Fashion
Swedish heritage outdoor brand Fjallraven has opened a flagship store in Sydney nearly one year after making its brick-and-mortar debut in Australia.
The store, located on York Street in Sydney’s CBD, stocks the brand’s popular Kanken rucksack, as well as a broader range of outdoor apparel, including men’s and women’s jackets, tops and trousers.
It is the brand’s second brick-and-mortar location in Australia. The first opened in Melbourne Central in October 2018, and marked Fjallraven’s inaugural location in the Southern Hemisphere.
Susan Park, Fjallraven’s brand manager in Australia and New Zealand, said the Melbourne store has been trading well over the past year.
“Opening our retail store was an important stage of brand development in Australia. We were optimistic about our performance before launch as we knew the demand was there,” she said.
Fjallraven launched in Australia in early 2017 through retail partnerships and online, which helped the team better understand which products to range in the Melbourne store.
Now, the team is further refining its decision-making through in-store feedback.
“We review and incorporate our customers’ feedback into what we range and how we present our products in-store and it’s been a process of constant improvement,” Park said.
According to Park, the Kanken rucksack is still a best seller, though interest in trekking equipment – especially trousers and jackets – has grown significantly as a result of increased access and awareness.
More broadly, the store is driving an uplift in Fjallraven’s overall wholesale and e-commerce business in Australia, Park said.
“We are really seeing the benefits of a controlled omnichannel approach and we anticipate this will be the case for Sydney as well,” she said.
The Sydney store, like the Melbourne store, will also offer shoppers a daily ‘fika’, a Swedish tradition which translates roughly to a coffee break.
The retailer serves complimentary coffee, tea, and small snacks to customers at certain times of the day and invites them to spend time in the store and chat with the staff.
In addition to this in-store experience, the brand is planning to launch ‘Fjallraven Discovery Australia’ in 2020 – a three-day and two-night hike in the Grampians, designed to get people outdoors and back to nature.
The hike will incorporate indigenous history and is in keeping with a growing theme of Fjallraven hikes all over the world.
