To Open Up Sports And Experience Community, Lululemon Also Opened Gymnasium.

Canadian sports brand Lululemon also opened the gym.

Recently, Lululemon announced the world's first, and so far the largest gymnasium opened. The gym is divided into three classrooms, yoga, HIIT and meditation. In addition, it has a healthy eating space Fuel, a leisure office space. Besides, shower and dressing rooms are available.

It seems that Lululemon hopes that users can not only sell sportswear, but also spend the whole day here.

The gymnasium is located on the two floor of Lululemon flagship store in Chicago, with an area of 2000 square meters. The first floor is the retail area of sportswear, next to the Lululemon store is the silk lotus, which is also a partner of Lululemon sports care products.

That is to say, this is almost a Lululemon one-stop sports living space that integrates user training, work and life. As a global sport brand targeting the "sports life", Lululemon has been insisting on experiential retail practices. For example, we can see the experiential yoga classes in many Lululemon stores, invite sports fitness KOL as brand ambassadors, and even do not ask celebrities to speak for a long time.

According to MaureenErickson, vice president of experiential retail, Lululemon Lululemon gym has almost completely realized the idea of brand slogan "SweatLife".

Officials even said that in 2023, the world's 10% Lululemon flagship store, including China, would be in accordance with a similar gym configuration. It sounds that the sports brand will move towards experiential retail and increasingly moving toward lifestyle brand.

Let's take a look at the specific configuration of space.

The gymnasium is located in Chicago LinkoInPark's single family, according to the company's external description, "almost four basketball court size".

It is worth noting that Lululemon's Gym chose two static courses, yoga and meditation, and the most popular high-intensity interval HIIT in the United States. The gym has 6-10 classes per day, and is taken by Lululemon's ambassador.

Lululemon calls the three part of the gym the Sweat. In addition, the mobile workspace is called Grow, which has turned healthy food into Connect. Among them, Connect's healthy restaurant is operated by the famous healthy diet KOL. Foods that can be seen in restaurants include salad, coffee, beer and Kombucha.

Besides, the Grow of work and rest area looks more like Equinox's coffee and workspace. So that users can stay in the gym on the two floor for longer periods.

According to the official expression of the company, it is not like a shopping place to buy clothes at all times. It is more like a long experience space. But Lululemon has focused more on fitness lifestyle.

Unlike NIKE, which put the first two experimental store InnovationLab in New York and Shanghai, Lululemon put the first experimental gym store in Lincoln Park a few kilometers away from Chicago.

This place is also the place where Lululemon first stores in the US in 2006. So far, the total number of Lululemon stores in North America is 355, accounting for 78% of the total. Obviously, Lululemon believes that North America is a more mature market.

We also saw this high-end Yoga brand, which has gained 44% in the past year. From the data point of view, 2018 has become the fastest growing year of yoga clothing brand since lululemon20.

According to the official fourth quarter 2018 earnings report, lululemom's global revenue in the fourth quarter was $1 billion 170 million, which was $3 billion 300 million for the whole year, an increase of 26% over the same period. Among them, China's electricity supplier growth is particularly strong, the fourth quarter growth of more than 140%.

Of course, the gym is not a precedent for this sports brand. DTC, the UK's fitness brand Gymshark, opened its first laboratory gym in Bermingham, GymsharkLiftingClub, UnderArmour and even opened the cooperative gym. These are the direct embodiment of the brand close to the sports consumption scene.

But compared to Lululemon's experiential retail, NIKE still put more energy into retail digitization.

For example, NIKE 000 store in New York, users can experience all the NIKE products online through APP and store experience. Let offline become a scenario of optimizing experience products, and take electricity supplier as a more important platform for purchase.

The Canadian brand is putting more energy into China in the wake of the huge sales growth of Lululemon2018 in Greater China. For example, Qu Chu Xiao was the first spokesman for the Greater China region, and he launched a joint course with Keep and even the founder subscribed Anta shares.

In China, where the sports consumption is growing rapidly, both the general fitness population, including sportswear and healthy diet, have ushered in more opportunities.

In this field, the pattern of foreign brands still occupying most of the market in China is changing. Whether Anta's acquisition of foreign brands such as FILA, primitive birds, or the rise of local brands represented by China's Lining has seen more potential. Perhaps under the next big sports consumption era, Chinese brands will gradually come to the stage.