Amer Sports Winter and Outdoor Americas will launch an e-commerce site in the fall of 2012 in a bid to drive consumers to its Salomon and Atomic dealers for fufillment of winter sports gear. Ski Link is being developed in cooperation with American retail partners to drive traffic and sales at specialty retail doors.
The individual US brand websites for Salomon and Atomic will each host Ski Link. The websites will:
- Provide excellent product experiences and brand information on the Salomon and Atomic products.
- Refer consumers to authorized retailers via the brand dealer locator and encourage consumers to buy locally.
- Extend an opportunity for the consumer to order the products immediately online which will be fulfilled and transacted through the authorized retailer of the consumers’ choice. The retailer will complete the sale as well as prepare and ready the equipment for use.
“As we have developed our Winter Sports Equipment ecommerce strategy, our first priority has been to enhance the overall experience for the consumer with the Salomon and Atomic brands without moving business away from our retail partners’ balance sheets. In fact our platform will drive new traffic directly to our retailers,” says Jeff Snyder, Amer Sports Global Director of Ecommerce.
“With the Ski Link model, specialty retailers are positioned squarely at the center of the equipment transaction,” says Mike Adams, Winter Sports Equipment VP and Commercial Director for Amer Sports Winter and Outdoor Americas. “This represents the first and only internet strategy in the winter sports equipment space that enables online product exposure for our brands without compromising the specialty retailers’ role or opportunity in managing consumer relationships.”
In order to provide complete information on Ski Link, there will be live webcast presentations of the program beginning in December 2011. The programs, along with dealer FAQs, 2012 dealer forms and participation guidelines will be posted on the dedicated informational website ski-referral.com starting December 2011. In addition, ski-referral.com will provide program updates as well as other relevant information to retail partners.
This retailer-centric strategy gives consumers what they desire most to see and find the broadest selection of products and purchase from a local, specialty retailer.
Amer Sports brands include Salomon, Wilson, Atomic, Arc'teryx, Precor, Suunto and Mavic. BAsed in Finland, the company's shares are listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki stock exchange.
