Beyond Yoga Will Make Its New York Stay Permanent — and It'll Be Yellow

Beyond Yoga is running its New York store as a pop-up through January, but CEO Nancy Green says a permanent flagship is a matter of when, not if — and probably more than one.

"Oh we will," Green said of a permanent location, referring to the Flatiron District pop-up that debuted in September. "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."

The company isn't sharing sales metrics for the temporary store. Green said she was "pleased" with results so far and that customer feedback has been positive. New York is one of Beyond Yoga's largest e-commerce markets, which is exactly why the pop-up landed there, with an assortment tailored to the city.

What does the store actually do?

This year's pop-up is a step up from the 2024 version, which sat nearby and focused on community building. The new location offers a fuller shopping experience plus a studio for classes and activations. One such activation, an "Open Air" event on a recent Saturday, featured a community run and a live performance by Natasha Bedingfield.

That's what Green calls "owning joy" and "celebrating progress over perfection." It's a deliberate contrast with competitors.

"A lot of people and players in this space are emphasizing performance and high performance," Green said. "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."

It sounds like a brand platform. It is one. It also shapes the physical stores.

Why yellow?

Beyond Yoga operates 20 stores, including the New York pop-up. Most of them are yellow — sometimes outside, sometimes inside, occasionally both.

"We activate through color, and we have a very unique point of view on color, and that is part of the joy," Green said. "Yellow is a joyful color."

Stores also serve as community anchors. Beyond Yoga partners with local fitness groups, which Green said lends product credibility and feeds the brand's purpose of supporting an active lifestyle. "We create a really important experience I think, that is very human and inclusive and fun and joyful," she said. "The brand is very much about joy, so you can feel that in the store."

How the brand picks markets

The strategy is data-driven: prioritize the highest-density e-commerce markets. The Los Angeles-based retailer opened first in Santa Monica, expanded across California and the West Coast, then pushed to the East Coast about a year ago — an expansion Green calls successful.

Like many brands, Beyond Yoga sees an e-commerce lift in markets where it opens a 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.

Wholesale doubles as a discovery channel, including in markets where a store may never make sense. For its own storefronts, though, the job is simpler: give existing online shoppers a high-quality in-person experience.

The runway, per Green, is long. "This brand can have many stores. It's a premium brand, needs to be in the top markets where the customer is shopping," she 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."

Translation for retail watchers: expect the store count to keep climbing, one joyful yellow storefront at a time.