So Framling and I got our mallrats on yesterday and hit the arcades to source some fresh denim, which invariably led to me lazing around on different pieces of furniture listening to the head banging equivalent of munty beats. (I know these stores need to cater to a certain type of shopper aka 15-year-old girl but I reckon they could up the anti on their music programming). We end up in Sportgirl, standard, and I end up reading their in store magazine, as much out of interest as out of the stylist's pause, and am reminded of their super well produced website which I never got around to spruiking anywhere. (I think) it's rare in Australia to see a retailer get their digital at all, let alone produce a well thought out website that looks slick, ticks all the coding/SEO/analytics boxes, and is looking to build a community/social network on the site. (Although it must be said that they need to lift their game on Twitter. Don't think about. Don't spend months writing a Twitter communication guideline that will get pushed from desk to desk and end up in the recycling bin. Just do it).

So it's come to this ... Sportgirl is doing it for the kids and doing it well.

Update: I originally posted this on Tumblr a couple of weeks back and stumbled across an interesting piece in the Australian Financial Review titled "Channelling Trendsetters", of which I won't post a link to because the article is trapped behind a pay wall. Fools. The article, and it's a good one, talks about social networking trends within the fashion industry, kickbacks to fashion bloggers, how labels and fashion magazines are leveraging Facebook and Twitter, a hat-tip to Sportsgirl, the whole Witchery/Naked debacle, and the good old elephant in the room: measuring return on investment from these channels.

"If the board throws $100,000 towards social media, they want to be damn sure of sales".

Here's what they had to say about Sportsgirl: "Sportsgirl, she [chief executive Elle Roseby] says, is arguably the first Australian retailer to launch an interactive online community and website with blog, polls, video blogging (vlogging), style snaps, interviews, music, reviews, free downloads, and an online store. "The website allows us to have a two-way conversation with our online community. It allows us to have a voice rather than only being able to listen. Our girl can tell us what's on her mind and we can react"".