A COMPARATIVE AND ANALYSIS ABOUT THE SOCIAL MEDIA

REACH PRE PANDEMIC AND POST PANDEMIC ERA ON

DECATHLON

Project Report

On

“A Comparative and Analysis about the social media reach pre-

pandemic and post-pandemic era on Decathlon”

Submitted by

Janvi Khemchandani (518082)

Under the Guidance of

Mr. Dhiren Parmar

Assistant Professor

Department of Commerce and Business

Management

Maharaja SayajiRao University of Baroda

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement of the Subject in

SSBBA-III, BBA Programme

Submitted to,

BBA Programme,

pg. 1
 A COMPARATIVE AND ANALYSIS ABOUT THE SOCIAL MEDIA
REACH PRE PANDEMIC AND POST PANDEMIC ERA ON
DECATHLON

Faculty of Commerce,

INTRODUCTION

Decathlon S.A is a French sporting goods retailer.with over 1697 stores in 60

countries and regions (2020),it is the largest sporting retailer in the world.
Mass Media means technology to reach the mass audience.during such time of the
pandemic,social media marketing and mass media have gained more importance all
over the world. The ongoing digitalization is the process that has been going on for
many years. However, the outbreak of the novel disease covid-19 fastened the
digitalization process by forcing businesses to adapt to a needed digital way of
operating within weeks.

This thesis aims to identify the influence of covid-19 on the Decathlon’s

digitalization process as well as how it affected the consumer’s decision to shop
online post pandemic versus pre-pandemic era.
Decathlon sports has been started in india for more than 10 years and the first store
was been set up and started in india for more than 10 years and first store was been
set up and started in india in the year may 2009 at sarajpur situated at bangalore.
Talking about early 2020,Decathlon Company easily bought through stores which
are established in various cities all the around the country with a result of
subsequent change in india’s FDI policy and approval given to the decathlon
company as on February 2013. Due to analysis pre pandemic it was slightly
downwards before 2020.

Digital transformation at
Decathlon
An organization’s digital transformation describes the process whereby the use of
digital technology drastically changes the organizations’ way of operating to
achieve improved productivity, performance, and an enhanced customer/employee
experience with an overall positive impact on the organization’s culture and
revenue.(Matt,Hess and Benlian 2015; Piccinini et al. 2015).

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 A COMPARATIVE AND ANALYSIS ABOUT THE SOCIAL MEDIA
REACH PRE PANDEMIC AND POST PANDEMIC ERA ON
DECATHLON

Decathlon was well-prepared for this year’s covid-19 lockdowns,thanks to its

existing multichannel expertise.the French retailer ,ranked Elite in this year’s
RXEU TOP1000 RESEARCH, had already invested in digital and as result was
able to serve customers as they started to do much more of their shopping online
during pandemic.During lockdown ,the arm of the business saw sudden high
demand for home delivery, and it was able to respond while at the same time
offering a new range of services to customers who were now buying from home
rather than in stores that were closed in many markets during lockdowns.

“At Decathlon,our mission is simple,”says a Decathlon UK spokesperson.”we want

to motivate and inspire everyone living in the uk to be more active and as result
have a better,healthier lifestyle. Decathlon has more than 2,000 shops in 56
countries,including 29 european markets,but during the pandemic it,as with other
retailers ,saw its customers go online to buy. This started as a short-term response
to store closures as a result of covid-19 lockdowns, but many now believe this
heralds a permanent shift , and that people now opt to do more of their shopping
over internet.

Pre vs post shopping at Decathlon

Consumers determine how they shop,depending on their desire. Before
pandemic ,the majority of consumers still preferred to shop in traditional land
based retail stores in order to have an authentic experience. Consumers differ from
each other in their personal preference of shopping online or offline.some
consumers highly valus time-efficient shopping combined with a broad variety of
products and alternatives ,whereas other consumers favor the personal interaction
with sales assistants and the ability to be able to have a physical contact with the
product(levin,levin,heath,2003).but the pandemic made people for choosing online
shopping looking for their safety and more comfortable to door to door delivery.
The thing or the feature that makes decathlon unique and different from other
companies is that the company has their own brands through which they sell their
products both online and offline. Decathlon creates designs and then manufactures
their own products online and offline both.

CUSTOMERS OF DECATHLON are most of sports players which are belonging

to different age groups i.e. from the kids to adult and of all the stages of life such as

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 A COMPARATIVE AND ANALYSIS ABOUT THE SOCIAL MEDIA
REACH PRE PANDEMIC AND POST PANDEMIC ERA ON
DECATHLON

occasional sports ,players at beginning and etc.due to corona’s impact website

percent for the shopping for decathlon has increased.

LITERATURE REVIEW

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