Digital Sports Hub

Preview image of “Digital Sports Hub”
  • The Nike app also provides information in the store
  • Nike
China is an important test market for the sports brand

Nike is pushing the envelope for physical-digital integration with its new store concept in China.

Covering more than 2,000 square metres, Nike Rise in Guangzhou, China, is conceived as a data-driven hub. Shared content from the app is used to create real-time responses and updates to regularly engage users and urge them to buy and/or participate. Customers can look up products in real time and members can get special deals and privileges, such as access to in-store events with athletes or influencers.

One new app feature attempts to fire up local communities by providing information about sports activities in the city and connecting users. Customers can also personalise different products, like T-shirts and bags, with design elements based on local sporting teams and such like. They’ll also be the first in China to have access to Fit, Nike’s system that uses computer vision, data science, machine learning and AI to recommend the perfect shoe size. “Our relationship with Chinese consumers is so strong. They adopt quickly, and they teach us as we go,” says Cathy Sparks, VP and GM of Global Nike Direct Stores and Services. In fact, Nike has often used learnings from experiments in China to enhance practices in the rest of the world.

The sportswear brand recorded its sixth consecutive year of double-digit currency-neutral growth for the first half of fiscal year 2020, despite the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.