ECODING

ECATHLON
SUCCESS CASE STUDY OF DECATHLON
RETAIL STRATEGIES

BY
RAISH ALAM
 INTRODUCTION
o WHY does Decathlon exist?
“DECATHLON MAKES SPORT ACCESSIBLE FOR THE MANY.”
Decathlon’s main mission is to make sport accessible to as
many people as they can. They want to help, inspire and
guide people through sports experiences. They believe that
being active and discovering new sports every day is an
important part of a healthy lifestyle.
o HOW does Decathlon position itself?
By making sports gear and equipment easily available for
everyone, and also by offering affordable options to ensure
everyone can have access to their products.
o WHAT does Decathlon do?
Decathlon makes and sells sports gear and accessories, for
around 70 different sports and at an affordable price.
 Decathlon Marketing Mix
Analysis & Success Case Study
1 PRODUCT

o Decathlon is one of the leading sports apparel and

accessories brands in the world.
o Decathlon’s product portfolio includes all the sports
equipment (more popular, or less popular), their
accessories, clothing, footwear and everything
required.
o The wide collection is spread over various
categories of sports namely, football, basketball,
baseball, cricket, badminton, archery, billiard, darts,
field hockey, roller skates, volleyball, scuba diving,
and many more.
o Not just men, there is a separate and diverse
section for women and kids as well.
 ARTENGO

B’TWIN

o Each sport or group of sports that Decathlon sells its

products under has a separate brand name like
Artengo(tennis) , Domyos(fitness, dance),
Kalenji(running), New Feel(sport walking), OXELO
Inesis(golf), Oxelo(roller sports, skating) and many
more.
o There are around 56 brands under Decathlon.
 PRICE

o Decathlon brand aims to encourage sports all over the

world. So, it makes sure every sporting gear is available
at affordable prices. It has consistently maintained its
low prices by not compromising with quality.
o Decathlon keeps its prices around 20 percent lower than
its competitors.
o They manage to keep prices low by applying the
following strategies –

• Research & Development

Decathlon is made up of a growing number of Passion
Brands, each of which are as unique as the sports they are
centered on. They pool R&D resources and innovations.
Better efficiency means lower prices.
• Integrated Design
Designing mass-market products smartly lowers costs. Their
design teams have comprehensive knowledge of each sport's
specifications and effective control over both timing and quality,
sourcing the best materials

• Manufacturing
They form long-term partnerships with the best industrial
suppliers, who are regularly audited to ensure safe working
conditions. Being selective means greater productivity without
the compromise of core values.

• Integrated Retailing
They interact with users and collect feedbacks. For products
earning less than 3 stars, they pull them from their range and
optimize them to meet expectations.

• Business model
Their integrated business model means low margins.Low margins
mean lower prices for us. In addition, they take "smart costs"
into account - areas where they save so they can invest in
lowering their prices. They don't sponsor teams and they pledge
to reduce their marketing bills so they can deliver on the promise
of great prices.
 o The French retailer has also developed a strong digital
PLACE presence with more than 14 websites and 32 mobile
applications. With the help of its offline stores it also
caters to delivery its products to consumers who make
online purchases.
o The Decathlon principle is clear - to develop its own
brands and to effectively deliver good quality
sporting stuff to people around the world at Recently opened their flagship retail
store in the USA in 2019
affordable prices.
o Decathlon has become a designer of brands that
controls its own distribution. As the world entered
the 21st century, Decathlon decided to expand all
around the world and since then there has been no
looking back.
o The “BE EVERYWHERE” distribution strategy,
Decathlon owes its revenue growth to their
omnichannel strategy. With more than 1,000 stores,
plus strategic warehouses, all around the world,
Decathlon is virtually present everywhere!
 How does Decathlon do it?
o The French company sells more than 600 million
individual products every year through a network of
more than 1000 stores.
o More than 80% of products sold consist of
Decathlon’s own brands while the rest are made up
of globally known sports brands.
o Today, the retailer uses RFID labels to tag over 85% of
their products, which means that the company can
effectively track each of its product right from their
design, manufacturing, transportation till the time
they are sold, which makes their super complex
process a tad bit simpler.
The Case of Super large stores when the retail
space is becoming costlier by the day
o There are a few parameters that Decathlon doesn’t compromise
on. The store space is one such factor.
o When retail spaces are shrinking and the world is moving
online, the sports retailer chooses to open outlets that are the
size of a warehouse. Case in point: The size of the retailer’s
flagship store in Emeryville, California is 47,000 square-feet!
o This is to stay true to the founding ethos of the company, that at
the heart of everything was the desire to make sports fun and
accessible and that’s why there is a dedicated play area in their
stores!
 PROMOTION
o Decathlon promotes itself as an innovative brand with a
high product-quality relation. The affordability factor with
that quality is the differentiator in Decathlon. All its
distinctive features are portrayed through institutional
publicity.
o It’s in house innovatively built brands are exclusively
available at Decathlon stores. Decathlon also builds a
strong selling point of having sports for all, its India tagline
of “Sport for all, all for sports” effectively sums up what the
brand stands for.
o Unlike traditional brands which spend money in advertising
and sponsoring players, Decathlon does not do any of that,
therefore saving money which it in turn uses to give out
customer satisfaction and generate publicity.
o The customer’s in-store experience, helps spread the brand
by word-of-mouth, the most delicate form of promotion,
which the brand has managed to achieve.
Social Media Marketing
INDIA
o The last National Sports Day 2019, Decathlon India
wanted to change the way people looked at sports and
inspire them to get back on the field.
o To do this it conceptualized and brought to life the first
of its kind #PlayFor campaign that reminded everyone
that playing wasn’t just about winning, it was playing
itself that brought joy!
o Creating a movement, Decathlon brought out the
various emotions tied back to sports. From creating
memories to moments of celebration, and to add to the
charm of it, all the people you will see in the video are o Decathlon has followed a very unique strategy of
Decathlon team members. indirect marketing it uses advantages of sports to
o To ensure the video was seen by the masses, the video promote the brand, soft marketing is Decathlon’s
was replicated across 7 major languages spoken in the speciality, it indirectly promotes the opening of its
country. English, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu and new stores by organizing games and marathons.
Tamil videos were created and populated across
channels and YouTube to reach the largest audience o The brand has a strong social media presence in
possible. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as a robust
online website.
 CONCLUSION
• Decathlon isn't any other brand, started in the year 1979 in the small
French city of Lille, today it has grown to be the pioneer in terms of
sports apparel and equipment.

• The major part of decathlon’s success is because of the brands focus in

two things, pathbreaking Research and Development which makes it
stay way ahead of its competitors in price and product range and
secondly the quest to experiment and implement new polices like
having super large retail stores when the retail prices are skyrocketing
all around the globe.

• Decathlon does not choose to engage in direct promotion, Decathlon

would rather conduct a marathon to announce its store opening than
sponsoring a player to endorse the brand.

• By cutting costs smartly and by building efficient supply chains, they

stay ahead of other competitor brand’s and that essentially is how they
can deliver high quality products at affordable price by Staying true to
their India Tagline of, Sport For All, All for Sport!!
THANK YOU
BY

RAISH ALLAM