sportFACHHANDEL running 4_2015

sportFACHHANDEL – running 4.2016 RETAIL 47
to experts
Today, having personnel with excellent
know-how is a significant resource
for a shop, according to Jörg Seifert,
Managing Director of the Laufprofis.
“Nowadays, sales persons have to deal with
well informed customers. Therefore, the
retailers have to be always one step ahead.
Particularly specialised dealers have to
meet very high requirements. We want
to convey the know-how for the best and
latest form of customer advice with our
newly created training courses,” Mr. Seifert
explains.
The motto of the IHK certified practical
training is ‚Always well advised –more
expertise and its practical implementation
in the shop‘. Over the course of six months,
the training for the future experts is
divided into three sections. The training
programme started with the experts’
seminar about running shoes in Hamburg
in February. The next section about
management and sector-specific know-how
took place in March and they will hold the
course about know-how and sale of textiles
in May. The certification exam of the IHK
in Düsseldorf is scheduled at the end of the
series of seminars.
The Laufprofis team worked together
with the retailers in the conception of
the seminars right from the start.
“We coordinated the topics with our
partners and we tailored them according
to their needs. The main aim of the
training is that the new skills will help the
participants to highlight the individual
benefits for the customer during the
sales pitch,” Mr. Seifert says. The first
participants like the combination of
biomechanical know-how and sales
training “from person to person”.
Stephan Beenken of the shop
Läuferherz in Darmstadt reports, “The
customers do only recognise me as an
expert, if they have obvious benefits from
my know-how in sports science during
the sales talk. Yet therein lies the real
challenge –a subject which we discussed
intensively in the seminar.”
In cooperation with Currex, the experts for
professional motion analysis, the Currrex
analysis system Motionquest Neo has been
tailored to the needs of the Laufprofis
shops. This “expert version” scans even
more parameters and provides more
detailed results. The system combines three
analysis areas: the individual needs and
the exercise intensity of the customer, the
assessment of his static and dynamic leg
axes and the plantar pressure distribution
measurement via a pressure measurement
plate. With the results, the sales person is
able to recommend a category of shoes,
including the option to recommend the
fitting models from the shop’s range.
The new element of this kind of
customer advice is that the customer’s
opinion is in demand. Apart from the
measurement results, the focus lies on
the customer’s individual perception of
comfort. At the first seminar in Hamburg,
the members of the Laufprofis unit learned
»
Nowadays,
retailers
have to be
always one
step ahead.
Jörg Seifert,
Managing Director,
Laufprofis
from the Currex team how to turn this
mix of analysis results, shoe features and
customer feedback into the best possible
recommendation for the customer. “The
concept developed by the Sport 2000
Laufprofi unit – consisting of technical
training and corresponding analysis
system – is an excellent match. This way,
we have the most modern form of analysis
combined with the necessary knowledge.
Due to the intensive interaction, we are
able to get a little bit closer to the customer
during the sales talk and it strengthens the
personal relationship to him”, says Niko
Vanek, team leader of the shop Laufsport
Bunert in Cologne. The shop already uses
the device when recommending running
shoes.
Now, it is planned to use the analysis
system in increasingly more Laufprofis
shops. At present, the Laufprofis team
estimates that they will have installed
20 devices in 2016. The first so called
Monoliths have been delivered already to
Laufprofis shops in Cologne, Hamburg,
Betzdorf, Schweinfurt and Bremen. The
introduction of the terminal is supported
by Sport 2000 with a financial allowance.
Within the framework of the 50th
anniversary of Sport 2000, the buying
group invests in the future sustainability of
its unit of specialised running shops.