Lululemon Hopes to Showcase Home Fitness Business With Membership Program

Lululemon, the athleisure apparel brand, said on Wednesday that it was expanding the reach of Mirror, its interactive fitness start-up, and making it a central component of its new paid membership program called Lululemon Studio.

Members will pay $39 a month to have access to thousands of streaming and in-person workout options, receive perks and discounts on Lululemon apparel, attend classes at stores for free and have early access to in-person Lululemon events. Along with streaming workouts from the interactive fitness start-up — whose smart mirror device must be bought separately and is required for membership to Lululemon Studio — members will also have in-person access to eight studio partners, including Pure Barre, Rumble and Dogpound. Those studios are offering class discounts to Lululemon Studio members.

For the apparel company, it is an opportunity to introduce more people to the fitness possibilities enabled by Mirror, which Lululemon bought for $500 million in June 2020 as the at-home workout craze took hold during Covid lockdowns. Since then, people have become more comfortable with sweating around others at the gym and in workout classes.

Lululemon is looking to bridge that gap.

“What we saw in terms of connected fitness was a shift in change coming out of the pandemic where guests were really asking and looking for the convenience and the ability to not just have a solution to work out at home,” Calvin McDonald, Lululemon’s chief executive officer, said in an interview.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/business/lululemon-mirror-membership.html