Summary
It seems there is a space for consolidation of sportswear retailing in Europe. The questions are where to focus and is the concept ready to be exported?
Analysis
Europe is far from be united, at least for what concern consolidation of retail chains.
There are national Champions in Department Stores ( El Corte Inglés, Selfridges, Lafayette, La Rinascente, Karstadt, Bijenkorf); big specialty store chains (H&M, Esprit, Next mostly in North Europe; Inditex, Benetton, Mango mostly in South Europe); one can go further and consider optical chains, computer and electronics, grocery , at least electronic and grocery have alliances in central buying offices.
For Sportswear there is a similar panorama where the independent multi-brand retailers accounts for 50% of the sales.
The biggest competitor on the continental arena maybe Decathlon but with different dimension and appeal of the outlets.
The question is where to focus: small neighbor country like Scandinavian's where generally the British retailers have less problem to expand or go south to bigger market with more opportunity in consolidation (although with an expensive and strenuous cherry picking acquisition process from town to town).
Yet is JD Sports concept good for all of Europe or a fine tuning is needed?
The first answer will come from the results of the integration of the recently acquired chain Chausport in France.
This author consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
