Adidas has opened a new flagship store, which it calls Adidas LDN, covering 27,000 square feet on four levels on Oxford Street in London, opposite the main department store of Selfridges. The site offers a unique, immersive customer experience. According to the company, it is the most digital Adidas store in the world.
Here the company has added a feature called “Bring It To Me” to the Adidas app. This, in conjunction with in-store geolocation, enables customers to scan products, check stock, request their size and make a purchase on the spot, without standing in line. They also can receive reminders of upcoming product releases. The app uses an in-store tracking function to browse, interacting with a Hype Wall digital display on the ground floor. The app also allows schedule appointments for sneaker cleaning with Crep Protect (the LDN store is claimed to have the largest sneaker-cleaning department in the U.K.), sneaker try-outs and stride analyses at the Running Lab and sports-bra fittings.
The store has more than a hundred digital “touchpoints,” all powered by “green energy.” The interactive mirrors in the fitting rooms use RFID chips to identify products and display information about them. Customers can request different sizes and colors without going back to the sales floor.
Items can be tailored on site, as well. A section called The Base surrounds customers with changing LED screens and a digitally controlled floor for “product experiences,” activations and “interactive challenges.” The Base and the MakerLab “customization hub” will be hosting events. Each of the store's four floors displays locally commissioned artwork. One piece is a Union Jack made up of a thousand national flags, representing London as the “city of a thousand nations.”
According to Adidas, the store's staff speaks some 31 languages, and sustainable and responsibly sourced materials including recycled plastic, foam and textiles are use throughout the store.
In terms of the product selection, LDN features items available nowhere else. In addition to performance products, it offers Adidas Originals designs and collaborations such as Adidas Yeezy, Adidas by Stella McCartney and Y-3.
Kasper Rørsted, chief executive of the Adidas Group, said the London flagship is an example of the kind of strong investments that the company is making in retailing and e-commerce in Europe to help regain market share in the region.
