Salomon opens Champs-Elysées flagship to spice up sportstyle positioning improve

Salomon is climbing to a different stage. In just some weeks, the French sport attire and gear model has opened a powerful Parisian flagship on the Champs-Élysées, and one other assertion retailer within the coronary heart of the capital’s Marais district, on the nook of rue des Francs Bourgeois and rue Vieille du Temple. A retail increase that brings the variety of Salomon’s Parisian shops to 4, and indicators the model’s ongoing shift to the next gear.

Following its NYSE itemizing earlier this yr, Amer Sports activities, wherein Chinese language group Anta has held a majority stake since 2019, has powered up its retail development, notably specializing in increasing the footprint of its Canadian model Arc’teryx, in addition to that of Salomon, which Amer Sports activities purchased from Adidas in 2005. Salomon is prospering due to the bold plans drawn up by Jie Zheng, Amer Sports activities’s CEO, who has additionally been appointed the French model’s CEO advert interim, following Franco Fogliato’s departure. Zheng’s plans for Salomon embody upgrading its positioning, and its employees is busy remodeling the model’s product vary and identification into that of a mountain sports activities specialist with an more and more way of life really feel.

In recent times, Annecy-based Salomon has grow to be the footwear model of alternative for a lot of city shoppers, and has developed a reference to the world of style, notably by means of the XT6 mannequin. An evolution that grew to become crystal clear a yr and a half in the past, when Rihanna sported the Cross Low footwear designed in collaboration with MM6 Maison Margiela in the course of the Tremendous Bowl’s half-time present.

“As an American, I knew Salomon as a specialist ski brand. Many savvy practitioners used it. But Salomon’s business structure has changed drastically,” stated Scott Mellin, former world VP mountain sports activities at The North Face, who was named Salomon’s world chief model officer in January 2023. “In the 90s, [Salomon] was 100% focused on skiing and snowboarding equipment. Nowadays, winter sports equipment accounts for 15% of our total revenue, apparel for 5%, and footwear for 80%,” he added. Salomon’s main classes are path and mountain climbing footwear, however the model is present process a profound transformation, after opening the Annecy Design Centre final yr. 

“Skiing and snowboarding products are mountain-related businesses, dominated by specialised shops. Now we’re a footwear company first and foremost, so we’re able to control our customers’ experience. To do so, we had to ask ourselves what Salomon really is,” stated Mellin. “When I joined nearly two years ago, we didn’t really have a mission statement, or a brand vision. We just had a strong winter sports heritage. I came on board with new, more sophisticated tools, as well as my operational experience with global brands. My first task was to define the brand’s purpose, its mission, its values, and who our consumers are. These same consumers told us that they are young, urban, and with an eye for cool brands. With Salomon, we’re creating a modern mountain sports and lifestyle brand, and we aren’t shy about our expertise. This is the future of mountain sports lifestyle. We’re having such success in the sportstyle arena because people want the mountain experience in their lives. Our fast-growing popularity with the fashion community is linked to our performance know-how. The opportunities we are enjoying via stores in the Marais and the Champs-Élysées [in Paris], and future stores in other major cities, are tied to our ability to bring mountain sports lifestyle to people,” stated Mellin.

Increasing the attire enterprise is envisaged as a powerful development alternative, however Salomon’s key goals are linked to the footwear class the place, for a few years, the model’s robust go well with has been product and expertise innovation.

“With technology innovation as our foundation, we are working on sustainability by experimenting on materials, by transitioning newly developed products like the Index [recyclable running shoes] to industrial-scale production, and finally by reviewing our manufacturing operations and bringing them closer to home, as we did last year by starting to produce the ASF 4.0 in the Ardèche region. We also seized the opportunity provided by the Olympics and the Champs-Élysées flagship’s opening to produce a limited edition of the S/Lab Phantasm,” stated Guillaume Meyzenq, vice-president footwear.

Footwear “at the core of the sportstyle range”

How does performance-based product innovation feed the brand new Parisian flagship’s narrative, reaching the broadest doable viewers by mixing efficiency and sportstyle? “Authenticity is key,” stated Mellin. “You need athletes and innovative products, like the S/Lab [range], to meet the expectations of the sport practitioner community. The Champs-Élysées store is strongly focused on our history and on S/Lab. We must tell our story. Studies have shown that Salomon’s brand awareness rate in Paris is 23%, but in the USA it’s 1%, so it’s very important to convey our DNA. Secondly, it’s extremely significant that shoes that led the performance range 10 years ago now constitute the core of the sportstyle range. This means that we must constantly do our best innovation-wise to develop new technologies and looks, and this will trickle into the sportstyle range in subsequent years,” added Mellin.

It took a while for this evolution to realize traction at Salomon. “The first signs came 10-15 years ago. We carried out several unsuccessful tests, but eventually we were contacted in 2016 by fashion players such as the Broken Arm concept store in Paris and designer Boris Bidjan Saberi. They had realised there was an emerging trend for outdoor activity-themed fashion, people wearing Salomon alongside couture clothes,” stated Meyzenq. “We have evolved by staying true to ourselves, and connecting with the right communities. Designers have their point of view, they have taken our products and changed the concept, sometimes with different storylines. And the trend is growing fast, and is attractive because I think we’ve introduced a new perspective. Outdoor performance-inspired sneakers are becoming a genuine segment,” he added.

To strengthen its positioning, Salomon has just lately signed up varied ambassadors, a novel technique for the model because it goals to enchantment to style and culture-related communities. Salomon has cast hyperlinks with British singer-songwriter Ama Lou and Colombian-born US musician Feid, to particularly goal the US market. Nonetheless, when it comes to model positioning, the sportstyle strategy should stay strongly linked to the efficiency element.

“We need to work on both aspects simultaneously. A mistake that some brands seem to have made in the past is to swing back and forth between the two, but if you move away from performance, customers will switch to other brands, and you’ll lose authenticity. Salomon’s strategy is [to focus on] both performance and sportstyle elements,” stated Mellin. “In the next five to six years, I think the two categories could be worth the same [Salomon does not publish its financial results but it is the most influential brand in Amer Sports’s performance segment, which was worth $1.67 billion in 2023 – editor’s note]. It will depend on the overall value of the business. Our product categories’ potential in the performance market is about five times smaller than their potential in the lifestyle market. A 1% share in the lifestyle market could be equivalent to a 5% share in the performance market,” he added.

Salomon is due to this fact aiming to reassure its efficiency clients with new retailer ideas and campaigns, whereas additionally interesting to doubtlessly new clients. “A complex balance to strike,” stated Mellin, including that Salomon’s model territory “is not in the under €100 bracket. Our core market opportunities are in the €120 to €180 bracket. And I see, for example, that S/Lab [products] have the ability to rise higher, by leveraging innovation and technology. [S/Lab] is one of the lines with the highest market potential in the sport equipment landscape.”

The sky’s the restrict? Amer Sports activities CEO Zheng was in Paris final week, attending varied occasions staged by the group’s manufacturers, however he didn’t specific his views on this.