{"id":320,"date":"2011-09-15T15:29:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T19:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom.chainstoreguide.com\/2011\/09\/they-say-imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery\/"},"modified":"2011-09-15T15:29:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-15T19:29:00","slug":"they-say-imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/2011\/09\/they-say-imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery\/","title":{"rendered":"They Say Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\" trbidi=\"on\">\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">Lululemon Athletica Inc., the sports apparel company known for its pricey yoga gear, was featured in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/static_content\/pdf\/wp_ApparelCoToWatch.pdf\">Chain Store Guide\u2019s Companies to Watch Report<\/a> in November 2008. At the time the company operated 80 stores in the <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">United States<\/st1:country-region>, 44 in <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">Canada<\/st1:country-region> and another 10 in <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">China<\/st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Australia<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>. The company ended its last quarter July 31, 2011 with 151 stores in North America and <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Australia<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;\">The Vancouver-based company was founded by entrepreneur Chip Wilson in 1998 after he took a yoga class and found clothing then available wasn\u2019t ideal for yoga. Lululemon\u2019s revenue logged a compound annual growth rate of 52.3 percent from 2005 to 2009. The company\u2019s revenue grew 57 percent last year, to $712 million. The company recently reported revenue for fiscal 2011 may increase as much as 33 percent to $950 million. <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;\">Nike, Gap and Nordstrom, wanting a share in the profits, have recently tried to mimic Lululemon\u2019s strategy. Nike Inc.\u2019s Salvation chain of athletic-wear stores is selling $64 training capris and features a yoga-studio format similar to that of Lululemon. Gap Inc.\u2019s Athleta stores sell $59 women\u2019s yoga tops and offer free yoga classes, another Lululemon innovation. Nordstrom Inc.\u2019s Zella line, dedicated to yoga attire, hired a former Lululemon Product Manager to design its products.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;\">The big question for Lululemon and its rivals is whether yoga still has room to grow. To follow Lululemon Athletica Inc. and all apparel specialty stores, see Chain Store Guide\u2019s databases of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/c-75-apparel-specialty-stores.aspx\">Apparel Specialty Stores<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/c-79-department-stores.aspx\">Departments Stores<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/c-124-locations.aspx\">Headquarter information<\/a> includes store count, sales figures, and product lines.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-pDOqnzzUbOo\/TiSWmXEJWgI\/AAAAAAAAA8g\/sWY4-8sDHE0\/s1600\/np2.jpg\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-pDOqnzzUbOo\/TiSWmXEJWgI\/AAAAAAAAA8g\/sWY4-8sDHE0\/s1600\/np2.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><b><i><br \/><\/i><\/b><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><b><i>Natasha Perry Research Editor<\/i><\/b><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">Natasha has held several management positions in the apparel industry. She received her bachelor\u2019s degree in Marketing Management from FL Southern College.\u00a0Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/mailto:webmaster@chainstoreguide.com\">contact her<\/a> if you have questions or comments.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lululemon Athletica Inc., the sports apparel company known for its pricey yoga gear, was featured in Chain Store Guide\u2019s Companies to Watch Report in November 2008. At the time the company operated 80 stores in the United States, 44 in Canada and another 10 in China and Australia. The company ended its last quarter July&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/2011\/09\/they-say-imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">They Say Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[6,5],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apparel-department","tag-csg-old","tag-insight","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}