It’s always been a big exception when established merchants experiment with new business models. Last week at the second Social Commerce Forum, Sven Schlager (Head of E-commerce) and Michael Kuhlmann (Head of Clubsale) from the Primondo spin-off Planet Sports reported on their experiences with Clubsale.

• Clubsale launched in February and currently offers one sales event per week.

• The market focus lies firmly with skateboarding products.
• The average purchase order is around 60 euro (which lies below what is expected from Planet Sports).
• Some early customers have already ordered up to 8 times.
• 90% of the products are sold within the first 24 hours.
• The average age of a Clubsale customer is higher than that of Planet Sports.

Planet Sports has been in existence for 15 years and is currently on a growth spurt. If memory serves correctly, the annual growth rate is 50-60%.

Apparently, Clubsale is not intended to replace the Planet Sports outlet section, but is instead built and operated as an independent business.

Also interesting is that the initiative for Clubsale seems to not have come from Primondo, but rather from Planet Sports themselves.

The Verbraucherzentrale NRW (Consumer Advice Center of North Rhine-Westphalia) has made an interesting consumer oriented investigation on the Live Shopping scene in Germany. Original report in German here.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.