FRANKFURT, Germany — Adidas expects to close down stores in the coming years as part of a shift towards selling more goods online, its chief executive told a newspaper.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Kasper Rorsted said "over time, we will have fewer stores but they will be better," adding that over the coming year the number of Adidas stores was expected to contract slightly.

"Our website is the most important store we have in the world."

Adidas, which wants to more than double its e-commerce sales to €4 billion ($4.91 billion) by 2020 from €1.6 billion last year, has 2,500 stores globally and 13,000 additional mono-branded franchise stores, the Financial Times said.

By Christoph Steitz; editor: Andrew Roche.