ams.
“Traditionally, sports retail is very blokey and presented very male dominated. It’s not engaging, it’s not warm, it’s very cold, but it’s changed,” explained Tom Kiing, executive director at Adidas Australia Franchise.
“The precinct we’re in is the Emporium, where you’ve got the Nike flagship, there’s a Lululemon flagship downstairs and we’re next to Tommy Hilfiger. We’re [womenswear-led] because it’s a strong growth category, but we’ve also basically gone into the number one luxe fashion women’s shopping centre in the city.”
In an effort to grow its female customer base, Adidas also began collaborating with Beyonce last year to develop the global superstar’s Ivy Park collection. When the range dropped at the beginning of the year, it was reported that everything sold out within a day, except for pairs of socks.
According to Kiing, since the rise of streetwear and the merge of sport with fashion, more female customers have been attracted to traditional sports retailers, beyond athletes and gym junkies.
“There’s definitely been a fusion between fashion, sport and streetwear lately. In fact, it’s interchangeable. So when people ask, ‘Why is sport doing so well?’, it’s because we’ve taken on a lot of fashion. A lot of fashion retailers are struggling and sporting brands are saying, ‘We cover the consumer 360-degrees from in the gym to outside of it. It’s often a marketing aspiration,” Kiing explained.
“But seriously, in Australia, people really are comfortable wearing an Adidas t-shirt or putting on some Superstars out to the bar. It’s not even a pretense. In Europe, you don’t wear an Adi t-shirt to go to a nice restaurant, but if you’re from Australia, it’s culturally acceptable.”
Major retailers and brands locally and internationally have also got women on their radar, including Rebel, which rolled out its new RCX experiential store concept recently that features large sections dedicated to female customers. Nike has also invested a lot into the demographic in recent years, from product innovation to its in-store experience, such as its bra fitting services based on machine learning.
Like other brands around the globe, Adidas is also focusing on the direct-to-consumer arm of its business and developing its bricks-and-mortar presence to forge better connections with its customers.
“We’ll continue to grow the Adidas network aggressively because we’re still underrepresented in Australia,” explained Kiing, adding he’ll be focusing on where the brand fits in the ‘masstige’ market.
“We’re not going to be in 100 malls, but we’ll be in 25-30 of the best malls, So if you’re a tourist and you saw an Adi concept store, you know it’s a major mall in the country.”
