Can Decathlon win the American consumer?

Decathlon, the French sporting good retailer that with 1,500 locations in 49 countries says to be the world's largest, plans to open a 47,000-square-foot store in Emeryville, California, in April 2019, in a former Toys R Us store, following the opening its own “lab store” in downtown San Francisco, a year before.

At about the same time, it will also open its first Canadian store in Quebec province. This the chain's second attempt at the U.S. market. Decathlon tried a first time in 1999 when it purchased the assets of MVP Sports Stores, a New England sporting goods retailer with 20 locations. It re-branded them as Decathlon, but shut them all down between 2003 and 2006.

While several major sporting goods chains have shut down in the U.S. in recent years, Decathlon differs most from them because it exclusively sells its house brands. It's one of the reason why it claim that its vertical integration allows it to offer extremely low prices.

It will be interesting to see how the sport-minded American consumer will take the Decathlon's bait and will be happy with its image-less and cheap, offering and if it will be able to motivate its staff by paying them close to nothing, and hoping to just cheer them up into excitement like they do in France.

Many Europeans concepts ranging from Club Med to Ikea have had a tough time successfully translating to the U.S. consumer. Hopefully, the giant retailer will have learned a few things about the American market from its lackluster experience at the beginning of this century...