Thoughts at the beginning of 2011
First, let me take a look back. Last year will be remembered for crisis which still lasted in Slovenia. Economic conditions did not get any better and we at Lohnko tried to overcome this with our own resources and better work organization. Sport overall was overwhelmed with financial turmoil and Lohnko as one of bigger sport suppliers felt that. Despite all, the successes of our athletes were far bigger than conditions they had had. And also for this reason we never gave up.
The brightest moment for Toper team were indeed the Winter Olympics at Vancouver, where Toper made the official come-back. Our sportsmen achieved phenomenal results that made us all proud and our joy was even bigger when we saw the response of all people looking at our jackets. Toper, Slovenian brand, was an item everyone wanted to see up closely, comment, buy or exchange … All of the Vancouver knew who and what is this little Slovenia, partly also because of Toper clothing.
Year 2010 was a milestone for Toper as it made its come-back to Slovenian stores. The Fall-Winter 2010/2011 collection is based on all features Toper represented in past: quality, modern design and adequate price. We managed to include lots of elements of golden-age Toper into the new items. But without help of our fans - we have almost 13.000 fans following us on Facebook, development of our own sales and the decision of Intersport to cooperate with us, the success would have been smaller.
We are facing a lot of challenges also this year. In our economic environment there are few signs of full recovery and we do not expect many incentives in the field of development and production. Also financial problems in sport will not disappear. At Lohnko we will continue to rely on our own resources and innovation. We are the only Slovenian company to use nano colors at sublimation and we want to introduce sleeveless technology to production, also first in Slovenia.
The year 2011 will be crucial for Toper.
We want to design and create even better Toper clothing in sense of usability, innovative technical solutions and uniqueness, based on Toper tradition. We are expanding the range to the fields of cycling, running and sailing. This year also new web store toperstore.com will be launched. Among all Toper clothing the store will be offering personified shopping for cycling clothes. Thus Toper will be available internationally.
After successful establishment of development and production, we must focus our energy to expanding the sales network in Slovenia. With new collection, based on quality, recognisable design and adequate prices, we hope to expand the availability of Toper to 40 stores. We also plan to open a store in Celje, the city of origin of Toper.
