Kathmandu set out to redefine its in-store experience for a new generation of flagship stores, combining sustainability, storytelling and digital innovation.
The project formed part of KMD Brands’ wider Next Level strategy: a business transformation focused on strengthening its brands, improving the customer experience and ensuring sustainable growth.
No single initiative can account for the improvement the company is reporting, however Kathmandu’s investment in its next-generation store experience – including its digital shopfronts – is a tangible expression of how successful the wider strategy has become.
datmedia partnered closely with Kathmandu’s Store Development and Design teams to turn that ambition into a robust, digital-first shopfront model that enhanced the customer experience while remaining reliable, manageable and ready to scale.
Next-Level stores support an improved bottom line across the network. A confident partnership helped Kathmandu deliver its digital-first experience as part of its broader Next Level transformation, without overloading internal teams.
Next-Level stores support an improved bottom line across the network.
How a confident partnership helped Kathmandu deliver its digital-first experience as part of its broader Next Level transformation, without overloading internal teams.
Client: Kathmandu (KMD Brands)
Store Concept: Next Generation Stores in New Zealand, Sydney and Melbourne
Flagship Opening: Riccarton, Chatswood Westfield & Little Collins St
Digital Partner: datmedia
Core Outcomes:
Reliable performance from day one, with no disruption to trading
A next-gen experience supporting Kathmandu’s broader brand and retail
transformation
Developing a new flagship store concept is a complex, high-stakes exercise – particularly when digital technology plays a central role. Kathmandu needed a partner that could translate a highly creative vision into a practical retail environment, de-risk delivery and stand behind the result.
The challenge was not simply to install screens. It was to ensure that the digital experience matched the strength of the creative concept and performed reliably in a live retail environment.
For Kathmandu, the ambition was clear:
Like many major retailer projects, this meant navigating:
Kathmandu’s Next Generation Store concept brings the brand’s outdoor identity to life through immersive storytelling, sustainable design and a more contemporary retail experience. Across the three stores in the initial rollout, the experience is anchored by digital shopfronts designed to work as hard as the physical fit-outs around them.
Rather than treating digital as a novelty layered over the store design, each element was conceived and engineered as part of the shopfront itself. The result is a more integrated customer experience – one that strengthens the physical environment, brings the renewed brand to life and draws customers further into Kathmandu’s product and adventure stories.
It is also an important expression of the wider Next Level strategy: making the brand more distinctive, strengthening customer connection and creating store formats capable of supporting future growth.
Key digital elements include:
datmedia worked alongside Kathmandu and its design partners throughout every phase ofthe project. The focus was not simply on delivering digital hardware. It was on creating a retail-ready digital shopfront model that Kathmandu could operate confidently, support over the long term and reproduce in future stores.
This combination of design collaboration, engineering, delivery and ongoing support gave Kathmandu confidence that the experience could be ambitious for customers without becoming complicated for the teams responsible for operating it.
When the Westfield Chatswood store opened in November 2025, the digital shopfront performed exactly as intended: on time, on budget and without the teething problems that often follow ambitious in-store technology projects. That reliability mattered as much as the visual impact.
Kathmandu’s teams could operate the digital elements confidently from day one. There was no extended commissioning period, no ongoing firefighting and no gap between what had been designed and what appeared on the shop floor.
The three initial stores also arrived at an important point in Kathmandu’s wider transformation. As KMD Brands progressed its Next Level strategy, the next-generation format provided a visible demonstration of how the brand could evolve – combining product, store design, storytelling and technology in a more compelling customer experience.
The broader business improvement cannot be attributed to digital alone. But digital has played a clear supporting role: helping translate the new brand direction into a physical experience that customers can see, enter and engage with. For a first-of-its-kind concept, that is the outcome that matters most: the experience worked, the technology performed and Kathmandu trusted the model.
Kathmandu’s Melbourne CBD store in Little Collins St was a finalist in the Best Store Design category at the 2026 Australian Fashion Industry Awards.
Retail transformation rarely comes from one initiative. It is usually the result of many improvements working together across brand, product, operations, store design and customer experience.
Digital can play an important part, but only when it is purposeful, reliable and integrated into the broader retail strategy.
Kathmandu’s Next Generation stores demonstrate that:
For Kathmandu, next-gen stores in Riccarton, Westfield Chatswood and Little Collins Street were more than just successful openings. They established a practical, scalable expression of the renewed brand.
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