From supermarket butcher to billionaire: who is behind Decathlon?

In the north of France, on the Belgian border, lies Roubaix. It is a town of about 100,000 inhabitants that in the 19th century was popularly known by the nickname of the city of a thousand chimneys, because it was an imported centre of the textile industry. Today, the sector is already derisory and the city's fame has vanished. However, they still have a stripe: among their favourite sons is Michael Leclercq, the founder of Decathlon. The history of the empire of clothing and accessories for all kinds of sports that has spread across 78 countries, has nearly 1,750 establishments and is capable of turning over 15.6 billion euros in one year, begins there, in 1961.

That year, Leclercq's cousin, Gérard Mulliez, opened a supermarket in Roubaix. He named it Auchan. It was the first establishment in the history of this supermarket chain, which in Spain operates under the name Alcampo. Mulliez asked him to join the staff. At the time, Leclercq was only 22 years old and was studying engineering. In a turn of events that took the whole family by surprise, he decided to swap his notebook and pen for a knife: he dropped out of school to work behind the counter of the supermarket's butcher's counter. Over the years, he rose through the ranks of the company and became the group's technological manager. In 1975, already at the top of the company structure, he decided to fold. He wanted to start his own business project.

On 27 July 1976, with all the experience of having seen Auchan born firmly in his retina, he opened the first Decathlon store. He did so in Englos, a small town near Roubaix. Until then, there had been no chain that brought together in one place such a variety of sports accessories, both for professionals and beginners. Success was immediate: Leclercq knew how to replicate the success story that his cousin had experienced years earlier with Auchan.

Success in Spain

From then on, everything went smoothly. In 1986, Decathlon opened its first store outside France, in Dortmund, Germany. That same year, it moved its product manufacturing to Asia. In 1992, the company attacked the Spanish market with an opening in Badalona. Today, there are nearly 150 of the company's stores throughout Spain. "We have helped democratise sport in Spanish homes," the company praised in a statement on the occasion of its 30th anniversary in Spain. In 1996, it created its own brand Quechua, for mountain sports, and Tribord, for water sports. "We wanted to create and design products that would meet all of our customers' needs," Decathlon recalls today.

In 2001, Decathlon landed on the Latin American continent, opening in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and in 2003 it approached China. "In some countries it has taken root very well, but in others, such as the United States, it has never managed to do so: there consumers prefer higher quality and specialized brands," explains Neus Soler, a marketing expert at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). In Spain, it has been successful and has managed to move more than 2.12 billion euros annually. The expert attributes this to several factors. One would be the accessibility of its products. "Decathlon is a place where customers can find articles for any sporting discipline, and it has an extensive network of stores, well located, both within the city and in suburban areas, apart from online commerce," she points out.

Affordability is the other key to success. "Developing own brands, with their own design, production and distribution, allows the company to take advantage of economies of scale and obtain the product at a lower cost, maintaining quality but reducing the sale price," says Soler. Investment in innovation and improving the shopping experience has rounded off the business. "Most of the staff practice the sport in the area of the store in which they work, which allows them to know the product first hand and understand the needs of the customer: they can advise them better," he concludes. Today, the founder of Decathlon is 85 years old and has a personal fortune of 5.6 billion euros, the magazine reports. Forbes.