How athletes turned entrepreneurs optimize payments for their sports retail businesses

• Cricket player Jamie Harvey and foosball player Oke Harms turned their love of sport into business.
• The athlete-entrepreneurs built their businesses into strong brands by focusing on customer trust.
• The retailers leverage digital payment platforms to meet the needs of their global customer base.

When Jamie Harvey cofounded his company Cricket-Hockey in 1999, he never dreamed it would become one of the world’s largest cricket and hockey equipment retailers. His love of cricket dates back years — and even spans generations: Harvey played professionally in the UK’s Southern Premier League, while his grandfather was a prominent cricketer in the mid-20th century. Now, Harvey’s equipment business is thriving, delivering almost 100,000 orders per year.

Further east, another athlete-entrepreneur has turned his passion into a profit. German national foosball player Oke Harms launched his online store Kickerkult.de in 2008 to serve fellow foosball enthusiasts with equipment and training.

For Harvey and Harms, having a background in their respective sports has come in handy. Their history as professional athletes has helped them establish credibility with existing fans and new customers. But it’s not just their experience in sports that has helped them win in business; both retailers have adopted innovative digital payment methods that improve the experience for their customers.

E-commerce pioneers

Today, a majority of companies operate online, at least in some capacity. As of Q2 2024, nearly 30 million e-commerce sites were reported worldwide.

But it wasn’t always that way. Harvey founded his company at a time when e-commerce was a relatively new concept.

“Back when we started, there were very few e-commerce businesses, so there wasn’t a blueprint of how one should be set up and run,” Harvey said. “Consumers were also very nervous about e-commerce and were reluctant to enter card details on a website they didn’t know.”

The e-commerce landscape was more mature when Harms started Kickerkult.de, but obstacles remained.

“The beginning of the business was pretty hard because it was uncommon at that time to order a foosball table online,” Harms said.

For both, finding the right payment partner at the start was critical to long-term success. The companies leveraged PayPal as their preferred payment partner due to its global reach, recognition, and trust with consumers. Features like its Buyer Protection and its reputation as a secure payment processor helped Cricket-Hockey and Kickerkult grow into thriving e-commerce businesses.¹

Meeting consumer demands

As online retail has evolved, so have consumer expectations for great e-commerce experiences. With PayPal’s complete payment solution, both retailers have been able to adopt new payment solutions to meet changing expectations and unlock growth.

Cricket-Hockey has seen success by offering its customers flexible payment options, such as PayPal Pay Later, which helped sales grow over time.   

“Checkout with seamless credit card processing makes it easy for the customer to conclude the sale, and we like how we can track it all in one place,” Harvey added.

Kickerkult, meanwhile, has adopted PayPal’s omnichannel capabilities using PayPal Zettle’s point of sale to serve in-store customers and PayPal’s payment processing for all online transactions.

“PayPal gives our customers many payment methods, whether they shop online or in-store,” Harms said. “It’s great to have everything with one provider.”

Looking ahead, both retailers are excited about the future of their brands and plan to continue adopting new technologies to serve their customers better.

Find out how PayPal can help you and your business do more.

This post was created by Insider Studios with PayPal.

¹Available on eligible purchases. Limitations apply.