While introducing new services and further developing its presence in other markets, the Go Sport Group is following an interesting multi-banner category management strategy in its domestic market, focusing on winter sports, outdoor, cycling, fitness and running products. It started in 2014 with the creation of a new chain of ski and outdoor stores, Go Sport Montagne, from the former Twinner stores that were operating in French mountain resorts.
The program continued in mid-2016 with the establishment of a chain of cycling shops in France, Bike+. Reportedly, the next step will be the collaboration with an unnamed network of about 50 affiliated running specialty shops. Meanwhile, the Go Sport Group has taken full control of Tool Fitness, a 13-year-old French online retailer of fitness equipment that started to work with Go Sport three years ago.
The group's net sales rose by 7.7 percent to €807 million last year, with currency-neutral growth of 4.4 percent on a comparable store basis, but its performance was mixed in France, where the revenues of its two major chains rose to €795 million from €742 million in 2016. The Go Sport chain of generalist stores, which generated a turnover of €465 million, had growth of only 0.5 percent on a same-store basis in France, where the number of its stores was reduced by five to 135 units in the course of the year.
In contrast, sales jumped by 23 percent to more than €330 million for the group's more lifestyle-oriented chain of sports shops, Courir, whose growth on a comparable store basis remained very strong for the eighth year in a row, according to Go Sport's parent company, Rallye.
Without giving further details, Rallye said that the Go Sport Group's Ebitda and its return on capital improved for the fourth year running. System wide sales, including e-commerce, the franchisees' own sales and other operations, rose by 5 percent to €980 million. They are nearing the one billion euros level when adding Tool Fitness, which had reported annual sales of €12.5 million when it started to work with Go Sport three years ago.
Including Go Sport Montagne and Bike+, the group had a network of 582 stores at the end of last year, and 96 of them were located in 20 countries outside France, representing 18 percent of the total turnover. That goes for 76 of the 304 operating under the Go Sport banner and 20 of the group's 260 Courir shops.
Aside from 32 stores in Poland, most Go Sport and Courir stores outside France are franchised. As reported in a previous issue, among other moves, the group announced a few weeks ago a franchising deal with an Indian retailer and its entry into the Spanish market, where it is targeting to build up a network of 40 stores over the next five years (SGI Europe vol. 29 N° 7+8 of Feb. 28, 2018).
In France, meanwhile, Go Sport is expanding its loyalty program, which already counts some five million consumers, about one million more than a year ago. It is forming a community of runners. As part of its omni-channel strategy, it is extending its online sales operations to its franchised stores in France, where the sales personnel use tablets to give consumers access to Go Sport's entire inventory of more than 1.5 million items, like in the directly operated stores.
