Nike Locker Room

To celebrate women’s football in Australia, Nike launched Dream Arena, an immersive concept store on George St in Sydney/Gadigal.

To create a minimal and sleek in-store experience, Nike wanted to limit the number of products displayed on the showroom floor, but they still wanted customers to be able to have access to the whole range, in their size at the click of a button.

To meet this challenge, Nike and Tundra teamed up to create the ‘Locker Room’, a web-based app which gave shoppers the power to browse all available products from iPads or their phone, and have their ‘order’ sent straight to a fitting room to try on.

We worked closely with Nike to understand how the app would be used by both customers and staff, and to gather requirements for value-add services such as customer notifications and stock management tools for the in-store teams.

User Flows and Defining Requirements

We started the project by mapping out user flows, including all the touchpoints and screens required to fulfil this digital experience. With the store opening in a matter of weeks, we wanted to ensure the experience felt robust for customers, but we also needed to keep the features focused in order to successfully deliver the project on time.

In addition to shoppers being able to browse products, create an ‘order’ and send those items to the fitting rooms, we wanted to ensure that once inside the fitting rooms they could request new sizes using the same service. Keeping the whole experience housed within the same environment would make for a smoother customer journey.

We also mapped out the requirements for the Store Athletes to facilitate Locker Room in-store. Store Athletes would need a staff admin interface where they could see new orders, see new items requested to the fitting rooms, and alert shoppers when their items were delivered and to which fitting room.

They also needed a way to monitor which fitting rooms were available, block rooms off if they were out of use, and view which orders were currently assigned to each room.

Interface Design

Once all flows and screens were identified, we moved into Wireframing and Visual Design.

In designing this solution we were careful to not simply replicate the .com shopping experience, as it was important this felt different. Locker Room was designed to supplement in-store shopping, where products could be seen, felt and tried on, which also made it significantly different to a traditional online shopping experience.

Development

This was a fun challenge for our developers, and allowed us to dig deep into the Firebase ecosystem to develop a robust custom CMS to manage orders, products, fitting rooms and assets live in-store.

Firebase uses a real-time database and cloud functions, making it easier to build scalable real-time applications.

Leveraging the powerful streaming functionality of Firebase and Firestore, we developed an application that allowed users and administrators to collaborate in real-time. Fitting room and sales orders synced with the management dashboard, allowing for a seamless in-store experience. Coupled with Twilio’s SMS service consumers received notifications so they could track the progress of their order in real-time.

Training

In addition to demos and testing manuals that were shared with Nike throughout the process, Tundra prepared and ran staff training sessions with the Store Athletes prior to store opening, to ensure smooth uptake.

The Locker Room solution seamlessly brought together the identified requirements to create an easy-to-use online in-store retail experience.

Shoppers were able to browse products by category in the app, and QR codes were located throughout the store to drive customers to particular products directly, boosting conversion. Meanwhile, a related products module enabled cross-selling in the app and the promotion of a ‘whole look’ (as seen on digital mannequins in-store).

We also built a CMS where product details could be updated and the inventory updated dynamically. It also allowed for fitting room and order management, with an SMS notification system for shoppers at particular points in the user flow. Staff were notified in the admin interface when new orders or sizes were requested by someone in a fitting room.

The Locker Room app exceeded expectations in terms of uptake in-store, and proved a memorable, smooth and satisfying experience for both Store Athletes and customers. It contributed to the unique, boundary-pushing retail experience on offer at Dream Arena at a time when the spotlight was on women’s football in Australia, and the world.