Sun and Sand Sports

Sun and Sand Sports   

Since starting out in 1979, Sun and Sand Sports has fast become the Middle East's largest sports retailer, carrying a diverse portfolio of world famous brands across the sports, fitness and lifestyle sectors.

A personalised customer experience

Recursive led the digital design and implementation in a tight four month timescale for a whole new store concept. The brief from the Client was to feature digital in the customer journey at every level, creating a seamless experience between the web and physical store. A key part of the brief was the concept of technology as an enabler for a personalised customer experience, available through browser podiums, interactive changing rooms, mobile apps, and also gait analysis. At the centre of the store there needed to be three sporting experiences to allow users to fully trial products from leading sporting brands.

Leverage the available data in real time.

Every digital element of the store required development from scratch. Nothing that was created had ever been attempted before and therefore the risks were high. All elements needed to interact on a common software platform, making use of existing back end corporate software solutions such as the Product Information Database (PIM) alongside the stockroom database to leverage the available data in real time. Social Media was at the heart of the store experience, which meant direct integration with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter on a store level, something social media platforms are not designed to do.  

The results have out performed the initial expectations.

There were over 11,000 users of the trail zones recorded in the first two months. Over 40% of these shared their trial zone experiences via social media leading to a huge online presence direct from the store activities. The Sun and Sands store in the Dubai Mall has gone on to be cited by many other global retailers as a benchmark in digital engagement, leading to further development projects for the Recursive team with other core global brands such as Adidas and Puma.  

design:retail

Sun & Sand Sports