The buzz: After being available online for a couple of years, major European sports store Decathlon has now opened up a store in Singapore. Their new shop is an “experiential zone” where you get to try-out all their fitness-related products. And yes, that means you can bounce on trampolines and ride bicycles around the shop.
The vibe:Tucked behind a nondescript brown building, which looks like offices from the front it can be a little difficult to find. Once inside it’s pretty utilitarian. The interior is all bare concrete walls and exposed florescent lighting, so your focus goes right to the serried ranks of brightly colored sports equipment.
The goods: A sports fanatic wonderland, literally filled to the brim with bicycles, cricket bats, footballs, sports clothing and accessories. Things are seriously cheap, too—think $5.90 for a ladies tank top, $6.90 for swimming goggles and $250 for an adult mountain bike. Why so cheap? Decathlon is designed for entry-level sports goods—made for the casual sports fan as opposed to the Nike-clad semi-professional athlete. It’s for those times when you fancy trying something new, but don’t want to re-mortgage your house to buy the equipment. They also have cool patented products you won’t find elsewhere like the Quechua 2-seconds pop-up tent ($119.90) which, literally, assembles itself, and the Tribord easy-breath snorkel mask ($89) that allows you to breath normally through your nose while you snorkel.
There is one catch though—while The Decathlon eXperience looks like a store, and feels like a store, they actually can’t conduct cash transactions, so you can’t just wander in and buy that scooter you’ve been craving. What you can do though is find the product you want before completing the transaction online on one of the many computers located around the space. You can then either walk out with the item or choose to have it delivered to your home.
Why you’ll be back: There are over 13,000 different items available covering 45 different types of sports. Evenif you don’t want they equipment, there’s a big range of clothing and accessories too, and at very cheap prices.
