Decathlon opens in downtown Montreal

Sporting goods retailer Decathlon opened a new store in the Montreal Eaton Centre on Saturday.

Marking the France-based company’s fifth store in the country, the 38,000-square-foot two-story space is the first to open in a downtown location in Canada.

"This location in the downtown core, which is a relatively new approach for us, will enable us to deliver even more effectively on our brand promise, which is to make sport accessible to as many people as we can,” said Tristan Vendé of Decathlon Canada, in a news statement last November.

Decathlon stores are highly experiential and the Eaton Centre location is no exception, with product testing zones and a number of group activities available to members.

After choosing Quebec to open its first two stores in Canada last year, it opened its first store in Ontario, in Ottawa, in September.

Next, it plans to open a store in Burlington, Ontario and in Halifax, Nova Scotia, by the end of next year.

The sporting goods retailer operates nearly 1,500 stores in over 40 countries around the world. It entered Quebec in spring 2018 with a location in the Champlain shopping center in Brossard, located in the outskirts of Montreal.

Decathlon is also expected to expand into the Greater Toronto Area, Vancouver, Calgary and other Canadian markets in the future.

Decathlon has equally been eyeing the American market and opened its second store in the U.S. earlier this year, in Emeryville, CA. Its first American location opened in April 2018 at 735 Market Street in San Francisco.

Decathlon opens in downtown Montreal

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