Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
We have tons of stuff from there, and the quality has generally been better than I expected given the price points. I think a lot of the savings come from having it all be Ikea-style store brands vs skimping on quality compared to a "regular" brand. Obviously at their prices it isn't high end stuff, but there are plenty of usage cases where that's fine, imo
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There was a dad on one of my kid's sports teams this year who is in Management at Decathalon. Moved here from Europe to help with SouthCentre mall opening.
It was awesome talking to him about the sporting goods industry. I had no clue how big they were on the international scale. They are massive. Thousands of stores in like 70 countries or something like that.
They are more than a retailer. They actually design and manufacture things, do their own product testing and have R&D facilities.
The main reason they are not successful in North America is because the consumers here are very loyal to brands, leagues, and athletes.
If you don't carry Nike, Under Armour, Adidas, North Face, etc or have advertisements with Tiger, Lebron, McDavid, Mahomes, it will be an uphill battle.
They do sponsor pro athletes and some of their brands/products are internationally renowned but they aren't anything North Americans care about like cycling.
He told me Decathalon invented that full-face snorkel mask thing but did not patent it in time, and everyone has since copied it and manufactured it.