Adidas Adding to Physical Retail Footprint

Adidas will continue to invest in physical stores even as the company’s e-commerce business sees significant growth during the pandemic.

“We think the stores are still here to stay, but coupled much closer to the online experience,” Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted told CNBC. “I think most people are really bored of sitting at home.”

The German sportswear company saw a 51% year-over-year increase in online sales during its 2020 third quarter while overall revenues fell 3%. That followed a 93% year-over-year increase in online sales in its second quarter, despite revenue falling 34%.

Rorsted said that “online has accelerated two to three years into the future” during the pandemic. Adidas is still committed to brick-and-mortar locations, and will make an announcement in March about plans to build more stores.

But Adidas isn’t shying away from its e-commerce boom.

• It ramped up e-commerce hiring by repositioning 700 jobs into digital operations, according to GlobalData
• 38% of Adidas’ posted jobs in Q2 contained the keywords ‘digital’ and ‘ecommerce’ in the job description while these only appeared in 8% of Nike’s posted positions

Adidas’ investment into digital and physical shopping experiences comes as the company considers selling Reebok, which it acquired in 2005 for $3.8 billion.

Reebok revenues were down 20% in the first three quarters of 2020.