First look: Adidas’ new flagship Oxford Street store

The German sports brand has relocated the new store to 425 Oxford Street, right across the street from Selfridges, and said that it will act as a “hyper-local hub for consumers; providing platform activations, events and artist collaborations”.

Spread across four floors, the 27,000-plus sq ft store features 30 overlapping semi-transparent LED screens across its first and second storeys, which will be used to highlight content that “brings the Adidas products and campaigns to life”.

The new store also features a raft of unique digital innovations, such as The Base – a space covered with LED flooring and walls, which will serve a variety of uses, including hosting interactive games for customers and allowing them to “create a movement pattern, download it and have it heat-pressed onto a T-shirt”.

The store also has the brand’s first Maker Lab in the UK, which will allow customers to fully customise any item available to buy across its retail range, and an area dedicated to its sustainability range.

The flagship store also has a strong focus on offering services for customers; including bra-fitting appointments with experts, product testing and personalisation with the Running Lab, in-store tailors and a trainer-cleaning service.

Brand beacon

Vice president of brand for Adidas, Chris Walsh, said: “The new Adidas LDN store is more than a retail experience of the brand, it’s going to be a beacon for us in the city. Whether it’s designing in the MakerLab, finding the perfect footwear in the Running Lab or competing in The Base, this is a place where communities from all corners of London and beyond can come together and create.”

Adidas has also developed a new function within its existing app, called ‘Bring It To Me’ – allowing consumers to check the availability and sizing of a product in real time and to request it from a shop assistant digitally.

The store has beacons throughout which then allow a shop assistant to find the customer and bring the product to them, wherever they are in-store.

“What we’re trying to do is truly combine the best of physical and digital retail. That combination will be massively important for us”

Hannah Mercer, Adidas

All changing rooms on the first and second floors feature Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-enabled mirrors, with tags on all items activating further information to be provided on the mirror. Customers can use the technology to request different sizes and colours to be brought to them without leaving the space.

There is also an immersive mirror on the first floor, which Adidas said would allow users to “put themselves into a number of different scenes and take a selfie of themselves in that environment”.

Adidas said the store will also feature “the very best of the brand across sport and style” including Originals designs, collaborations such as with Yeezy and Stella McCartney, and a dedicated area to its more premium Y-3 offering.

The flagship will also be effectively cashier-less, with customers able to pay from 120 mobile payment devices in-store.

Vice president of global retail and franchise operations at Adidas, Hannah Mercer, said the strategic success of the store would not be based on traditional retail KPIs.

“The aim is to encourage people to come here and experience the brand physically. What we’re trying to do is truly combine the best of physical and digital retail. That combination will be massively important for us.

“Consumer feedback will be hugely important to us, as will conversion from physical to online. Our staff will be heavily incentivised on ecommerce and will be measured much less on traditional KPIs.”

The new store opens today.