JD Sports has a focus on cracking the American market. The UK brand wants to grow its US store network from 137 to about 800 over the next five years.
About half will come from store conversions of Finish Line (the sportswear retailer acquired in 2018) into JD-branded stores. The other half will be new stores, focused on the western US. JD Sports wants to achieve double-digit sales growth and profit margins over the next five years and the North American market will be crucial to achieving that goal.
The challenge will be raising brand awareness in the US, where JD Sports has only 2,95,000 Instagram followers, compared with 2.1 million in the UK. The retailer is using payment data to track consumers who are spending at rivals and then targeting them with ads when they watch YouTube.
The key to its US-dominated expansion will be JD Sports’ growing relationship with Nike.The US giant’s Air Force 1 footwear range accounts for between ten per cent and 20 per cent of JD’s annual footwear sales.The American focus, added to expansion plans in Europe and Asia, would result in about 1,400 JD stores opening over the next five years, taking the total to more than 2,400.
