Innovation for access.
Our inspiration comes from our love of sport and from everyday people. By creating top quality technical sports products and making them available at the lowest possible prices, we serve our common mission: bringing sports to everyone.
Packaging and advertising may help sell products but they also drive up prices. Imagine the same quality at nearly half the price. It’s not only possible, it’s how we do business. At Decathlon, we invest in ideas and innovation. In return, you get the highest quality, most affordable sports products and gear out there.
Innovation for performance.
Whatever your skill level or experience, we‘re innovating sports to make them more affordable, comfortable and enjoyable. Take the Artengo tennis racket with SoftFeel technology. By combining thin layers of balsa wood and graphite, impact vibrations are reduced by 50%. Instead of tennis elbow ending the game, more players can play more often and more comfortably.
Our Passion Brands bring research, development, design and product managers together for the good of the user. We listen to and observe athletes in action in our Research & Development center. We explore prototyping in our Industrial division, gather data at the SportsLab and connect our worldwide network of scientific laboratories. We research organizations, universities and industrial partners. We talk to customers. We analyze the human body in motion and design accordingly.
Innovation for quality.
It feels good to put good out into the world. At Decathlon, quality is stitched into our mission. If a product earns less than stellar reviews, we will pull it from our shelves until we find a way to improve it. We offer at least a two year warranty on all our products. We consider quality not only with performance but safety as well.
This commitment to quality extends to the treatment of our customers and our community. We provide exceptional service at every turn—in store and online.
Innovation for service.
Co-innovation for accessibility and sustainability is foundational to Decathlon’s approach. Those commitments infuse our product design like in the Arpenaz 10 liter backpack, our best selling product of 2015. Reducing the number of stitching panels from 21 to 8 means not only less material used on fewer assembly lines but also an increase in the number of articles shipped per box. Drastically reducing packaging and waste helps the planet, and helps keeps the cost down for our customers.
Beyond our products, we actively build our company culture and philanthropic partnerships. Our staff are provided fair wages, excellent benefits and safe working conditions. We carpool, ride bikes and take public transportation to work. Service and sustainability are built into our lives and our company culture.
Innovation for ah-ha moments.
We get inspired by our customer’s suggestions. We listen to your big ideas and create new sporting products or improve existing ones accordingly. Take the Quechua 2 Seconds Tent. This quick-pitch innovation came from campers saying they wanted an easier and faster way to set up their tent. We agreed and got to designing and engineering our pop-up tent option. Ten years later, we’re still looking for ways to make it better, like the 2016 Fresh & Black tent that keeps things cooler and darker for a better night’s sleep.
