Oberalp Group, the Italian company that owns specialised outdoor and sports apparel and gear brands including Salewa, Dynafit and LaMunt, has recently held the Oberalp Summit, an annual meeting organized to meet clients, to present and discuss key current or future issues that might impact the outdoor world.
This year’s convention analysed and investigated about potential opportunities and limitations of the metaverse for companies specializing in mountain sports.
Within the forum, they presented the study “Mountain and the metaverse–synergy or contradiction?”, carried ahead among more than 2,500 respondents of different age groups, of whose 55% are over 50-year-olds, 27% are women and 8% of the sample are familiar with the metaverse.
From the survey, it emerged that in 2022 alone, investments toward companies and start-ups operating in the metaverse were US$120 billion. By 2030, according to estimates by Dr. Wieselhuber & Partner GmbH, a specialised German consulting firm, this market will be worth between US$1 and US$8 trillion. Therefore, the metaverse represents an investment opportunity for companies in every sector today.
"The metaverse fascinates us because it raises more questions than answers,” said Christoph Engl, CEO, Oberalp Group.
Oberalp explained that while keeping an eye on the newest and future developments and applications of metaverse, and its connected uses including Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, it will develop virtual showrooms and other digital services to better interact with its partners and customers in order to offer a unique product experience for its mountain brands.
"The idea to talk about metaverse came from the need to understand the next development stage for our online business–both from a sales perspective and at the strategic level of brand building and communication,” added Ruth Oberrauch, member of the Management Board of the Oberalp Group.
The metaverse may represent an opportunity to build a brand's reputation for future generations. Through virtual platforms of heterogeneous communities with specific interests and passions, it may offer many opportunities to create communication and brand awareness campaigns. Those initiatives of a new brand approach are also aimed at new targets of interest and might easily attract younger consumers including Gen Z and under 20-year-old with the goal of building solid and lasting relationships with future mountain goers.
The metaverse may also offer the possibility of integrating instructional platforms for training personnel of the mountaineering industry when its products are often very technical and innovative and thus require in-depth and detailed explanations, a digital platform could help for spreading such information.
Oberalp believes that the metaverse can offer many possibilities, including establishing a symbiosis between real mountain experiences and digital ones.
Among other results from Oberalp’s study, via the metaverse they could offer immersive ski touring and hike & fly experiences and can also allow people to try new sports. Mountain enthusiasts also pointed out the possibility of socializing and sharing information with others, which, to date, they do with other tools, such as Whatsapp.
In terms of shopping experiences, thanks to increasingly sophisticated augmented reality interfaces, in the metaverse, companies will be able to create virtual stores where users, impersonated by their avatars, will not only have the opportunity to try on mountain apparel and equipment as if they were in a physical store, but also dress in "digital skins," or outfits that cover the 3D models of their virtual characters. This way, shopping becomes an immersive experience, where consumers co-create with companies, generating new business opportunities.
The experience of a German retailer, Kickz, a multibrand specialist in basketball apparel and footwear from Berlin, was one of the highlights of the summit as the retailer has started operating through various digital and metaverse initiatives and met immediate success among its customers.
The group today distributes six own brands–Salewa, Dynafit, Wild Country, Pomoca, Evolv, and LaMunt–offering clothing and other sports product and gear. It employs 1,225 people and sells through 236 monobrand stores worldwide, supported by a total of 3,500 other players including multi brand stores and dealers.
The company registered a €367 million turnover in 2022, growing 20% when compared with its €303 million one of 2021.
Oberalp is also involved in a vast strategy aimed at lowering its impact through a series of initiatives at different levels including product and process, while aiming to reach carbon neutrality by 2030.
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