Asics arrives on Queen
Japan-based brand aims to ‘think big, act small’
If you want to know why Asics has opened its first Canadian flagship store on Queen St. W. near Spadina Ave., ask yourself what you know about the company.
“If we asked 10 people what the brand is, they’d give us 10 different answers,” Asics Canada president Richard Sullivan says.
Here’s a cheat sheet: the Japan-based company makes shoes and clothing and focuses heavily on performance apparel, with an emerging foray into the athleisure market. While its big-name competitors have massive product lines, Asics keeps things trim. It offers footwear and clothes designed for activities such as running, training, tennis and yoga. There are also socks and bags.
Asics Tiger is a lifestyle line with fashion-focused kicks and unisex streetwear.
Sullivan says the company has always gone for a “think big, act small” approach to staying competitive in a busy market. “A lot of large brands would die to have the focus and market share we have,” he boasts.
The company’s new twostorey storefront, which has 4,400 square feet of selling space, is simply called Asics Toronto. It’s right in the heart of the Queen West high-foottraffic zone, and is expected to be a “conduit to tell the story,” Sullivan says.
A simple layout offers women’s clothing on one side, men’s on the other — in mainly spring-inspired blue, white, black and grey. A women’s full zip hoodie sells for $109.99, while a men’s packable jacket in grey sells for $99.99.
Then there are two big walls of shoes, which retail for between $85 and $340.
Choosing the right shoe is a big deal here, so shoppers can slip into a back room and try out the Motion ID system, which looks like a treadmill. After a one-minute dash on the machine, the system assesses your gait. That, put together with info from a questionnaire, will help staff pick the best shoes for your feet and your fitness plans.
(A quirky shoe chute lets staff members upstairs send boxes pulled from the stock room down to the main floor.)
The upstairs holds displays of Tiger clothes and shoes. A huge wall of fashion-focused shoes is the main draw. It includes items like Gel-Lyte III Cherry Blossom sneakers in pink and moss green, for $160.
The brand dates back to 1949 in Japan, and Canadians have got their Asics at sports retailers and via four outlet stores across the country. In November 2016, as part of the brand’s international plan to pump things up, it brought on Sullivan, formerly of Rockport Canada, as president.
“With that came a new mindset,” Sullivan says. He soon moved the company’s sales and marketing functions out of its former head office in Sherbrooke, Que., setting up in Mississauga.
His team started marketing more assertively, a plan that got a boost with the signing of a partnership with swimmer Penny Oleksiak.
In 2017, Canadian sales grew by 7.2 per cent. The March opening of the brand’s first full-price retail location is part of Sullivan’s plan. While mall-based flagships are all the rage at the moment, Asics opted for Queen and its ample foot traffic.