Sporting goods shops tend to fall into two types - those that are brand-owned and offer a complete mono-brand universe, such as Niketown or an Adidas store, and those that are not.
In terms of a customer experience, the latter frequently tend to be something of a challenge because they are, in effect, houses of brands.
That means assorted pieces of point of sale with nothing to unite the whole. The upshot can be a mess and perhaps for this reason the shopper expectation is that things will be cheap.
Sporting Pro, the fledgling sports fascia owned by Matalan that now has stores in locations as varied as Coleraine and Colchester, has just opened a flagship branch on London’s Kensington High Street.
It is a house of brands with Adidas, Nike, Reebok and Asics being the lion’s share of the proposition. On this reckoning it would be easy for the store to be untidy with each brand vying for attention.
This, however, is also a branded house with the vinyl-wood upper perimeter treatment on the ground floor being used to give a sense of a store, rather than a random assortment of broadly similar offers.
The same is true in the basement, where the floor features vinyl that has been printed to look like a sports field, unifying the different sports that are found across the space.
Good use has been made of active sports mannequins throughout the shop and the layout gives pride of place to running, which is more or less the whole of the ground floor, while all other sports are in the basement.
This store is not about discounting but instead showcasing a host of sports to the shopper.
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