It was announced recently that the French sports retailer Decathlon is planning to open 9 stores in Ireland including Dublin, Cork and Galway.
Decathlon are huge in France and sell sports gear usually at cheaper prices than the usual high street sports stores. They tend to be located on the edge of towns where rental prices are cheaper rather than say in town centres.
Joining an already crowded market, their arrival is bound to have an impact on existing sports stores in Ireland, especially the more generic ones which don't specialise in particular sports.
Decathlon has some 1,350 stores in 40 countries and they expect to open their first Irish store in 2019. The plan is to open their first store in Dublin followed by Cork and Galway. I presume 2020 may well be the earliest that we will see a store in Cork.
Best news ever! Love Decathlon. We always build a visit into any holiday to Europe. Really good quality and very reasonable.
ReplyDeleteTwo consequences of this will be the loss of local sports stores and no reason to go on holiday to France anymore.
ReplyDeleteSo do they sell actual running shoes unlike majority of chains. Lifestyle, Foot locker, Athletes Foot etc. All useless.
ReplyDeleteLooking at their website, they seem to sell loads of running gear which seems to be mostly their own brand.
ReplyDeleteThey certainly stock Mizuno shoes in their continental stores.
ReplyDeleteFab news, have lots of their gear collected while on holidays
They have mostly their own brand (Kalenji) but usually stock a limited selection of other brands. I have a pair of Asics trail runners which i bought there last year while on hols. Also have a decent proportion of Decathlon stuff in my collection.
ReplyDeleteYa agree with the second comment, the generic stores like Elveries, Lifestyle etc are rubbish. Very hard to find anything in there for any value at all. Looking forward to Decathalons arrival!
ReplyDeleteWith respect to Elverys, the one in Cork seems to be pretty ok. The last time I was in there, they seemed to have plenty of running gear.
ReplyDeleteI've found them a big disappointment from the cycling point of view. I've regularly gone out of the way to a Decathlon shop in Spain, only to find that they don't have what I want and that their bikes are disappointing. Shops like Victoria Cross cycles and the Edge are far superior from the cycling point of view. Not into running.
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