San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Retailer going big with new S.F. store
Many retailers are fleeing big box stores. But French sporting goods company Decathlon is moving right in.
Decathlon recently announced plans to open its third Bay Area store in the Potrero Center shopping mall on the corner of 16th and Bryant streets, near clothing company Ross Stores and a Safeway grocery. The 38,370squarefoot location will feature a space for events and workshops in addition to selling sports gear.
Decathlon opened another large store across the bay in Emeryville in April; the building, a former Toys R Us store, also serves as its U.S. head
“My husband and I call this the Trader Joe’s of sporting equipment stores.” Maddison McCauley, shopper at Market Street Decathlon
quarters. A smaller Decathlon store — its first in the U.S. — opened on Market Street west of Third Street in San Francisco, in the fall. The company also operates a warehouse in Oakland. “The Bay Area made sense for us,” said Sophie O’Kelly de Gallagh, chief operating officer for Decathlon USA. “Two aspects work in our favor: great outdoor activities and being in the center of technology companies.”
The Decathlon stores stand out for their sheer size — a statement of confidence when some competitors are struggling. Sports Authority went out of business in July 2016; of its hundreds of stores, 13 were in the Bay Area. Dick’s Sporting Goods, the largest sports retailer in the U.S., was forced to close some stores that carried guns after a backlash that followed its decision to take a stance on gun control after last year’s Parkland school shooting in Florida.
Other major retailers, including J.C. Penney, Macy’s and Nordstrom, have also announced store closings.
“Big box is the sector of retail that isn’t doing so well,” said Sucharita Kodali, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, a market research firm. “For a company to go into a 40,000squarefoot store, that sounds very bold at this time — though it (Decathlon) provides a pretty diverse range of products that could work in its favor.”
Still, Decathlon will go up against Sports Basement, which is based in San Francisco and has 10 stores in the Bay Area, as well as bigger companies such as REI that offer a similar variety of products though at higher prices. Dick’s Sporting Goods also has several Bay Area stores.
Decathlon, founded in 1976 in Lille, France, designs, manufactures and sells its own products. It’s created 40 of its own brands such as Caperlan for fishing and Tarmak for basketball. Some of its goods are astonishingly cheap: one hiking backpack, for example, sells online for $3.99.
“My husband and I call this the Trader Joe’s of sporting equipment stores,” Maddison McCauley said as she browsed running shoes at the Market Street Decathlon on Friday, her day off. “We love the prices here.”
This is Decathlon’s second stint in the U.S. It bought MVP Sports, a New England company, in 1999, but left in 2006. The company said at the time that “stores did not meet performance expectations.”
“It was a different experience and it was a long time ago,” de Gallagh said. “Today, we are doing it ourselves. Everything is inhouse, with our own strategies, private brands and supply chain.”
Decathlon has 1,600 stores across 49 countries. It counts 85,000 employees worldwide, with 110 in the Bay Area. The company is emphasizing technology: In the Emeryville store, a robot called “Tally” glides between the aisles assessing inventory, and people don’t have to pay at a
checkout because workers move around the store carrying iPhones with payment processing devices.
“The biggest challenge for Decathlon will be to convince Americans that their products are of quality,” said Kirthi Kalyanam, director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University. “They will also need to work on making their name more recognizable.”
In San Francisco, Decathalon hosts a monthly yoga class and a weekly running group that meets at its store — part of a broader effort to get its name out among among locals.
“I used to live in Paris, and this is a very popular store there,” said Danville resident Greg Fleming, who was in San Francisco for a meeting Friday. “I was curious to see what they were bringing here. For a downtown store, it’s much bigger than I expected and offers a lot.”