Nike Soho

From Business Insider:

Nike is reimagining its retail experience. New York City's Soho neighborhood is where the brand is making its stand, with a 55,000-square-foot store spread across five floors in a newly constructed building. But what makes this store different from Nike's other retail outlets in the city?

Chief among them are what Nike is calling "immersive experiences." If you ever wanted to do a layup in a pair of Jordans before dropping some cash on them, now you can. Cameras in the store track your movements and progress in these experiences and upload it to the Nike+ app. The store is completely connected, intended to bridge the gap between digital and brick and mortar. Not only will it know your stride and the last time you got on the store's treadmill, it will know which shoes you tried on last time, too.

A guided sales team will take time to be with you one-on-one for up to an hour, whether you're trying on running shoes or shooting baskets.

"We see [the store] as the global debut of the future of sport retail, and we see Soho as the start," Heidi O'Neill, Nike's president of direct to consumer initiatives, told Business Insider.

The store, which opens for business November 18, comes at a pivotal time for Nike, which is running into problems with select parts of its third-party retail business and is shifting focus to its steadily growing direct-to-consumer division. Nike is hoping that it can take this store concept and apply it, either as a whole or in part, to other areas around the country.