Gymwear specialist Gymshark is opening its first permanent store outside the UK this year. The company has inked a deal with franchiser Al Tayer Insignia to make its debut on the ground floor of UAE’s Dubai Mall, currently the largest mall in the world by total gross land area and with over 105 million shoppers last year.
This will be the gym wear giant’s third store. It opened its original flagship store on Regent Street in London’s West End in the fall of 2022 and recently launched in the UK capital’s East End at Westfield Stratford City Mall.
The arrival of the first physical store in the Middle East follows the launch of localized e-commerce services in the region. These services include a dual-language site and app, faster shipping times (including same-day delivery) and exclusive limited-edition releases specifically for the Middle East region.
“We’ve known for a while that Gymshark is expanding its omnichannel strategy and we would be looking outside the shores of the UK,” Gymshark founder and CEO Ben Francis said. “So, when Al Tayer Insignia presented us with the opportunity to take a space in one of the world’s most visited malls in a city that is so obsessed with fitness, combined with the phenomenal reaction to the launch of our localized online store in the Middle East, we knew we had to seize it.”
