Decathlon is negotiating the acquisition of a majority stake in Tradeinn, the Spanish e-commerce giant Tradeinn, specializing in sports equipment, to strengthen its online sales strategy, according to Expansión and confirmed by Ecommerce News. In this way, Decathlon is approaching another pure national player in sports equipment. This operation would value the company at close to 1 billion euros.

Tradeinn, which has about twenty platforms specialized in different verticals, is controlled by the companies Didavid Management -owned by founder David Martín, and shareholders such as Dídac Lee-, which holds 70% of the capital, and Suma Capital, which holds the remaining 30% of the shares.

“Decathlon is one more interested party in the purchase of Suma Capital's shares, a process that began several months ago,” says David Martín, CEO and founder of Tradeinn. “For us, it is a source of pride that the leader of our sector wants to enter the company because it would bring much more than a financial partner,” adds the company's founder.

Similarly, David Martin confirms his intentions to remain in Tradeinn, maintaining a majority stake to continue managing the business: “I want to continue leading the company, I want to continue working to keep us as the number one.”

The deal, which also involves international funds interested in a minority stake, could close this July or in the first weeks of August.

Decathlon recently announced the creation of Decathlon Pulse, a wholly owned but independent subsidiary that will increase its investment in brands, retailers, and innovative businesses. Specifically, Decathlon Pulse has begun operating with 21 investments in its portfolio, in which the French group participates as a majority or minority shareholder.

The company closed fiscal 2023 with a 4.4% year-on-year revenue increase, at constant exchange rates. Adjusted for foreign exchange rates and the impact of the closure of its business in Russia, revenues grew by 1.15% to 16.9 billion dollars (15.618 billion euros). 

Decathlon is over a billion 

The French group posted a net income of just over 1 billion dollars (925 million euros), Forbes reported. During 2023, Decathlon sold a total of 1.19 billion items worldwide. Online sales accounted for 17.4% of the group's turnover in 2023, up 0.7% on the previous year.

On its side, Tradeinn expects to close 2024 with a turnover of 600 million euros, as its CEO David Martin recently advanced to CMD Sports. “We are very happy with how we are doing this 2024,” declared David Martín, specifying that during the first four months of the year, “we have grown by 21% compared to the same period last year.”

In this context, the CEO highlighted the sales dynamism registered by its Trekkinn, Bikeinn, Runnerinn and Snowinn verticals as the main drivers of sales in the first four months of the year, “something that already happened in the first four months of 2023”.

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The French sporting goods retailer Decathlon has launched a new application on which consumers can exchange sports equipment. The company currently owns more than 1500 stores in 49 countries. It is, therefore, the largest sporting goods retailer in the world.

The new app is called DecaShare, and its purpose is to ensure that sports become more accessible and that people try out more sports. Daan Zijderveld, brand director at Twinkle100 says:  "Boxing, snowboarding and cycling. They are all sports that you might want to try, but don't do because you don't have the stuff for it."

Adding products to Decathlon sharing platform

Research by Decathlon shows that among 1000 respondents, one in three adults who used to exercise regularly in the past have now given up completely. A third also indicate that they have not tried any new sports in five years. No money (17.7%) and not having the right sports equipment (10%) are the main reasons for this.  Decathlon hopes to change that with DecaShare. The company itself will regularly add sports equipment (that you can borrow for free) to the app. The consumer can also add their own sports equipment themselves, either for free or for a fee. That is up to the consumer to determine.

The sports shop managed to involve the Dutch kickboxer and current Glory Heavyweight Champion Rico Verhoeven in the app. This way, consumers are even able to borrow boxing gloves from top athletes. Verhoeven said: "Sports must be accessible to everyone and that is why I think this is a great initiative from Decathlon." The platform was developed in collaboration with digital agency TBWA \ MOBILE. The app can be downloaded as of today for both Android and Apple devices.

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