Vans’ New Retail Strategy is Filled With Life and Skate Ramps
Vans is returning back to its skateboarding roots, and that comes with a major retail overhaul starting in London, one of the brand’s biggest markets.
The footwear brand’s 214 Oxford Street store, which opened in 2019, has had a major revamp — taking it from a dingy corner store to a bright, state-of-the-art space with floor-to-ceiling windows that’s fitted with a 200 square meter Roman travertine stone skate ramp.
For a brand to really stand out on one of the busiest streets in central London, new ideas are necessary.
Vans’ next door neighbors — Nike and the newly opened Ikea — have demonstrated that to lure customers in, they need more than just rows of products or mannequins – there needs to be a sense of community and a history of the brand.
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Ikea is capitalizing on its blue polypropylene bags and Vans is reminding everyone that they’re one of the original brands for skateboarders.
By day, the store sells clothes and accessories, as well as skateboards with British slang printed on, meanwhile in the evenings, the space will be used for regular skate lessons, demos and events by Vans skate team and local skate schools.
“We thought it was quite provocative to bring the best of counterculture into one of the most commercial strips in the world,” said Andreas Olsson, vice president and general manager of Vans EMEA in an interview.
There’s more space than ever at the store as Vans has adopted a new design system using the walls and surrounding areas for hidden storage instead of a physical storage room. There are no cash registers as transactions can take place anywhere on the floor — just like at the Apple store.
The walls replicate the waffle pattern found on the sole of Vans shoes and the hidden storage units are made of grinded plywood – a subtle nod to the construction of skate ramps, which can be flipped for a gray canvas to replicate the interiors of an art exhibition.
“We need to raise the standard and somewhat also bring ourselves a little bit closer to the community and the culture of London,” said Olsson, adding that the brand has seen the importance to gain proximity to the culture of skateboarding, art, design and music.
Olsson, who has been back with Vans for over a year now is shaking things up. He wants to “elevate,” “reset” and “push” the brand into the future.
He previously spent almost seven years with the brand from 2012 to 2018.
“We want to lead through skateboarding. The purpose of retail today is that it’s a mix of the commerce side of retail – which is only a piece of it, but it’s really about the whole entertainment and activation side of things,” said Olsson.
“Consumers expect to engage in retail in a much different way than they’ve done in the past. In the past it was more of a commerce driven entity, but today, anything can be accessed through a cellphone – the reason that someone comes into the store is to experience the depth of the brand and the cultures that we represent. We want to do that justice in the most credible way.”
London is the first piece in Vans’ rejigging of retail followed by refreshing its stores across Europe that will soon be rolled out to the U.S. and Asian market. The brand is also introducing a new ecommerce website.
The Oxford Street store doesn’t stop at just skateboarding. A lot of newness is being injected into the space by working with brands and talent outside of VF Corp., Vans’ parent company that also owns Dickies, The North Face and Timberland.
London-based creative Jack Charlie Mitchelln has curated a selection of books and music that customers can buy and next to that are items from Vans’ collaboration with the jeweler The Great Frog, audio brand Gomi and skateboarding brand Lovenskate.
