JD’s revamped Westfield Stratford store hits highest turnover in retail portfolio

JD Sports has revealed that its recently refurbished and upsized flagship store at Westfield Stratford City has the highest turnover across its global retail portfolio since its unveiling in April 2024.

At 29,000 sq ft, upsizing by 4,000 sq ft, the store marks the retailer’s biggest flagship to date, showcasing collections from the likes of Adidas, Nike, Puma, New Balance, Under Armour, On Running, Hoka, Hoodrich and The North Face.

JD welcomed more than 60,000 customers to its enlarged Westfield Stratford store in the first week of opening.

Mike Armstrong, JD’s Global Managing Director, said: "With the highest turnover and footfall across our portfolio worldwide, the success of JD’s London Stratford store demonstrates how the UK continues to be our global hub for innovation, including store design and omnichannel development.

"In a global capital city known for its street fashion and style conscious young shoppers, Stratford is a magnet for the latest drops and wardrobe staples from the world’s most renowned sports fashion brands.

"Since 1981, the UK has continued to be the beating heart of JD Sports – and as we have grown into a global sports fashion powerhouse, we continue to export key learnings and successful initiatives into our other markets.

"We designed the Stratford store to set the benchmark for how a JD will look and feel in the future - combining what we’ve always done best and to bring the energy, with all the trimmings of a leading retailer. JD is a global growth story, and the UK remains key to our efforts to further enhance the customer proposition both in store and online worldwide."

The UK’s importance to JD is also evidenced by the successful roll-out of JD’s Status loyalty app, downloads for which have powered past 1.2 million inside 10 months in the UK.

Following the successful trial across 10 stores in the North West of England, JD rolled out its Status loyalty scheme across the UK in October 2023. The scheme enables customers to ‘earn’ and ‘burn’ ‘JD Cash’.

In the first four months post launch UK customers created more than 700,000 accounts and made over one million purchases, accounting for 16% of sales value in that time.

Downloads of the app exceeded one million inside the first six months in the UK. The average transaction value of a loyalty member in store is over 40% higher than a non-loyalty customer.

The successful roll-out of the app in the UK has "provided invaluable insights" to drive its success in new markets globally, and JD plans to roll-out Status to another four or five countries in Europe in the second half of this year.

The Stratford store’s new retail concept and design attempts to reflect JD’s fine tuned approach to omnichannel retailing. Each shop staff member has a handheld device enabling on-the-spot sales and inventory checks.

Additionally, there are three self-checkout points and a semi-automated footwear conveyer system - which can deliver a shoebox (there are circa 30,000 shoe boxes on site) from storeroom to shop floor in under 30 seconds.

In total the store has 216 devices with digital screens enabling staff to be as responsive to the latest campaigns or trends as JD’s website.

There is also more than 205m² of LED panelling - driving an immersive experience, digital interactivity and amplifying the latest marketing campaigns, as well as providing navigational signage.

The combination of the investments helps to ensure a frictionless shopping experience and "sets the global standard for future openings" across JD’s international network of more than 3,300 stores in 31 countries.

The retailer says that people are at the heart of its success and that it has "committed to supporting careers in the retail sector", with 97% of the group’s store managers having come through its internal leadership programme.