Online lingerie retailer Adore Me Inc. is taking its business offline with plans to open between 200 and 300 stores across the U.S. over the next five years.
The online retailer, founded in 2012, will open an estimated 10 stores in 2018 with another 20 rolling out the year after, the Wall Street Journal reports.
While the lingerie store has been open for several years, it has employed a strategy similar to retailers like Warby Parker, which also opted to keep its products online prior to testing the potentially tumultuous brick-and-mortar retail market.
The decision to move into physical spaces is a ploy to take some of the market share from Victoria’s Secret, which posted more than $7B in revenue last year, but its store-only sales dropped 6% during Q4, signaling a potential opportunity for a new brand to enter the market. L Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret, has witnessed its stock prices drop an estimated 35% so far this year, according to the WSJ.
To appeal to consumers, Adore Me stores will focus on providing an experience with amenities like a bar and a showroom where people can try on products and test the fit before ordering them in-store. Products will be shipped to customers' homes. The stores will also forgo checkout counters. Salespeople will instead use mobile devices to ring through product sales.
Adore Me is planning to open its first store in New York City within the next few months, the WSJ reports.
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