Decathlon will open its first store in Luxembourg, located in the Royal-Hamilius shopping mall, during the first quarter of this year. It will be a “Decathlon City” concept store, with a relatively small area of 630 square meters, spread over two floors.
A “Click & Collect” service will allow customers to pick up orders placed online. They will also be able to request home delivery. In addition, the French sporting goods retailer is considering a two-hour bicycle courier delivery service, which would deliver orders to addresses in Luxembourg’s city center within two hours.
Meanwhile, Decathlon has opened its first store in Kazakhstan, at the Grand Park mall, in its largest city, Almaty. Decathlon had been mulling market entry since 2018, but opened the first store only a few days ago.
The company has also begun to sell products online in the former Soviet republic, as it is now doing in Russia. It has yet to be seen whether the company will be delivering its products to locations outside of Almaty.
Decathlon has opted to offer only a limited range both in its brick-and-mortar store and online, concentrating on running apparel, skis and some skiing accessories. It seems in fact that the big French sports retailer is only testing the local market to figure out its long-term development strategy, as it did at first in Japan and elsewhere.
Several sporting goods retailers have left the Kazakh market over the past couple of years, including Megasport. The leading Russian sporting goods retailer, Sportmaster, is believed to be the leader in the local market, with stores in 15 cities. The arrival of Decathlon may drive other smaller players out of the market.
As previously reported, Decathlon entered the Serbian market in December, opening a store in the Big Fashion shopping mall of Karaburma, a suburb of Belgrade. The company’s development in the region is coordinated by Michel Kappler, who is also responsible for Decathlon in Croatia and Slovenia.
