UK's Asda collaborates with France's Decathlon

By

Cajsa Lykke Carlson

Published
Mar 19, 2015

Soon, visitors to UK supermarket retailer Asda's Watford superstore will be able to pick up sportswear pieces in the store, courtesy of France's Decathlon.

The two brands have teamed up to pilot a shop-in-shop format, reported Retail Week today. The news was confirmed by Asda. It's a win-win for the companies: Asda gets to introduce a new brand in what is essentially excess space in its superstore, and Decathlon can build its UK profile.

The pilot shop will mainly be a click-and-collect Decathlon store in the Watford Asda, but there will also be items on display in the 1,290 sq². space. If the trial is successful, it is expected to roll out to more Asda stores. This puts Asda on a competitive level with Tesco, which has Sports Direct shop-in-shops in some of its stores.

Decathlon currently has 18 UK shops, but has had problems finding large enough (50,000 sq²) retail spaces. In discussing the two chains, verdict retail analyst Andrew Stevens told Retail Week: "Both of them are value-focused so you would think that consumers across both are fairly similar. It's good for Asda if it needs to rationalise space in stores and it's a really innovative way of doing that."