Nike flagship stores have been around for years. I can remember the NikeTown on Newbury Street in Boston back before 2000. So, when a reporter called to ask me about Nike’s new flagship store in Manhattan and told me there was another that just opened on Miami Beach, I knew I had to go check it out.

First: I must applaud Nike for changing things up. Everyone knows the in-store experience has to change. Traffic counts and sales continue to decline, and Amazon.com and other online retailers are grabbing the store ex-pats. Even retailers who are keeping their customers but seeing them move on line are managing a world of lower profitability and for many, crazy higher returns. Nike has a big brand to protect, and the store is often a person’s first experience of a brand.

But how well does the store work? My reaction is mixed. On the plus side, the store makes good use of technology, and an interesting way to get products to customers on the floor. On the minus side, I think Nike might have gone overboard on the “experience ” side, and missed out on carrying relevant merchandise. I think their merchandise mix is off, given where they are. You’ll see why I say this, below.

I walked into the store and found it really quite spacious. However, the women’s shoe department was actually rather small. I saw cross-trainers and running shoes in a corner of the store, and caddy- corner to those were what they called “casual shoes. ” All the rest of the very vast store was solely for men, and specific types of athletic wear, at that.

Think about it this way: I walked in and asked “Where are your tennis shoes? ” The answer I received was, “We don’t carry tennis shoes. ” Now that one blew my mind. We’re in Miami…where you can play tennis year round. Ten miles from the store, on Key Biscayne, the Miami Tennis Open is held every year. Nike also boasts a lot of celebrity endorsements, many of whom are tennis stars. In fact, the company declared Serena Williams the ” Greatest Athlete Ever ” in a September 2016 ad. Roger Federer is no slouch either. Nike’s web site boasts a Serena Williams signature line of clothes and shoes. But in its Miami flagship? Nothing.

Heaven knows there was enough space in the store to show the product. But instead, the company opted for a virtual reality running treadmill (couldn’t be for walking, the store didn’t carry walking shoes either), an enclosed basketball court, and an enclosed soccer court. In fact, the store devoted a LOT of square footage to all things soccer.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I know the “book ” on Miami is that lots of South Americans and Europeans vacation and migrate here, at least in the winter. And logic would tell you that it must therefore be a hot soccer town. But you don’t have to be a research analyst to figure out that’s not quite right. David Beckham has been trying to bring a soccer team to Miami for five years, and can’t find enough support to even put a playing field somewhere. The city/county just isn’t interested.

The other feeling I had was that I was totally out of the demographic Nike is aiming for. This is ironic given that I was wearing a pair of Nike’s when I walked in. I asked if the store carried any wide style sneakers of any sort. The answer was “No. ” And body types were specific too. All the mannequins were perfectly cut black or white men and women in scant outfits, so it felt like fat people need not enter, either. It was actually very off-putting and vaguely embarrassing.

When it comes to the “experiences ” on the treadmill, basketball court and mini-soccer court, very few people were taking up the challenge. I saw a family of tourists watching their teenaged son try his luck on the basketball court and right as I was leaving, a young woman tried her legs on the treadmill. The soccer court was simply empty.

Do I think Nike is picking the right demographic? Not really. It’s a tourist town. And South Beach tourists come in all shapes and sizes. The days of it being the realm of the “beautiful people ” are pretty much behind us. Sure, the weather draws all kinds of cool movie, sports and TV stars. My sister is visiting and ran into Stephen Curry at her hotel. But I don’t think he’ll be running over to the Nike store to pick up spare sneakers before the game.

So that’s all the “wrong stuff. ” There was also some really cool “right stuff ” too.

When I picked out a pair of sneakers I wanted to try, my sales helper checked her iPod Touch (customized by Verifone), and confirmed they had my size. Within minutes, a runner emerged from a back room somewhere with the shoes in hand. We repeated this three times, and each time, response was prompt even in a crowded store. The process for returning unwanted shoes to the back was very efficient as well. I won’t go into details here, but it was pretty cool.

I asked how the merchandise receiving process worked. They basically have a locator system in the back room, so the runners know exactly which bin number (the associate’s word) to look in for the shoes. No RFID (I asked), but an effective system in any case. I saw no evidence of inventory inaccuracy. If they thought they had it, they had it. It was clean and efficient. And the associate was happy working there.

When I finally decided on a pair I wanted to buy, the sales associate was able to take my credit card right on that same iPod Touch. Small niggle: I wanted to use Apple Pay, and I could see the iPod Touch was set up to take mobile payments, but it wasn’t activated. We had to walk over to a front desk to get a bag and remove a security label, but it wasn’t a hardship and was fast and easy.

How would I grade the Nike store? Give it an A on intent, an A- on execution and a B- on strategy.

Ironically, on that same Saturday morning I read a piece by a stock analyst for Barron’s. He expressed concern that Nike is reducing its inventory too much, which he thought meant they anticipated fewer sales. In fact, the piece was titled “One Crucial Sign Nike May Be Losing Confidence. ”

When I read that piece I thought “Nonsense. Reducing inventory is generally a good thing. ” But after seeing the store, I wonder if they’ve cut inventory to pay for these new store roll-outs. And I wonder if this was done surgically or with a hacksaw.

I’ve seen big companies misjudge the demographics on Lincoln Road Mall before, and I think we’re there again. That’s a lot of money spent based on what I can only call inadequate analytics. I wish Nike well, and I really hope they adjust their merchandise mix. We still haven’t found the magic for the store of the future, but at least Nike is trying.

Side note: the shoes I actually bought got worn once, and will never be worn again. I bought a size longer to compensate for the lack of wide widths and it’s an epic fail. It cost me a hundred plus bucks, but probably cost Nike a lot more in future business from me. I really just wanted a wide width tennis shoe. I didn’t get what I wanted or needed and will look elsewhere in the future.