Kask and Koo open flagship store in New York City

Kask and Koo have opened a flagship store in New York City, enabling the brands to offer a tailored shopping experience, showcasing a wide range of products across cycling, snow sports, and equestrian.

Located in the heart of the Garment District in Manhattan, the store encompasses the brands’ various collections, with friendly and knowledgeable staff on hand to provide the best-possible customer care.

The store’s central location was originally chosen so it could serve New York’s large community of athletes. Having opened its doors earlier this year, the store now serves as an ideal location for various events, and for sportspeople who want to meet up and exercise together.

At a time when retail is increasingly migrating onto digital platforms, a flagship store in a world-renowned city like New York represents a strong branding choice for KASK and KOO that complements their more traditional trading strategies utilizing national distributor channels.

Industry observations

Brands are looking to own their customer experience, creating retail spaces which seamlessly deliver on the brand story; an integral part of making the offline experience match the online one.

Owning the customer experience Is increasingly seen as critical given the heavy investment in marketing and communications, to attract, engage, and develop an audience. Any disconnect, between the online experience customers have when interacting with the brand, and the experience customers have in the physical ‘ bricks and mortar’ retail space, may arguably impact customer perception of the brand.

This could simply be poor merchandising standards, dusty shop fittings, product overstock, squashed onto rails, poorly hung or displayed, or incomplete size curves, brands displayed on other brands display units, also use of outdated promotional images. All have a measurable, negative, impact. All unimaginable in a brand owned and run retail environment. Equally so for outstanding independent retail specialists.

Retail spaces need to present, share, and extend, that online personality and soul, giving customers more than a dry, soulless, transactional in-store experience. The value add for both brand and customer is a quality of engagement which enhances the sense, or perception, of value, and extends the relationship between customer and brand.

Scratching your head and wondering what this is all about?

Closer to home, Gymshark described the reason for opening a flagship retail store as, “a place for our community to experience the essence of Gymshark”, further telling Retail Gazette, “despite many forecasting the death of the high street and bricks & mortar in retail, we don’t buy into that.”

Impact and consequence

So, how does your store score if you secret shopped yourselves? If one of the brands you stocked paid you an unannounced visit, what would your retail score card look like?

Thinking about the outcome of those scenarios, how much money are you leaving out there? Are your customers impressed by the complete in-store experience, or underwhelmed and spending their money somewhere else?

If you’ve read this far, it makes sense to recommend the CI.N Podcast: Retail experience guru Donny Perry talks modern bike shop