Bergfreunde Brand Guidelines: A 2006 Climbing Shop Near Tübingen, Backcountry & Decathlon

Two founders, a dog and a passion for climbing.

Bergfreunde, German for “mountain friends,” is an online retailer of climbing, mountaineering and outdoor equipment based in Kirchentellinsfurt, near Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg. German Wikipedia says Swantje and Martin Theben founded the company there in 2006. When the Stuttgarter Zeitung reported on the business in January 2026, the year of its 20th anniversary, it summed up those beginnings as two founders, a dog and a passion for climbing.

The founders did not stay owners for long. German Wikipedia says Ronny Höhn joined the management in 2010 and Matthias Gebhard at the end of 2012, and that the founders sold the company to the American outdoor retailer Backcountry. It dates that sale to 2012; manager magazin, writing in November 2023, said Backcountry had come in in December 2013 and spoke of about ten years of Backcountry ownership. German Wikipedia adds that Backcountry itself has belonged to the investment firm TSG Consumer Partners since 2015. When the American company sold Bergfreunde on in 2023, manager magazin quoted Backcountry’s chief executive as saying it was proud of how Bergfreunde had grown during its ten years of ownership; neither side gave a reason for the sale.

Under its American parent, manager magazin reported, Bergfreunde placed great weight on running its own operations and organisation, and Höhn and Gebhard led it as joint managing directors through that decade. The same article put the workforce at 580 people in 2022 and 650 by late 2023. By February 2025 the Stuttgarter Zeitung counted 700 staff across the head office in Kirchentellinsfurt and the logistics site in Ergenzingen, and it gave the same figure again in January 2026.

An online shop run from a warehouse in Ergenzingen.

Bergfreunde trades online. German Wikipedia says the online shop is offered in twelve European countries, and that at the end of 2021 its range ran to about 40,000 articles from more than 850 brands. The Stuttgarter Zeitung reported in February 2025, and again in January 2026, a range of about 40,000 articles from more than 700 brands, all of it mountain-sports, climbing and outdoor equipment.

The physical heart of the business is its warehouse. German Wikipedia says Bergfreunde opened a logistics centre in Ergenzingen, also in the district of Tübingen, in 2016, fitted with an AutoStore system, and enlarged it to 20,000 square metres four years later. The Stuttgarter Zeitung reported in January 2026 that the company planned to put its next investments mainly into that site, including new robots and packing machines.

Bergfreunde has also tied itself to the wider sporting-goods trade. German Wikipedia says it became a partner of the retail buying group Sport 2000 in 2021. The company told the Stuttgarter Zeitung in 2026 that about two thirds of its German sales now come from returning customers, and that it was turning its attention to building the brand over the long term.

A large share of the business is outside Germany. German Wikipedia says markets abroad accounted for about 40 per cent of sales in 2021 and 43 per cent in 2023. In February 2025 the Stuttgarter Zeitung reported that the company reported growth in 2024, citing existing customers, its core German market and the final quarter. Its tone a year later was more careful: in January 2026 the company told the paper that the market remained challenging, citing weather that was hard to predict and a subdued consumer mood, and called itself “cautiously optimistic” for 2026. manager magazin had noted in 2023 that the two managing directors had already warned, at the end of 2022, of one or two uncertain years for the whole outdoor industry.

Part of that brand work is a link with the climbing scene. The same January 2026 article reported a cooperation with the climber Alexander Megos, intended to make the Bergfreunde name more visible and to deepen its connection with the mountain-sports community.

How outdoor retailers present themselves.

Outdoor, camping and ski retailers sell other companies’ boots, tents and jackets alongside ranges of their own, so much of their identity lives in the shop rather than the product. Trade press coverage of the British chains returns to the same few things: the size and setting of a store, the specialist departments inside it, and the services offered at the counter, such as boot and rucksack fitting or a cycle workshop.

Store format is the clearest divide. In its 2017 review of a merger in the sector, the Competition and Markets Authority described one group of chains trading from smaller, typically high-street shops and another from larger stores, typically out of town, able to carry a broader range. Newer openings mix the two ideas: shops that put two or three of a group’s fascias under one roof, smaller “express” formats with in-store kiosks for the full range, and concessions run by specialist cycling, fishing or equestrian businesses inside a larger store.

Names carry much of the work. Several chains in this guide are named after a place or an activity rather than a founder, and several sit inside larger groups owned by listed retailers or private-equity firms, while the shopfront name stays the same. Campaigns can be timed to the season: one chain’s 2026 autumn and winter campaign came with a floor refresh across all its stores, trade press reported.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — where it began, who has owned it and when, and how its stores are laid out — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Part of Decathlon, run on its own.

The second change of owner came in 2023. manager magazin reported on 28 November 2023 that Backcountry was selling Bergfreunde to the French sporting-goods retailer Decathlon; Bergfreunde confirmed the deal but gave no price. The magazine reported that the business would operate entirely separately from Decathlon’s core business and that Höhn and Gebhard would stay on as managing directors.

The sale went through. TextilWirtschaft reported in February 2025 that Bergfreunde had belonged to Decathlon since the start of 2024, and German Wikipedia likewise dates Decathlon ownership from 2024 and says Bergfreunde continues to act independently of the Decathlon core business. The Stuttgarter Zeitung places the change at the end of 2023, the date the deal was agreed. Either way, Bergfreunde GmbH remains a separate company with its own name, its own head office in Kirchentellinsfurt and its own warehouse in Ergenzingen, while its parent runs the much larger Decathlon chain of stores and own brands.

For a design guide, Bergfreunde shows how a specialist online shop can keep a separate voice inside a large group: a German name that means “mountain friends,” a range defined by mountain sports, and one head office and one warehouse, both near Tübingen. Compare Decathlon, its owner since 2024, and the member-owned American retailer REI. For this guide we use alpine green, rope rust and rock slate on limestone with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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