Conducting a market research and price analysis to assess consumer preferences and the willingness to pay for a subscription to re-use sports equipment

Abstract

Decathlon’s main goal is making sports more accessible to as many people as possible. They are already able to achieve this by offering quality products at relatively low price points. Today, Decathlon is breaking boundaries by initiating sustainable projects and reducing waste in production processed. They offer Eco-Design products and various services such as repair and maintenance and repurchase and sell second-hand products, that all focus on the circularity of sports equipment. In the beginning of April, they even launched a short-term rental service. Now Decathlon wants to take product circularity to the next level, by switching from an ownership to a use model. The proposal is to implement a subscription model, in which clients can access a certain budget of products for a fixed monthly price. The task at hand is to help identify prices and correlating budgets of the different subscriptions, assess willingness to pay and identify relative target groups. This will be assessed by performing in-store interviews, and by collecting quantitative data by means of online surveys. Data analysis will include a factor and cluster analysis, a conjoint analysis and finally a Van Westendorp analysis. The obtained results will define a well-rounded pricing strategy and will provide initial insights into possible target groups and their behaviors.