Dubai: Care for a piece of signed collectable from the football star you look up to? How about a face-to-face to get that valued piece of signature on the dotted line? Or would you rather put your money on football memorabilia associated with players or teams you have closely followed in the past?
With its recent acquisitions and its own expansion, Dubai headquartered Marka is straddling both the physical and virtual worlds to take football fans closer to their heroes. This week it will launch a 17,000 square feet Uefa Champions League Experience outlet at the Yas Mall in Abu Dhabi. And within this store, it will integrate the merchandise options from UK based eCommerce portal Icons Shop Ltd., which Marka acquired for Dh15.3 million last week.
“We have plans to start bringing Champions League legends into this part of the world ... and it will happen in our Retailcorp or CL Experience stores,” said Nick Peel, CEO at Marka.
“The Champions League Experience was entirely borne from the relationships between some of our key directors and at the very highest level of Uefa. That’s a classic case where we take a Western brand that doesn’t fully operate in the retail space. The CL experience will be launched as a UAE brand and we can then spread it into the GCC.
“I think digital has a part to play in all of our brands and all our business verticals, and what Icons brings us is a tight knit management team who are incredibly experienced in the e-commerce world. They are incredibly passionate and experienced in digital sports marketing.
“So, apart from us gaining digital experience overnight, we can play Icons at some of our other acquisitions and start-ups. When we open Uefa Champions League Experience, you will see a very strong Icons presence.
“There is a paradigm shift in retailing in this part of the world where the digital environment meets the physical.”
And over time, the Icons part will be upgraded to a signed memorabilia shop that Marka will introduce to the Modell sports goods outlets, which came via the Retailcorp acquisition that it did for Dh220 million last year.
The synergies do not stop there — along with the Icons’ buy, Marka got itself a package from another UK based entity A1. “They already have a strong product-line in boxing ... we are going to broaden it (the collectibles range) beyond soccer. But soccer will be the bedrock we develop Icons from.
“Part of the acquisition from A1 within the Icons deal involved (Diego) Maradona, (Zinedine) Zidane and the only remaining signed memorabilia from the England team that won the World Cup in 1966. It’s available for sale and next year is the 50th anniversary since they won the cup.
“The important issue is we are adding to the Icons’ business model and we want to take it to Asia where football viewership is reaching an optimum high like in Japan, China, etc”
As per Marka’s current schedule, a second Champions League outlet will open in Dubai in the next 12 months, while other GCC locations should be connected next year itself. Saudi Arabia figures in a central role, with locations being scouted for in Jeddah and Riyadh. (Icons shop-in-shops could also be franchised, according to Peel.)
A digital/eCommerce presence could be central to some of the upcoming acquisitions Marka is working on. “If you put experience and customers at the heart, the only piece that was missing would have been something in digital eCommerce space,” said Peel. “Icons comes with a database of proven transactional customers worldwide, and so it can be integrated with Cheeky Monkeys (another recent Marka buy), the Uefa CL Experience. We would love to take the Uefa CL Experience further.”
