Go Outdoors Brand Guidelines: Sheffield’s Camping Centre, JD Sports & a 2020 Pre-Pack

A Sheffield camping shop and a 1998 buyout.

Go Outdoors grew from the Camping and Caravanning Centre in Sheffield, grough reported in June 2020. The business as it is known today dates from 1998: TheBusinessDesk reported in November 2016 that Go Outdoors “was founded in 1998 in Sheffield by Paul Caplan and John Graham,” and grough wrote that the pair took over the business in a management buyout backed by the investors YFM Equity Partners and 3i Group. Trade press often writes the name as GO Outdoors, with the first word in capitals.

What set the chain apart was the size of its shops. In its 2017 decision on the chain’s sale, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that Blacks and Millets traded from smaller, typically high-street locations, “whereas Go Outdoors operates from larger stores typically in ‘out of town’ locations and is therefore able to offer a broader range of products.” It described Go Outdoors as a UK retailer of outdoor clothing, footwear and equipment, and noted a “Price Match Plus” scheme run across its stores, under which local shops gave a discount where a customer showed the same product cheaper at another retailer, online or on the high street.

The CMA found the two groups to be close competitors, with 52 Go Outdoors stores within a 30-minute drive of a JD Outdoor store, but said they also faced a significant number of similarly close rivals. Some competitors told the regulator that Go Outdoors competed more closely on price and range with Millets than with Blacks, which had a more “premium” offer.

The same decision referred to the large database of customers holding the chain’s discount and loyalty cards. In 2020 The Guardian described the business as specialising in fishing, cycling and camping gear.

JD Sports, the CMA and a pre-pack.

The founders’ era ended in 2016. JD Sports Fashion agreed to buy Go Outdoors under a sale and purchase agreement dated 27 November 2016, and the deal completed the same day, the CMA recorded. grough reported that Caplan and Graham left the company when JD bought it. The CMA served an initial enforcement order on JD Sports and Pentland Group on 22 December 2016, opened a formal inquiry on 20 March 2017 and cleared the deal on 18 May 2017, publishing its decision in June.

At the time Go Outdoors ran 57 stores in the UK and had agreed to open more in Ipswich and Tonbridge, the CMA said. JD’s outdoor arm then traded as Blacks, Millets, Ultimate Outdoors and Tiso, together with a George Fisher shop in the Lake District that belonged to the Tiso group. Pentland also owned Berghaus, which ran a handful of its own branded stores, the CMA noted.

Four years later JD restructured the chain. The Guardian reported on 21 June 2020 that JD had filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators for Go Outdoors, which then had 67 UK stores and more than 2,000 staff, after its shops closed in April and reopened from early May. On 23 June JD appointed administrators from Deloitte and bought the business back through a newly formed subsidiary in a pre-pack sale, grough and Retail Gazette reported. JD said it had considered other options, including putting the chain up for sale, before deciding that a restructured 67-store business was viable within the group, grough wrote. In a statement JD called the chain’s property leases “extremely inflexible” and said it would continue to occupy all 67 standalone stores under an initial 12-month licence; staff transferred on their existing terms, and gift cards and customer returns were honoured.

How outdoor retailers present themselves.

Outdoor, camping and ski retailers sell other companies’ boots, tents and jackets alongside ranges of their own, so much of their identity lives in the shop rather than the product. Trade press coverage of the British chains returns to the same few things: the size and setting of a store, the specialist departments inside it, and the services offered at the counter, such as boot and rucksack fitting or a cycle workshop.

Store format is the clearest divide. In its 2017 review of a merger in the sector, the Competition and Markets Authority described one group of chains trading from smaller, typically high-street shops and another from larger stores, typically out of town, able to carry a broader range. Newer openings mix the two ideas: shops that put two or three of a group’s fascias under one roof, smaller “express” formats with in-store kiosks for the full range, and concessions run by specialist cycling, fishing or equestrian businesses inside a larger store.

Names carry much of the work. Several chains in this guide are named after a place or an activity rather than a founder, and several sit inside larger groups owned by listed retailers or private-equity firms, while the shopfront name stays the same. Campaigns can be timed to the season: one chain’s 2026 autumn and winter campaign came with a floor refresh across all its stores, trade press reported.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — where it began, who has owned it and when, and how its stores are laid out — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Shops within the shop, and bigger boxes.

Since 2020 the chain has filled its stores with other specialists. In August 2022 Cycling Industry News reported a Wheelbase store-in-store inside the Go Outdoors at Coventry Business Park, with a full workshop and service centre, alongside the branch’s walking, camping, fishing, climbing and equestrian departments; JD had bought the Wheelbase cycle business in 2021.

The formats have spread in both directions. In February 2024 TheIndustry.fashion reported a 20,242 sq ft shop at the Metrocentre in Gateshead, in a unit formerly used by Wilko, under the GO Outdoors Express fascia, which carries a smaller range than a regular store, with kiosks for ordering the full range; the title said it would be the chain’s only store in the region inside a shopping centre, and described Go Outdoors as part of JD’s outdoor business alongside Blacks, Millets and Tiso. In November 2025 the same title reported a 44,000 sq ft store at St James Retail Park in Northampton with a Leisure Lakes cycling department, a Fishing Republic concession, a Naylors equestrian range, an American Golf department, and boot and rucksack fitting, stocking brands such as Berghaus, Rab, Peter Storm and OEX. It also reported a 125,000 sq ft store opened in August 2024 at the Vangarde Shopping Park in York, in a former John Lewis, and a 20,000 sq ft store in Torquay that October, and said the chain had over 100 stores.

For a design guide, Go Outdoors shows how a retail brand can be defined by the size of its boxes, with other names housed inside them. Compare JD Sports, its owner, and Blacks, the high-street chain in the same group. For this guide we use pine teal, oat and an ember orange with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Go Outdoors’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.