Towards a more sustainable retail

Let's leave France to go to Belgium. Since 2021, the Decathlon network of stores in the flat country has been reinventing the way sports equipment is consumed. Consider buying your superb mountain bike, certainly motivated by the desire to adopt a more sporty lifestyle. In two years, how many walks on the roads? How many Sunday bike rides? Probably too few, in any case not enough to justify the exorbitant price put in this steed which has little other track record than that of having accumulated dust in your garage. Now, think about the prospect of having been able to rent a mountain bike when you wanted to go for a ride, then trading it for a paddle or a surfboard when it was time to go and enjoy the beach. This reflection is what the Decathlon Belgium team made when they launched a sports equipment rental system. Objective: rethink retail, and start imagining the store of tomorrow.

On paper, renting a bike, surfboard, or tent is nothing revolutionary. Alexandre Velge, Rent Leader for Décathlon Belgium, helps us to understand why this rental-based strategy has the potential to upset the retail world. “It's a two-part strategy,” he said. “At first, as in some French stores, there is a classic rental on demand proposal, which we try to really promote, but the particularity of the Belgian network is our subscription formula.”

This “Netflix-like” system works as follows: “The subscription starts at 20 euros per month, with this formula, it is possible to rent the equivalent of 400 euros of equipment from a selection of items for an hour, a day, a week, or more”. Alexandre Velge explains it: “The aim of Decathlon is to be a driving force in changing the retail world. This transition is necessary for environmental reasons, but also for reasons of changing consumption patterns.”

And according to the Rent Leader of Decathlon Belgium, “This evolution is totally logical if we look at the history of Decathlon. Our aim has always been to make sport accessible to as many people as possible. Originally, by opening the largest multi-sport store, then by creating our own brand to offer even more affordable products, and now by imagining a system based on rentals.”

Even beyond the sports equipment sector, more and more customers are opting for renting rather than buying consumer goods, especially in the fields of cars, household appliances or multimedia. The reasons for this choice are multiple: renting allows you to benefit from a new or recent property, without having to pay a large amount of money at the time of purchase, or to take on debt over the long term. Renting also offers more flexibility and freedom, since the customer can change properties according to their needs or desires, without having to worry about resale or maintenance. Finally, renting can be more financially advantageous than buying, depending on the price of the property, the amount of rent, the duration of the contract and the residual value of the property at the end of the rental.

According to Alexandre Velge, “This change in the economic model is largely motivated by demand from customers, with whom we communicate constantly, before, during, and after the implementation of this new program.” According to him, this program is taking place in Belgium, rather than in France, the country of origin of the Decathlon group, because “it is an overall more flexible country, where a less vertical organization makes it easier to test projects.” With the change in our consumption patterns, comes a question: is it still relevant to keep physical stores, with its departments, salespeople and advisers? How can they reinvent themselves, differentiate themselves, renew themselves, to offer a real experience with high added value?

To stand out from e-commerce, and avoid, by focusing on rentals, turning stores into closed warehouses dedicated to click & collect, it is necessary to reinvent the recipe for the physical point of sale. Without having found a miracle solution, Alexandre Velge imagines “Places oriented to experience, where it would be possible to have real profound and personalized advice”. To illustrate his point, he presents the following example: “Imagine that you wanted to go camping, in these futuristic points of sale, which would take the form of a kind of showroom, you could present your project very precisely to a specialized seller, who would advise you on a series of equipment for rent, and why not, book a campsite, or places for certain activities”.

While for now, this vision of the futuristic point of sale remains imaginary, stores have already begun to change. With the development of rental, there is a profound change in store logistics. For the moment, Alexandre Velge declares that “The management of rental returns, and the possible passage through the reconditioning box, is manageable in stores, but in the future, it will be necessary to imagine a kind of central management system for rental returns, with a verification part, then a reconditioning part, to streamline logistics, and ensure that each of our products last longer.”