Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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Ralph Lauren's Miami store has become the latest retail giant to accept crypto payments.
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The store will accept payment in bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and Polygon's token, MATIC.
Ralph Lauren Joins The Crypto Retail Gang
American fashion brand Ralph Lauren has revealed that it would start accepting crypto payments at its newly-opened store in Miami's Design District. This latest development makes it the first Ralph Lauren location to accept crypto payments.
According to the apparel company, the store has partnered with crypto service provider BitPay to enable its customers to pay for its products using bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and Polygon's token, MATIC.
Furthermore, Ralph Lauren has also partnered with the Web3 community Poolsuite to release a co-branded non-fungible token (NFT). These NFTs would be issued to existing holders of the Poolsuite NFT membership collection.
The company stated that members would gain exclusive access to a "special event" and could update their "Leisurist" avatars with digital Ralph Lauren wearables.
While commenting on this latest development, Ralph Lauren's chief innovation and branding officer, David Lauren, said;
"This store will be an opportunity for us as a brand to gather key insights as we continue to explore the space. We are in the early stages of our roadmap, but we see an exciting opportunity ahead across digital goods and virtual experiences to build upon our past touchpoints in the metaverse."
The brand has been trying to capture value in the Web3 ecosystem after releasing digital clothing collections with popular gaming worlds Roblox and Fortnite. In January last year, the company’s CEO, Patrice Louvet, revealed that Ralph Lauren was actively seeking new ways to connect with younger consumers and is exploring various ways, including the metaverse. He said;
"There are a lot of parallels actually between the metaverse and Ralph’s vision because we are not a fashion company. We are in the dreams business. The company is also experimenting with NFTs.”
