Dive Brief:
- DTC furniture brand Burrow on Tuesday announced it plans to open 10 stores over the next two years.
- The brand kicked off its brick-and-mortar expansion by opening its first store in Boston, located on Newbury Street, according to a press release emailed to Retail Dive. The store opened by appointment only on Tuesday and will open to the public in May.
- The store will give customers the ability to see soon-to-launch products before they’re available online, the company said.
Dive Insight:
After opening its first store back in 2018, Burrow is making a big push into brick and mortar.
“Burrow has always been driven by customer feedback, and meeting our customers where they are is part of our ethos as a company,” Stephen Kuhl, Burrow’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Since opening our flagship Burrow House, we’ve refined our strategy to seamlessly connect all channels, so our customers can shop online, come into the store to learn more, go home to take more measurements, and follow up with our retail staff afterwards for additional design advice.”
Up until this point, the brand, which launched in 2017, only had a store in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood — moving from Greene Street to a larger space on Wooster Street in February 2020.
When the pandemic forced retailers across the board to temporarily shutter their doors, Burrow shifted some of those in-person experiences online with the launch of Burrow House from Home in March 2020. The Wooster store reopened in October that year on an appointment-only basis.
The new Boston store will feature several vignettes showcasing the brand’s products, including its sofas and sectionals, standing desk, wall shelves, rugs and its new bedroom collection.
Brick and mortar has become key for DTC brands as the limitations of selling goods almost entirely online becomes apparent. Glossier over the past year has opened four permanent stores after shuttering its two stores in 2020 due to the pandemic. The brand last year, after raising $80 million in funding, said it eventually plans to open “dozens” of stores. Other DTC brands, including ThirdLove and Brooklinen, have announced store expansion plans of their own.
