Outdoor brands are investing on their online shopping websites in order to boost sales. While The North Face launches in May or June its e-commerce websites first in England and Sweden and then France, Spain and Italy, Columbia Sportswear Company is also planning to expand its e-commerce services for the Columbia and Sorel brands into the European and Canadian markets.

Columbia Sportswear Company

After launching online shopping for the two above brands in the United States in 2009, the group is now planning to extend its e-commerce platform with the opening of two more websites from now until Fall 2011 due to the great success of its boutiques. The websites will be operated directly by the group and will serve Canadian, English, German, French, Italian, Deutsh, Austrian and Spanish customers.

This is a strategic development for the outerwear company, which turned over a total of 1.1 billion euros in sales in 2010, of which 163 million came from the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions.