Decathlon Group

Decathlon

Industry	Retail
Founded	1976
Headquarters	Villeneuve d'Ascq, France
Products	Clothing Sportswear Sports equipment
Revenue	8.2bn€
Number of employees	65,000
Subsidiaries	Kalenji, Quechua, simond[1] etc.
Website	www.decathlon.com

Decathlon is a global sporting goods chain store of French origin, with stores located throughout the world. Decathlon started with a shop near Lille, France in 1976. It began to expanded abroad a decade later, to Germany in 1986, Spain in 1992, Italy in 1998, Portugal and the United Kingdom in 1999. Decathlon entered the American market by purchasing the New England 20-store MVP Sports chain in 1999, re-branding them as Decathlon USA. A restructuring led to all but four Massachusetts locations closing in 2003. In September 2006, Decathlon announced its decision to exit the US Market by year end.

The retailer stocks a wide range of sporting goods, from tennis racquets to advanced scuba diving equipment, usually in large superstores. Decathlon Group also owns the Toboggan and Decat stores, the former sells sporting goods at discount prices, while the latter is a smaller high street sized version of the larger Decathlon superstores.

Locations

Entrance of İstanbul store

Entrance of Dalian store

909 stores are located globally, in the following countries:

Online delivery has been introduced in Belgium, France, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, India, Italy,^[4] Singapore, Spain and Brazil.

In India, Decathlon products can be bought directly through their stores subsequent to change in India's FDI policy and approval for Decathlon in February 2013.^[5] In addition to this, Decathlon products are also available online through their online resellers. These include Prrem's - The Winter Wear Store, Sports365.in, IndiaLetsPlay and a few more.^[6]

Branding

The chain develops and sells its own brands. Each group of activities has a separate brand name:

Workmanship

Decathlon, distributes in its stores and online, the Oxylane network brand products such as Tribord, Quechua, Domyos, B'Twin or Solognac or materials developed with component brands, such as Novadry, or Equarea Stratermic. Decathlon also provide products of international brands such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, etc.

Economic review

Its success has greatly contributed to the decline in selling prices in France and the concentration of the sector, while its own brands more innovative start sometimes great difficulties of traditional manufacturers. As for Wal Mart in food distribution, some manufacturers and not others are referenced in global supply distributor.^[8] In 2008, the brand Decathlon beat all its competitors on three points: margin, market share, highest turnover per square meter of retail space. It is up to the third at a world level. A 2008 survey of 774 catchment areas at the request of the Ministry of Economy and Finance shows that "for sporting goods, Decathlon is dominant in 92.8% of zones^[9]". This hegemonic position has the dual effect of marginalizing its commercial competitors, including independent retailers, and ruin or pushing the relocation of industrial sector.^[10]

Competition

In 2009, Decathlon's sector rivals Go Sport and Sport 2000 combined themselves to create a common purchasing center in Switzerland intended to "pressurize most of the major international suppliers", according to François Neukirsh DG of GO Sport in newspaper Les Échos.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Decathlon Group.

• Official website