LSKD opens first US store in San Diego

The Australian activewear company has seen huge international growth in its sixteen years in the game. Started in 2007 by Jason Daniel, LSKD (pronounced Loose Kid), the Queensland based company has launched its United States headquarters in San Diego, California. The store is the company’s fifth and its first international store.

The 240-sqm space includes a storefront hosting core styles and latest collections, an office space for their US LSKD team, and a community room that includes compression boots, massage guns, ice baths, and recovery meals and drinks for their community to hangout, relax, and recover whenever they need.

The business started as Loose Kid, a wholesale activewear business. In 2018, the company began to shift away from the wholesale model that it had used since inception, and focused instead on online sales, rebranding as LSKD and taking on a sleek, functional and stylish new image

“We used to be predominantly wholesale with an e-comm brand, but we actually transitioned to being purely e-commerce because we knew we could talk to our community directly,” Daniel told Business News Australia in 2021 after he won the 2021 Gold Coast Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for his brand.

“It just so happened we were already growing at a really rapid rate in 2019 online, and then COVID hit so it was a little bit of right place at the right time,” he said. “We’re very thankful we’re direct online, so our margin is a lot higher than selling at a wholesale.”

The company only launched its first flagship retail store and HQ in February 2022 in Logansholme. The opening was a success, following in October last year with a store in Chadstone, the opening day saw 20,000 visitors. As part of the opening, LSKD partnered with Upparel to encourage customers to donate old fitness gear and would recycle or reuse donations. This initiative resulted in 91.5kg of clothing donations which they said prevented the emission of 320.3 kg of greenhouse gas pollution.

As part of this new store opening in the United States, LSKD offered to exchange used sportswear like tights and shorts from any brand with a fresh pair as part of their sustainability efforts and Project Earth Initiative. Donated pieces went to San Diego-based not-for-profit GOODWILL. As part of its American expansion, LSKD has also partnered with health club chain Life Time Fitness to supply over 4,500 female Life Time Fitness employees with co-branded activewear.

The San Diego store opening had nearly 500 people attend from the local community, shocking Daniel. “Last year in April, we took our first trip to the US. To see the progression over the last 12 months – now having a head office and a retail store at the front – is phenomenal. To see almost close to 500 in the community show up is insane,” Daniel told Business News Australia. The company picked the city due to its fitness culture.

“We’re very new over here. Australia is still a big focus,” Daniel assured Business News Australia. “We’re opening more stores in Australia this year in South Victoria and Queensland. We’ll potentially have eight or nine stores by the end of year.”

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