Puma New York is re-launching itself on the American market!
The concept
Puma has long fought for market share in the ultra-competitive American sports market, dominated by giants Adidas and Nike. With the opening of its first North American store in New York, Puma is positioning itself alongside the giants.
The store is located on the bustling 5th Avenue, just steps away from the Nike and Adidas stores. It houses the brand’s latest and greatest sports and fashion products for men, women and children. It spans two floors and occupies 1,700 square metres of retail space.
In this store, consumers can shop in multiple areas and view products via “magic mirrors” that use RFID chips to provide alternatives based on the scanned item. The customer can also use the Qr codes on each product to get more information.
Other highlights include a Puma x You customisation studio, which will offer events every two weeks with artists such as Sue Tsai, Maria Jahnkoy and others; an F1 racing simulator for customers who are motor sports fans; and a field resembling the San Siro stadium to try on the brand’s football shoes.
The opening of the store comes as the brand is expanding in the United States. After finishing 2018 up 16.9% on the American continent, Puma did even better in 2019, with sales growth of 18.1% in the first half of 2019. On August 1, the brand announced overall profits up nearly 60% in the second quarter of this year.
In addition to opening its first-ever flagship store in North America, the company will strengthen its presence in the United States with a new headquarters in Boston, scheduled to open in 2021.
The new Puma store in New York City, which opened on August 29, is located at 609 Fifth Avenue and will remain open daily from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm.
Why visit the store?
Discover the impressive design of the place
In addition to being the brand’s first store in New York, Puma opted for a surprising design to attract customers. A giant shoe of the brand welcomes you at the entrance and a map of the city allows you to locate the store.
Take a sewing course
As previously mentioned, every two weeks, events will be held in the store to highlight the fashion side of the brand. Indeed, two markets are developing for sports brands: buying products for exercise and buying clothes for streetwear fashion.
A space in the store is therefore totally dedicated to creation, with workshops and meetings with the brand’s designers. In order to better discover the process of creating a garment for example, customers will be able to register to attend product creation courses by designers of the brand who will use the sewing machines installed in the store to show the whole process from creation to manufacturing.
Showing your qualities in football
The store also sells football shoes. To make sure you buy the right pair, you can test your ball skills in a room full of screens that will put you in the mood of an Italian stadium.
An employee of the brand will be there to make you do some juggling and ball driving exercises to collect points. At the end of the exercises, he will give you a total score that will be displayed for posterity and to compare you to other customers in the store.
Buy online or in store
The store is very visual and offers many digital screens that provide information on available products, the latest releases and news of the brand. Puma has announced that it will use RFID tags on the products in the store, so that these digital displays can recognise products as they are approached and display the corresponding information to the customer. However, despite several attempts, it seems that the solution does not yet work in the store.
Another interesting aspect is that you can shop from these screens and have the products delivered to your home (which is quite classical now), but the design of the online product presentation is the same as the design of the in-store product presentation.
The customer can also scan the Qr Codes present in the products to get more information and buy a product from a smartphone.
Playing video games
The store seeks to reach a young clientele. Two areas of the store are therefore dedicated to video games. Puma is present in basketball and Formula 1, so you can play NBA games or do a Formula 1 race… in the streets of Manhattan.
