Having won the allegiance of millions of women with its pricey yoga gear, Lululemon (Vancouver) is looking for new growth opportunities by targeting men.
Bloomberg reports the chain will start opening standalone men’s stores by 2016. Lululemon ceo Christine Day made the announcement Thursday, following an announcement earlier this week that she’s retiring from the company once its board finds a successor.
If Lululemon is going to win men over, the chain will “need to jump in the game and make a commitment to a men’s-oriented experience,” Eli Portnoy, ceo of CultureRanch LLC, a Miami-based brand strategy consulting firm, told Bloomberg.
Lululemon’s clothing for men include golf polos for $98 and underwear for $48. Day said one polo top sold out in less than 48 hours online. Men’s apparel accounts for a “mid- to high-teen” percentage of the company’s sales mix, Betty Chen, a San Francisco-based analyst for Wedbush Securities, Inc. told Bloomberg.