Lululemon Essay

Established in Canada, lululemon is also currently operating primarily in USA, Australia and New Zealand. As a grass-roots company with strong core values, lululemon chose to target countries with similar cultures to Canada to avoid having to change their product and brand strategy to adapt to cultural differences. However, with sales growth slowing in North America as brands such as Gap Inc. and Nike Inc. pose a large threat, lululemon has identified a long-term strategy of global expansion to European and Asian countries as a key catalyst to maintain a positive growth rate. (SOURCE) Laurent Potdevin, who took over Christine Day’s position as chief executive officer on January 20 2013 claims he intends to accelerate global expansion, with clear evidence of demand in both Asia and Europe. (SOURCE)

These showrooms offer limited merchandise and shorter store hours, to test the demand. They allow lululemon to hire proper staff and find the right real estate for permanent stores. Lululemon currently operates showrooms in Europe in Asia, and they have been doing exceptionally well in Hong Kong and London. (SOURCE) The show rooms are a methodical tactic for global expansion that reduces the risk of being unsuccessful in these foreign cultures by ensuring that there is a potential market with demand for their products. Though the full product lines are not available in these showrooms, customers are able to purchase any of lululemon’s products through their website. The company has recently launched websites specifically catered to Hong Kong, Singapore, the U.K. and the EU.