Remarks

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Concluding, Decathlon’s vocation is to give as many people as possible access to the pleasure of sport. The key values are vitality, truth, fraternity and responsibility. It isa low-cost operator, but one that has always favoured product quality over selling at the lowest possible price. Loyalty is not generated through prices, but through client satisfaction. At the sametime, it is the best way of defending the chain against the entry of discounters from the food sector, such as Wal-Mart Sport. This policy is a success: in the bicycle sector, for example, not only isDecathlon the brand that first comes to mind for French consumers, but in addition it is also the one that is necessarily taken into account when making the next purchase, with a consideration scoredouble that of the first producer’s brand.

The country manager’s situation, for example in China, Hungary or the United States, will be very different. The start-up will be implemented with thepassion brands: in China they represent 70 per cent of the range. However, the store is not known there, and will not have 20 years to build recognition. Therefore the pricing policy must be morediscount-based. The name Decathlon, however, should no longer in theory be visible on the products, since they all now stem from one of the passion brands. The principle of the passion brand, as with anybrand, is in fact autonomy. Only the back office cuts across all brands. This consideration, a pragmatic one at the international level, explains the maintenance of a ‘Decathlon creation’ brand inside theproduct, in order to establish the link between the store and its brands.

In the other hand, Decathlon is a distributor and producer of sport material that have expanded for all over the world andreached as sector leader in many countries. The group sell its brands products but also famous brands like Adidas or Nike. Also, it controls all the production process, from the design to the shop,...