Crocs’s new retail concept blends customization, community and a broader product mix
Crocs is rolling out a new store concept that prioritizes personalization, product mix and local tie-ins, the brand shared in an interview with Modern Retail.
The company’s first such store to reflect this concept, which is called Icon, officially opened this week in New York City’s Soho neighborhood. The store is about two to three times bigger than Crocs’s typical stores, with a fuller selection of SKUs, including shoes, bags and keychains in a wide assortment of colors and styles. Also at the location are spotlighted sections for new drops and partnerships, as well as Jibbitz bars for kids and adults.
Personalized products and store design are key to the Icon concept. The Soho store, for instance, has a fire escape motif in the front window as a nod to surrounding buildings, as well as a few styles of seafoam green Crocs that can only be found at that location. (Each comes with a special Jibbitz of Duke, Crocs’s crocodile mascot.) There are also New York City-specific Jibbitz (like a $1.50 pizza slice), a Crocs “bodega” with higher-end Jibbitz selling for up to $850 and a standalone area for Crocs’s EXP line, which is more sneaker-like. Crocs also plans to host special events at the store, including artist drop-ins and TikTok livestreams.
Crocs is looking to eventually roll out the Icon concept to select stores in high-traffic markets, including internationally. “The majority of our stores are outlets, which are great for us, but tend to be more of a light-touch buildout,” Crocs brand president Anne Mehlman said. “The Icon store really brings unique elements, and it’s a bespoke design, whereas the rest of our designs are not. … This is a really fun experiment for our brand and the first time we’ve done anything like this in the brand’s history.”
This new direction for Crocs comes as the brand sees an increase in its sales from direct-to-consumer channels like its stores and its website. In May, Crocs’s parent company reported that DTC revenue for the Crocs brand increased 1.1% year over year to hit $285 million. Of total first-quarter revenue for the Crocs brand, 37% was from DTC, with the remainder from wholesale accounts. In 2024, approximately 8% of Crocs’s revenue came from Jibbitz, per CNBC.
Crocs considers itself a “digital-first company,” but stores are where the brand can form a strong “customer experience and connection,” Mehlman said. The Icon concept aims to take this a step further, as stores will be tailored to a particular city and community. The Soho store soft-launched last week, and already, its New York City products are taking off; on its first day, it sold out of Statue of Liberty Jibbitz. Mehlman estimates that fewer than 10% of the store’s SKUs are unique to New York City, “but that 10% is showcased really well.”
Crocs aims to open Icon stores in areas with a healthy mix of tourist traffic and local traffic. While not all of the stores will be as large as the Soho one, they will emphasize Crocs’s many shoes and bags, nearly all of which have holes for attaching Jibbitz. The brand now has hundreds of Jibbitz in designs like sushi rolls and Pokémon characters, and it wants its Icon stores to be hubs where shoppers can mix and match Jibbitz, as well as other customizable products like backstraps and charms. Already, in the Soho store, revenue is “over-indexing” to personalized products, Mehlman said.
“Personalization” has been a buzzword for brands and retailers for a few years now, said Rebekah Kondrat, whose consultancy Rekon Retail helps DTC brands build new stores. Lids, for instance, created a section in its stores for custom embroidery, patches and hat curving this year. “Any form of self-expression is incredibly important to the up-and-coming Gen-Z consumer base,” Kondrat said. “This is not going away.”
Site-specific products and colors can also help a brand like Crocs “build up FOMO,” Kondrat said. With Crocs’s Soho offerings, “maybe you get people into the brand that have been wanting to try Crocs, and seafoam green is their favorite color, or they love New York,” she said. “Or, you get consumers to come back who are like, ‘Wow, I haven’t actually thought about Crocs in a while, but maybe it’s time for me to get a new pair.'”
Outside of products unique to Icon locations, Crocs plans to launch some SKUs in Icon locations first. This includes everything from new partnerships to new colors. The Soho store, for instance, is the first to carry Crocs’s new collaboration with “Barbie.”
“We’ll do testing here, and these will be stores that get first access to product,” Mehlman said. “We want to really showcase our brand and how we interact with culture.”