On is opening stores on two continents in the same week, deepening its footprint in California while entering Brazil for the first time.
On is pursuing two distinct retail strategies in the same week. Read together, the moves say more about the brand’s ambitions in the Americas than either announcement does on its own. On July 30, 2026, the brand opened a new store on Chestnut Street in San Francisco and launched its first standalone store in Brazil at São Paulo’s JK Iguatemi: one move deepens a mature US market, the other opens an entirely new country.
Density in California, entry into Brazil
In California, On is not chasing new territory. It is tightening its footprint in a state it already knows well. The four new stores (San Francisco, Corte Madera, San Diego and Los Angeles) add to existing locations in Palo Alto, Abbot Kinney and Newport Beach. It is a density strategy, with On deepening its presence in one of its strongest US regions rather than entering a new state.
Brazil is different. JK Iguatemi and MorumbiShopping, opening July 30 and Aug. 6 respectively, are On’s first standalone stores in the country, with a third confirmed before year end at Rio de Janeiro’s Leblon Shopping.
What links the two
Both rollouts lean on local architectural references rather than a standardized global store format. The Chestnut Street store nods to the Golden Gate Bridge’s red orange tones, while the São Paulo locations draw on the brutalist SESC Pompeia and Oscar Niemeyer’s Copan Building. For a brand competing against Nike and adidas on brand experience rather than price, that localization is itself a competitive signal.
The Brazil launch extends On’s direct to consumer (DTC) footprint into Latin America. The timing also underlines the growing role of physical retail within On’s broader direct to consumer strategy across the Americas, a strategy the brand says has taken its global footprint past 70 stores worldwide.
