After a 2 percent increase in 2007, the French sporting goods market suffered a slight 0.5 percent decline to €9.1 billion after VAT in 2008, but specialty retailers saw their sales grow by 1.4 percent to around €7 billion, further improving their share of the total market to 77 percent. While the integrated retailers grew by about 1.3 percent, those affiliated with buying groups did 2 percent better than in 2007, said FPS, the French sporting goods retailers’ federation, in an annual status report, noting that the cold weather pushed their sales up by only 1.5 percent in November and December.
Sales of sporting goods by non-specialist retailers fell instead by 6.5 percent to €2.1 billion, according to FPS’ estimates, accelerating a recent trend. Department stores and clothing and shoe retailers saw their sales of these kinds of products drop by about 10 percent, while they went down by about 8 percent at hypermarkets and supermarkets.
On the other hand, sales of sports products and services over the internet grew by an estimated 24 percent and came to represent a good 4 percent of the sporting goods market. Besides the pure e-commerce players in the sports segment, whose sales grew by 26 percent, the major brick-and-mortar sporting goods retailers, including Décathlon, Intersport and Sport 2000, invested massively in the new niche, raising their internet sales by about 45 percent.
In terms of products, sales of sports shoes declined by 3 percent in 2008, FPS said, while the bicycle market, which is included in its estimates, was largely stable.
