Gymshark, a global athletic apparel powerhouse, partnered with Aura Vision to guide its ambitious foray into physical retail. From its first flagship store on Regent Street to pop-ups and an expanding store estate, Aura Vision’s analytics empowered Gymshark to optimize store design, enhance customer experiences, and cement its leadership in the sportswear category.
Founded in 2012 in Solihull, England, Gymshark has grown from a garage startup to a billion-pound brand under the leadership of Ben Francis. Known for its innovative fitness wear and digital-first approach, Gymshark opened its first retail store in London’s Regent Street in 2022. Built on core values like inclusivity, sustainability, and disruption, Gymshark continues to challenge norms while putting family and community first.
Why Gymshark Chose Aura Vision 📝
As an online retail leader, Gymshark thrived on data-driven decision-making. However, entering the offline retail space presented new challenges:
- Understanding demographics: Segmenting customer data at entrances and product levels to inform aggressive rollout plans.
- Accurate footfall and traffic metrics: Capturing in-store and passing traffic data for new locations to refine store strategies.
- Optimizing future store designs: Analyzing shopper behavior to guide layout decisions for stores of varying sizes and formats.
- Evaluating campaigns and displays: Measuring the impact of marketing efforts on target demographics and overall capture rates.
The Solution: Powered by Aura Vision ⚡
Gymshark deployed Aura Vision’s full-store analytics at its Regent Street flagship, paving the way for adoption across future launches, including Stratford’s Westfield shopping center and international pop-ups. The solution delivered:
- Store launch effectiveness: Monitoring traffic inside and outside the store from launch day and beyond.
- Demographic heatmaps: Tracking customer movement and engagement across the store.
- Capture rate analysis: Measuring passer-by traffic, store entries, and the impact of window displays and campaigns.
- Product-level insights: Monitoring impressions, dwell times, and demographics for each display.
- Service area analysis: Evaluating fitting room usage and queue management.
- Zone-specific entry metrics: Understanding how layout changes influence customer flow and engagement.
The Value Delivered 💵
Gymshark leveraged Aura Vision’s analytics to achieve actionable outcomes:
- Improved Store Design: Heatmaps identified underperforming areas, informing layout refinements leading to increases between 3X and 5X for key in-store areas
- Enhanced Customer Journey: Optimised changing room location and design increasing usages up to 63% - a key stage that subsequently increased conversion rates.
- Optimized Merchandising: A/B tests reduced the gender gap across zones, including a 10% increase in capture rates for particular demographics to key product areas.
- Campaign Effectiveness: Captured demographics aligned with target audiences, enabling precise marketing optimizations.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Tailored reports provided actionable insights for store operations, merchandising, and marketing teams.
Actions and Impact 🎬
Aura Vision empowered Gymshark to transform its physical retail strategy by:
- Redesigning stores based on demographic and heatmap insights.
- Enhancing customer experiences through better layouts and service areas.
- Refining marketing campaigns with measurable impact metrics.
- Scaling learnings across pop-ups, flagships, and full-price stores.
These advancements have positioned Gymshark not just as a challenger but as a category leader in the sportswear industry.
