Cycling is an important product category for Decathlon, Competing against it in the French bicycle market, which grew last year by 4.5 percent, Groupe Go Sport has opened five specialist bike stores trading under a new banner, Bike +, and several more should start in the months to come.
The new banner adds to the company's three other retail brands, Go Sport, Courir and Twinner. Bike + is entirely dedicated to bicycles, along with cycling apparel, footwear and accessories. The company says the openings fit with the growing popularity of cycling in France.
With a wide variety of price points, the offering includes city bikes, mountain bikes and road bikes, among others. It comprises brands such as Cube, BH, Focus, Matra, Look, Peugeot, Orbéa, Gitane, Lapierre, Scott and Haibike, as well as two private labels, Vario and Scrapper.
Bike+ stores also have workshops for maintenance and repairs. They offer payments in three instalments and some of them have leasing schemes. The first five stores are in Paris, Bagnols sur Cèze, Les Angles, Pontivy and Rennes Cap Malo.
Meanwhile, the group has announced the takeover of 12 more former Bata stores operating in France, which will be converted to its successful Courir format of sports fashion stores. It had already acquired 18 former Bata stores last year from ABC Chaussures, a company that had taken over 96 of the 136 stores of Bata France following its bankruptcy. The new acquisition follows the more recent bankruptcy of ABC Chaussures and brings up to more than 200 the number of Courir shops, 17 of which are located outside France.
