Decathlon Ireland
Helping Decathlon’s store to comply with safety measures and help free up the personnel from safety monitoring tasks
Decathlon – Sport for the many
Decathlon is a well-known international sporting goods retailer and brand. It was founded in France in 1976 by and is now one of the largest sporting goods retailers in the world. Decathlon operates more than 1,600 stores in over 60 countries, including both physical stores and online platforms.
Decathlon offers a wide range of sporting goods and equipment for various sports and outdoor activities. Their product range covers sports such as football, basketball, tennis, cycling, running, swimming, hiking, camping, and many others. They design and produce their own sports products under various in-house brands, covering different sports categories and price ranges.
Decathlon is known for its emphasis on accessibility, affordability, and innovation. They strive to make sports and fitness equipment accessible to people of all ages and skill levels. In addition to selling products, Decathlon often promotes and supports sports activities, encourages participation in sports, and organises community events to engage with customers and promote a healthy and active lifestyle.
The Challenge
Since the Dublin store was opened in June 2020 and because it was considered a non-essential business, it was forced to close on a number of occasions as a result of the lockdown that was mandated in Ireland.
However, the Decathlon store in Dublin was frequented by a high number of visitors and therefore, the store needed to implement a solution that would allow them to fully comply with the safety regulations to protect their customers and employees.
Ensuring appropriate customer spacing, not exceeding capacity limits at any time and proper mask wearing were Decathlon’s main concerns. For months the Decathlon team worked on ways to limit the number of people in the store and even changed the traffic flow of the store by locating the entrance and exit points on opposite sides of the building. Ensuring masks were being worn was also managed manually.
Because it was very important for Decathlon to free up its staff from these safety monitoring tasks and allow them to focus on other work and also to minimize the error rate that could result from manually monitoring the flow of customers, they decided to use cutting-edge technology to help them implement proactive measures to address these concerns.
With the aim of enhancing customer service, Decathlon also had a strong need to learn more about its traffic patterns and to have relevant and updated information available in terms of knowing what hours of the day were the busiest as well as the slowest.
The Solution
Scan’s team suggested using Interaction Care, an Intel® Market Ready Solution powered by Beabloo. This solution would fully meet all the requirements of Decathlon’s store in Dublin, Ireland.
Three components from the Interaction Care solution package, namely Occupancy Control, Mask Detection and Safety Content were implemented in Decathlon’s store in Dublin. The solution helped the store comply with safety regulations and public health guidelines such as safe occupancy limits and mask wearing mandates.
This in turn has significantly improved the safety environment for the store’s employees and customers. The technology solutions that were implemented allowed Decathlon’s store to automatically and efficiently manage its occupancy level as well as to accurately detect persons not wearing masks in real-time and to immediately trigger the mandatory mask use content to maximize everyone’s protection.
The solution also allowed Decathlon to collect valuable information such as store peak times or its lowest performing hours.
The Results
Thanks to the implementation of the different components of Interaction Care, an Intel® Market Ready Solution powered by Beabloo, Decathlon’s Dublin store is in a position to fully comply with safety regulations and protect its customers and employees.
Beabloo’s innovative technology helped Decathlon’s store in Dublin to accurately measure as well as automatically and effectively control the occupancy levels, ensuring that capacity limits were not exceeded at any time.
The implemented technology also allowed Decathlon’s store to automatically detect anyone not wearing a face mask and to automatically implement corrective actions in real time, freeing up employees from that task and allowing them to resume their normal duties.
Additionally, this solution anonymously collects a large amount of valuable data such as customer traffic, demographics and content visualisations. This information provides a valuable insight into the overall traffic experienced by Decathlon’s Dublin store, helping it to optimize its business operations.
Providing outstanding customer service is a top priority for Decathlon. With this in mind, it is crucial for Decathlon to ensure that the safety guidelines are fully complied with and to provide its team with the ability to focus on their normal duties. Beabloo’s Interaction Care technology has proven to be an essential tool in achieving this goal.
Testimonial
“Currently the most valuable feature provided by this solution for us is occupancy control and the displaying of this information to customers prior to them entering the store.
As a new big retailer with tens of thousands of visitors a week, this digital solution is vital to ensure a smooth and safe shopping experience for all the new and repeat visitors to Decathlon Ballymun”
Simon Brophy – Facilities & Logistics Manager at Decathlon Ireland