Don’t you sometimes feel like the main character in Joe Versus the Volcano? Going to work like other green-tinted zombies inside stuffy offices with yellowish artificial lighting, and after work going to an equally stuffy apartment, becoming dead-to-the-world for a couple of hours, coming back to life (or at least its reasonable facsimile) in the morning — and then doing everything all over again? The outdoorsman in each of us might be compelled to take over once R.O.X. starts rolling in the next few months in time for Christmas.
R.O.X., or the Recreational Outdoor Exchange store at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, is the country’s first and biggest outdoor recreational hub devoted to hiking, running, biking, climbing and surfing. Available at the 823-square-meter, three-story store will be gear, footwear and the appropriate apparel for those outdoor sports — with brands such as The North Face, Columbia Sportswear, Teva, La Fuma, Millet, Aigle, Life is Good, Simple, Sanuk, and Eagle Creek, among others. Outdoor specialists — adventure racers and climbers — will be on hand at R.O.X. to help the budding outdoorsman (or outdoorswoman). Sports clinics and workshops will be run regularly. Sponsorships of competitions and events are in the works for R.O.X. as well.
R.O.X. took five years in the making, says Jimmy Thai, one of the brains behind the whole enterprise: “Just like a movie production.”
Thai is the president of Primer Group of Companies, the company that set up The Travel Club, a full-fledged travel-oriented store (which has currently more than 30 branches), and Bratpack, an active-lifestyle store for younger consumers. Prime also has exclusive distributorship of Samsonite luggage and The North Face, one of the leading brands of outdoor gear and apparel.
The concept behind R.O.X. (patterned after the R.E.I. or Recreational Equipment Inc. store founded in Seattle) is, according to Thai, “to be the hub for extreme outdoor enthusiasts with world-class facilities and interactive features that let customers feel an outdoor experience like no other, while offering some of the world’s top travel and outdoor sporting brands to suit their lifestyle.”
R.O.X. will have testing zones, where customers can test products before making a purchase. The Rain Room allows customers to test the water-resistance of bags and jackets can be tested, while a trail ramp lets them test hiking shoes for comfort and fit. Oh yeah, there’s a kayak pool as well. Chan adds, “We want customers to test our outdoor products because it’s the experience that matters.”
“It is about time that Filipinos got to experience this kind of retail experience,” says Roel Chan, R.O.X. marketing manager. “We want to build a community of outdoor enthusiasts who will explore outdoor sports, but who will also do their part in conserving the environment.”
The store carries brands that utilize, as much as possible, eco-friendly and recyclable materials in their merchandise. (Believe it or not R.O.X. has a surfboard made of banig.) R.O.X. advocates an up-close and personal look at nature, and not just armchair ecology. Chan asks, how can a person say “Let’s save the forest” when that person hasn’t even been to an actual forest? That’s the reason R.O.X. will spearhead eco-tourism trips, scientific expeditions and adventure travels, aside from hiking, rock-climbing, trail-running, rafting and camping activities — even bird-watching. There are also plans of organizing trips to Peru, Nepal, Africa and other exotic locations most of us see only through the bluish haze of TV screens spewing out shows on Discovery Travel. And at the same time, R.O.X. will put together tours for foreigners to the great outdoors in our own neck of the woods. Maps, online interactive stations, videos and books about lands far and away will be available at the R.O.X. resource center.
“We want people to go out, have a positive feeling and do a positive thing when they come back.” Chan puts a more logical spin to its environmental conservation activities: in their line of business, if there were no mountains, there would be no climbers, and if there were no climbers, no one would need climbing shoes anymore.
Thai explains, “We can debate about (the proper steps in conserving the environment), but that’s useless if at the end of the day we haven’t really encountered nature firsthand. R.O.X. will allow people to experience for themselves the country’s biodiversity.” He concludes that in all his years of traveling, the Philippines is still one of the best places in the world for outdoor activities.
Chan agrees. Places like Siargao, Camarines Sur and La Union are a surfer’s paradise. “No matter if a country is rich or poor, either God has blessed it with good surfing locations or not.”
“In our own small way at R.O.X., we want Filipinos to travel around our own country,” adds marketing and sales senior director Me-Ann Santos. The company, by the way, is a member of the Philippine Tour Association of the Philippines.
“This is a huge opportunity for eco-tourism,” enthuses Terry Waterhouse, the British designer based in Hong Kong who designed R.O.X. He has worked with such top brands such as Adidas, Reebok, Ikea, McDonald’s, Watson’s and other big retail brands. Waterhouse believes in “challenging convention and killing the blight of sameness in the retail market sector.”
He says, “There is a huge market potential for R.O.X. — not just in terms of creating a new lifestyle, but in creating a paradigm shift in how to get people out of the urban and (into the natural).” There is so much substance in R.O.X., adds Waterhouse. “It will give customers more than just the experience of buying a product.”
The holistic aspect of R.O.X. is so immense that creating the right environment for it was crucial.
In designing R.O.X., the first thing Waterhouse and his RedGoodss team did was to “rationalize the design and to simplify it.” One thing they wanted to do was “to make the product and the customer experience the heroes — and not the interior design. We want to make customers comfortable so that they can access the products and not be bombarded with too much aesthetics. R.O.X. is like the Ikea of outdoor recreation.”
R.O.X. is a concept and a brand that can actually build a community. It allows Filipinos to access our own culture, a rediscovery of sorts. It’s like opening a book on how to travel your own country, and peruse it chapter by chapter.
Start reading, Joe.