Decathlon, a sportswear retailer, needed a cart to improve the shopping experience within their stores. To meet their high expectations, Decathlon chose DW Reusables to design sustainable trolley, a.k.a. shopping cart.
The challenge
Decathlon stores offer a large range of equipment for all kinds of sports, camping and hiking, the shops extend over a sizeable area, causing the trolleys to be used intensively by the customers. Therefore, the cart has to offer maximum strength and comply with the highest quality demands. In the past, Decathlon had only one supplier located in China. This resulted in both logistical difficulties and high transportation costs. When looking for a solution, Decathlon preferred DW Reusables because of the production sites all over Europe.Our approach
The design of the trolley was re-examined by our Plastics' Injection Moulded in-house design team. The design team viewed the opportunity of optimising and improving the product and reducing the associated assembly costs, at the same time. The end design resulted in our ergonomic nest-able Decathlon trolley. The cart weighs 1,450 grams (3.1 lbs) which is incredibly light, while maintaining extreme strength. The handles of the cart are now clicked into place which reduced the number of screws per trolley. This innovation resulted considerable reduction of the raw material and production costs.
To ensure that the new trolley was safely used by customers, the design team suggested to use a 'screen printing technique' that allowed to place a safety symbol inside the trolley indicating that the cart is not suited to carry children.
The results
The user-friendly and sustainable shopping cart on wheels offers optimal convenience for shoppers and guarantees durability, minimal production and logistical costs for Decathlon. Plastics' trolley has become the standard cart used for Decathlon stores all over the world. Plastics' Injection Moulded Products is already producing more than 250,000 trolley carts for Decathlon.About Decathlon
Decathlon is the world's largest sportswear retailer with over 700 branches and 70,000 employees worldwide. Innovation is central in all of their activities from research, development, design, production, and logistics to sales.