With a Success Story to Encourage Other Entrepreneurs
Esslingen/Berlin, December 4, 2008 – Internetstores AG has experienced an almost fairy-tale ascent over the last five years. René Marius Köhler has turned a two-man operation in to a medium-sized e-commerce company with two online stores, fahrrad.de and fitness.de. Combined, his company generates a turnover of €22M. With this success,the young German has had little time to reflect. Köhler’s bicycle business future hung in the balance shortly before 2005. Still the young CEO believed that even in a crisis his company had a positive future. This optimism and determination is a case study for similar entrepreneurs. As a result, Köhler was honoured Tuesday evening at Berlin's “Tipi”, a gala celebration of his SME award, the“Vanguard (Mutmacher) of the Nation” for the German area of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The founding company of the awards “Das Örtliche“ played host to a room of industry professionals on the night.
When René Marius Köhler launched fahrrad.de in the spring of 2003, he quickly learned to roll with the punches and never imagined being a role model for others. In 2005 the established web store fahrrad.de went through its first financial test. After a change of location from Stuttgart to Waiblingen-Hegnach. Köhler and his 10 employees found that internet purchasing of bicycles was not increasing as quickly as first thought. This cast doubt on the business model, with a period of low turnover and growth.
Investor interest became scarce, with debt of €1.2M, a liquidity problem followed and the right type of logistics parter became difficult to find. “All these problems were like a big wave crashing down on us, threatening to take us under”, said Köhler. Determined not to fail, the young German finally secured financial backing. The search for a logistics company finally paid off and the internetstores AG was back on track.
Fahrrad.de eventually increased consumer confidence by being the next the best thing to an in store purchase. Since founding fahrrad.de, Köhler has researched and invested countless hours in displaying bicycle products for the best customer experience. “Bicycle products are detailed. Finding a balance between detailed pictures, videos and information shows customers what they are buying. For special products we have instant customer service links, such as “Live Chat“. This has also kept the customer engaged with the site," said Köhler. “Customer questions are also answered more and more by the social networking portal Fahrrad Community”....“We have found that blogs are great for unbiased advice from one cyclist to another“. For this successful combination of shop and social interaction, fahrrad.de was elected in 2007 as the “Online Shop of the Year”.
More than 430 entrepreneurs nationwide have participated in this years SME initiative "Vanguard (Mutmacher) of the Nation." For René Marius Köhler it's a huge achievement being among the 16 regional winners. “I hope that our story will encourage other entrepreneurs. Having dealt with tough times I know the value of never giving up”!
