The now 32-year-old twin brothers Aleksandr and Jevgenij Borisenko founded Sportspar in August 2010.

The company is based in Eilenburg, Saxony.

They sell branded clothing online at exceptionally low prices.

According to Aleksandr Borisenko, you deal with seasonal and outlet goods, i.e. exclusively with residual items that you either purchase directly from manufacturers or distributors.

At primary school age, the brothers and their families moved from Lithuania to Thuringia. When they were still at school, they wanted to supplement their modest pocket money. As Aleksandr Borisenko reports, they started selling three pairs of sneakers on Amazon and Ebay. In June 2011 the official online shop SportSpar.de was set up. The Vilnius native says that they started with just 400 euros in capital.

Today Sportspar GmbH employs 106 people and is the largest German online outlet for sportswear and sporty leisurewear.

In 2020, sales were more than 25 million euros and the annual profit was 2.3 million euros.

"We think that we are solving a problem in the market because we buy very large quantities of items from big brands such as Adidas, Nike and Puma, for which no buyers would normally be found," says Borisenko.

Continous growing

Sportspar is represented at other locations, for example in Berlin and Leipzig.

“Our range is very diverse.” New items are put online every day, and another 15,000 are available.

They sell mainly in Europe.

"We operate our own national shops for Spain, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland, as well as an English-speaking shop."

The company grows out of itself every day.

“We are aiming for double-digit growth in 2021,” reports Borisenko.

The articles they offer are no longer available in the manufacturers' shops.

Her target customer group is people who want to save money and don't need to have the latest product.

65 percent of the customers are male.

According to Borisenko, an average of around 300,000 products are sold per month.

In product comparisons on the Internet, Sportspar articles are usually the cheapest.

Well-known sneakers are in demand, and soccer jerseys from well-known teams.

You don't see yourself in direct competition with providers like Intersport.

“Your focus is, for example, on seasonal products that are as good as new,” says Borisenko.

"You don't throw anything away"

Another special feature of Sportspar is the low rate of parcel returns.

According to Borisenko, this is up to 80 percent for shoes and textiles in Germany.

The sport savings rate, on the other hand, is 9 percent.

"We grew up in very simple circumstances, so that we were taught not to throw anything away."

“We keep the returns low by only offering goods from the last season at extremely low prices, because when it comes to bargains, people are very reluctant to return the product,” says Borisenko.

On average, a product costs 10 euros.

"The value from which the return rate increases is 25 euros."

If returns have errors or defects, they will be repaired.

“Then they go on sale as so-called B-goods, so that not a single product has to be thrown away,” continues Borisenko.

The reprocessing reduces the price of the product by around 20 percent.

Articles can be saved with simple means such as a needle, glue or a hammer.

The customer hotline is also located directly at the warehouse. This allows you to give more specific tips about the goods and avoid future returns. The customers have to pay the shipping costs themselves. "Over 50 percent of the orders come from our existing customers", reports Jan Klammann, Co-Chief Operating Officer of Sportspar. In order to win new customers, the focus is primarily on “deal marketing”: According to Klammann, special offers are placed on well-known platforms such as Mydealz or prinz-sportlich.de.

The 17-year-old student Finn Lindemann from Dortmund is a regular Sportspar customer.

He is very careful about his expenses.

“I've been playing tennis since I was a child, which means I often order new clothes for sports.

It is therefore important to me not to always have to pay 100 euros for a pair of shoes. ”He can order two pairs from Sportspar.

The article comes from the school project “Youth and Economy”, which the FAZ organizes together with the Association of German Banks.