The Spanish sporting goods chain is reopening its store in Vitoria, in Spain's Basque Country. With this refurbished store, the company has focused its investment on better visibility, arrangement and order for the products, trying to give customers the broadest view of its selection.
To this end, the 2,600 square meters of retail space are peppered with touch screens where customers can look up the specs on any of 100,000 items and check the in-store inventory in real time. This multichannel approach aims to make the most economical use of the available space to stock and display the merchandise.
That said, the store is not totally automated. Clerks rove the sales floor with mobile devices to field questions and advise customers on technical points.
In addition, Forum Sport has signed a deal with Intelligent Delivery, the exclusive distributor of Cleveron on the Iberian Peninsula. This partner company is setting up smart terminals at all Forum Sport stores to streamline in-store pick-up for customers who place their orders online.
The number of in-store pick-ups has been on the rise in recent years. So far, there are 16 Hapiick terminals in Forum Sport stores. Once their merchandise is ready, customers can proceed to a store, enter their code into a terminal and receive their package automatically, ideally without ever waiting in line. Forum Sport hopes to be running this new “click & collect” system throughout its retail network by the end of next year.
Founded in 1991, Forum Sport runs 50 stores in 11 of Spain's autonomous communities. Of these one is a franchise, three are outlets, and one is an online store. The company also runs 13 Dooers stores for sneakers and dooerssneakers.com.
