La Loupe Garmisch-Partenkirchen No. 5

“On the occasion of
the 120 th anniversary
the customers can
look forward to a
varied programme.”
“We really have a
locational advantage
here.”
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L.L. The Conrad family is very athletic. How important
is personal experience with different kinds of sports in the
shop?
H.C. Very important, of course. My grandfather was an
avid climber and so was my father. We’ve done many
trekking tours together as a family, to places all over the
world. My family has always been into mountaineering
and skiing. My father is 82 years old and still an avid skier
and he’s lucky his health still allows it.
Last year we organised a family ski day and it was amazing
to watch three-year-olds ski together with their 82-year-old
great-grandfather. You can feel the passion in everyone,
from the great-grandchildren to the great-grandfather.
And that has always been the reason why the family specialised
in skiing and ski touring and everything else came
on top of that.
L.L. The company is family owned in the 4 th generation.
Where in the business does the family cohesion show in
particular?
H.C. I took over management together with my sister.
But my father still is active in the business, as is my wife.
This makes for a special component, there is a lot of passion
and personal commitment in the business. With us it’s not
just about figures, it’s about this passion. Last year we
refurbished our headquarters in Penzberg and many dealers
said: “You’re doing really well online, why would you invest
so much in your shop in Penzberg, a town with 15,000
inhabitants?” Well – it is important for us to conserve the
location for the next generation.
Our staff also feel that they work with the family. Many
employees have been with us for a long time and now they
basically are part of the family. I even grew up with many
of them. It is also thanks to our staff that customers feel
that the family stands behind Sport Conrad. There is no
pressure to deliver certain figures, no sales commission.
We want to make sure our customers are taken care of as
well and as authentically as possible.
L.L. 120 years of Sport Conrad, that’s a long time – how
important was it to take the leap into modern times?
H.C. We took that step with our very early entry into
the online market in 1999. It forced us into modern times
because it made our business very international. A great
part of our customers comes from Scandinavia, France,
and even the USA. The online customers always were quite
demanding, more so than the customers in the shop. We
always had an international focus and wanted to cater
to these customers’ needs. Which is why we adapted the
product range at times when the trends weren’t yet visible
in Germany, such as free-skiing or telemark skiing. As
a consequence, we here in Garmisch-Partenkirchen were
always a few steps ahead.
Sport & Freizeit
L.L. You mentioned earlier that you opened your online
shop very early on. What did the online shop look like in
the beginning?
H.C. In the beginning it really was nothing more than an
Excel table with our products which could be ordered via
telephone or fax. In the first year, we would get maybe
five orders a month. But we noticed quickly
that the online shop had great potential:
Back then Völkl sold a wide freeride ski that
was selling badly here in Germany. Völkl
Hans Conrad has been
manager of Sport Conrad
came to me and asked me if I’d like to sell
for more than 20 years.
the remain 150 pairs. I agreed and put the ski
The 54-year-old has two
online. The next day there was a huge heap
children, he and his long-time
partner live in Garmischof
paper piled up under the fax machine –
Partenkirchen.
which is how all the orders were placed back
then – all of them from America. Turns out the
operator of a well-known American website
had discovered the ski and given the readers
the tip to order in our online shop. We sold the
entire stock of these skis in one night. And that made
us understand the possible scope of the online shop.
Consequently we immediately started running the online
shop in two languages.
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