How Lululemon is securing long-term sustainability with its community hubs

Sponsored By: AWS

Promoting a healthy lifestyle is the backbone of lululemon athletica – a technical athletic apparel company for yogis, fitness buffs and adrenaline junkies around the globe. The Vancouver-based corporation started as a clothing design and yoga studio, and quickly grew into a community hub synonymous with healthy living – and now has over 200 locations worldwide. Though their philosophy remains the same as when they first began their operation in 1998, their constant need for growth and innovation has secured their place as a frontrunner in the industry. The secret behind the company’s growing success stems from investing in technology that supports their commitment to their customers and a seamless experience.

Lululemon strives to elevate the level of health and fitness in every community they touch. In November of 2016, the retailers successfully launched its first community hub/ambassador site in New York. The program boasts a community of inspirational athletes turned ambassadors who pay it forward in their communities and share the brand’s vision for elevating health and fitness into a lifestyle. From personal fitness training in Milwaukee to teaching pilates in Edmonton, lululemon’s community ambassadors see no bounds.

Using cutting-edge technologies

But the company’s vision of creating a richer experience for their customers couldn’t be possible without piloting cutting edge technologies. When the company wished to expand their web presence, under the guidance of Sam Keen, Director of Digital Services for lululemon, they wanted to find the right platform to help deploy their digital content hubs.

Enter Amazon Web Services (AWS), an on-demand computing platform offering reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Lululemon entrusted AWS with their booming business and their community Ambassador hub initiative,  a move which required services from a number of Amazon data centers around the world for back-up and availability.

Connecting people with each other is the focus of lululemon’s community ambassador program and  Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the conduit to delivering these experiences to its global clientele. The benefits of deploying AWS include scaling your application up or down based on demand, access to a secure global computing infrastructure and easing the migration process for existing applications while preserving options for building new solutions.

Technology is positioned to be a key enabler of lululemon’s future. As the clothing retailer and manufacturer’s global business footprint continues grows larger, they continue to trust AWS to help meet their vision of satisfying their customers with a human touch from all ends of the world.

Lululemon is slated to launch other community sites across the U.S. and worldwide starting in the first quarter of 2017.

To read about how AWS empowered a global leader in sports apparel develop their community hubs, download this case study.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Sponsored By: AWS

Steve Proctor
Steve Proctor
Steve is Vice-President Marketing and Communication with ITWC. He spent 25 years in progressively senior positions as a journalist and editor with the Halifax Herald, with his final ten years as Business Editor. He has published two books and his freelance articles have appeared in national and regional magazines. He has led social media and communication efforts for two crowdfunding ventures and written and directed numerous dinner theatres for charitable endeavours.