Beyond Yoga is laying the groundwork for a permanent retail presence in New York City, capitalising on the strong momentum and enthusiastic customer reception of its temporary storefront in the Flatiron District.
When asked why the fast-growing activewear brand opted against a permanent lease for its latest New York retail venture, CEO Nancy Green offered a straightforward assessment of the company’s real estate philosophy.
"Oh, we will," Green said of the pop-up location, which opened its doors in September and is scheduled to remain operational through January. "It’s a great way to explore and to learn and sort of test out the area. But yes, eventually we will have a permanent home."
While the company has elected to keep specific performance metrics for the temporary Manhattan space under wraps, Green expressed strong satisfaction with the initiative. She noted that the brand has been consistently pleased with the operational results and the overwhelmingly positive feedback streaming in from local consumers and visitors alike.
Situated in the heart of the Flatiron District, the current retail space draws direct inspiration from Beyond Yoga’s earlier 2024 pop-up experiment, which was also housed in the immediate neighborhood. However, while that initial venture leaned heavily into community-building and experiential events, this year’s iteration provides a considerably more robust shopping environment. It seamlessly pairs a fully built-out retail assortment with a dedicated studio space capable of hosting fitness classes, wellness sessions, and other consumer-facing activations.
These experiential activations have already become a hallmark of the pop-up’s tenure. Most notably, the store hosted an "Open Air" event on a recent Saturday that brought together health enthusiasts for a community run, capped off by a live musical performance from pop star Natasha Bedingfield. For Green, these community-driven happenings embody the core ethos of the brand, which centers on concepts she describes as "owning joy" and "celebrating progress over perfection."
"A lot of people and players in this space are emphasizing performance and high performance," Green said, reflecting on the broader competitive landscape of the activewear industry. "We’re not about that. We’re about actually enjoying the experience. I think that joy is very, very important and needed right now in the world."
While this philosophy reads largely like a high-level brand platform, it actively informs the company’s brick-and-mortar execution and retail design strategy down to the finest detail.
It was all yellow
Beyond Yoga currently operates a footprint of approximately 20 retail stores nationwide, a count that includes the temporary New York pop-up shop. Visually, these physical locations share a distinct and unifying design choice: they are predominantly yellow. Depending on the specific lease and architectural layout, this cheerful hue manifests on the exterior facades, blankets the interior walls, or envelops both spaces entirely.
"We activate through color, and we have a very unique point of view on color, and that is part of the joy," Green explained, elaborating on the rationale behind the vibrant design scheme. "Yellow is a joyful color."
Beyond aesthetics, the brand’s brick-and-mortar stores are meticulously integrated into the social fabric of the local communities they serve. This integration frequently involves strategic partnerships with neighborhood fitness groups, boutique studios, and local wellness practitioners. Such collaborations not only lend immediate organic credibility to Beyond Yoga’s product line but also feed authentically into the brand’s foundational purpose: supporting and uplifting the everyday active lifestyle of its shoppers.
"We create a really important experience, I think, that is very human and inclusive and fun and joyful," Green said. "The brand is very much about joy, so you can feel that in the store."
First and foremost, however, the brand’s physical storefronts function as a vital bridge, offering dedicated online shoppers a tangible method to interact with Beyond Yoga in a face-to-face setting. New York City historically ranks as one of Beyond Yoga’s strongest e-commerce markets, making the deployment of a physical pop-up a natural strategic move. Furthermore, the product assortment housed within the Manhattan store is thoughtfully curated and tailored specifically to the unique tastes and demands of the local urban consumer.
"We know we need a permanent home in New York, probably more than one," Green said, noting that consumer demand for the brand in the region has remained remarkably robust since the conclusion of the 2024 pop-up experiment.
This data-informed approach to site selection reflects the broader playbook Beyond Yoga has utilized as it scales its retail footprint. The retailer initially established its physical presence in Santa Monica, California, before gradually expanding its reach across the wider state and the broader West Coast. As a Los Angeles-based brand, those early expansion decisions naturally placed physical flagships in close proximity to a dense concentration of its most loyal early adopters and core shoppers.
In the years since those formative openings, Beyond Yoga has continued to select new store markets largely through a sophisticated, data-driven strategy that prioritizes regions boasting the highest density of established e-commerce customers. This analytical methodology guided the brand’s expansion to the East Coast roughly a year ago—a geographic leap that Green reports has exceeded expectations and proven highly successful.
Mirroring broader omnichannel trends observed across the wider retail sector, Beyond Yoga has consistently witnessed a noticeable lift in digital e-commerce sales within specific geographic markets immediately following the opening of a physical store.
"You’re creating an ecosystem, a customer ecosystem, and many of these markets, we also have wholesale—whether it’s through studios or some of our larger accounts—and so they all support each other," Green said.
Within this interconnected commercial ecosystem, wholesale channels serve a dual purpose. They act as an effective discovery channel for prospective customers who may be entirely unfamiliar with the label, while also providing retail coverage in regions where Beyond Yoga may never establish a dedicated branded storefront. For the brand’s own brick-and-mortar locations, however, the primary objective remains focused on serving existing digital shoppers by delivering a premium, high-quality in-person brand experience.
Looking ahead, the leadership team believes the runway for physical retail expansion remains wide open.
"This brand can have many stores. It’s a premium brand, needs to be in the top markets where the customer is shopping," Green said. "Every year we’re growing, and so the markets that today might not be right for a store, three years from now they might be right as the brand grows and as we build awareness."
