly. The first Salomon Shop was launched in Prague in 2005, and by the end of 2009 the number of Salomon’s own shops and brand stores run by partners had reached one hundred.

“We wanted to create touchpoints with consumers to achieve a better ‘controlled’ distribution. We’re about a year ahead of plan in terms of doors and sales,” says Pascal Clausse, Global Retail Director for Salomon & Head of Retail Development for Amer Sports.

New Salomon stores will be launched in the coming years.

“Our sales target is 50 million euros in 2012,” says Clausse.

What is this success based on? To find the answer, let’s go back in time five years.