Crisp&C [110790] will become a comprehensive sportswear company with sales of over 1 trillion won in a few years.” “We will launch the first products of the outdoor brand Hydrogen, which we acquired last year, from the spring-summer (SS) season next year,” said Kim Han-hum, CEO of Crisp&C, in an interview with Yonhap News Agency on September 9.”We believe that the proportion of outdoor will continue to grow in the fashion industry,” he said, adding, “We will utilize the know-how we have accumulated in the golfwear market for outdoor.”Crisp&C, the No. 1 golfwear company in Korea listed on the KOSDAQ market in 2018, generated sales of 380 billion won last year by selling brands such as Ping, ParisGates, St. Andrews, Phantom, and Master Vanity Edition .Founder and chairman Woo Jin-seok said he realized the growth of the golfwear market when he watched the “barefoot fight” scene on TV at the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open, where Park Se-ri entered the hazard and took off her shoes and socks to make a shot. It is a well-known anecdote within Crisp&C that Woo immediately traveled to the United States to import the PING brand and start a golfwear business.
Crisp&C is accelerating its expansion into the outdoors market, having acquired Italian premium brand Hydrogen in May last year and secured the exclusive domestic business rights to Switzerland’s No. 1 outdoor company Marmut. When asked about Crisp&C’s strategy as an outdoor latecomer, Kim emphasized that “differentiation is key, not copying.” “Hydrogen alone is a Korean brand that we acquired,” he said, adding, “We will introduce products that can be worn as daily wear with our own design .”Starting next year, Crisp&C plans to open a series of Hydrogen and Marmut stores in major department stores and cities across the country. “In the golfwear business, which is our core business, we believe that the differences and contrasts between brands will be clearly visible as the market has become more demanding,” said Kim .He said it will be an opportunity to break away from the overheated competition among various golf wear brands in Korea. “Crisp has a solid distribution network with 668 stores in Korea, the most in the country, and that hasn’t changed,” he said, adding that he was confident that “there may be ups and downs, but I never imagined that (growth) would be negative .”Crisp has been strengthening its online channel by establishing online platform Crismall as a separate entity last year.
In addition to its own brand, the mall is home to 44 companies, including Blackyak Golf, Vinpole Golf, and Le Coq Golf.” Chris Mall started as an in-house brand mall, but now it has become an online mall specializing in golf apparel with 200,000 members,” said Kim. “We plan to grow it into a comprehensive fashion mall with annual sales of 100 billion won.” When it was pointed out that strengthening the online platform could lead to conflicts of interest with store owners running offline stores, he said, “We don’t differentiate between online and offline prices because we have carryover products.” If there is no inventory, the company procures through offline stores spread across the country and pays a commission, while also conducting various O2O (online-offline) marketing, Kim explained .In addition, Mr. Kim said that the company plans to actively manage its stock price in the future while striving to return to shareholders. Previously, in October, Crisp&N conducted a stock split that lowered the par value per share from 1,000 won to 500 won. As a result, the total number of outstanding shares increased from 11.754 million to 23.439 million.” The purpose of the stock split is to reach out to more investors by increasing the number of shares in circulation,” said Mr. Kim. “We plan to continue to increase shareholder return by continuing to pay 온라인카지노 dividends after listing on KOSDAQ.”