Dive Brief:
- Lifestyle brand Scotch & Soda announced on Thursday that it plans to open 20 new stores over the next six months. The new stores will feature the brand's "Free Spirit" design concept, which it launched last year.
- The store expansion will include two flagship locations, in Milan and London, and owned and franchised stores in Washington, D.C.; Boston; Frankfurt, Germany; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Doha, Qatar; Tel Aviv, Israel; Johannesburg; Cairo; Shanghai and Beijing, according to a company press release.
- The announced store expansion follows the recent opening of 16 locations worldwide in the past six months.
Dive Insight:
Scotch & Soda is steadily ramping up its freestanding store footprint after initially focusing on wholesale.
The brand, which launched in 1985 in Amsterdam, appears to see North America as a growth opportunity. By September, the brand aims to open its 50th location on the continent, meaning North America would make up around 20% of its total global footprint.
The brand recently opened stores in Scottsdale, Arizona; Boston's Seaport neighborhood; Philadelphia; Charlotte, North Carolina; and is plotting additional locations in Washington, D.C., Detroit and San Antonio.
Scotch & Soda's announcement on Thursday follows one of a similar nature a few months back. In October, the brand announced it would open 22 new locations globally by the end of 2021, including 15 stores and 7 shop-in-shops.
"The growth momentum we saw last year continues to strengthen, with more locations launching globally," CEO Frederick Lukoff said in a statement Thursday. "It is a great opportunity to reach new customers worldwide, and to introduce them to our brand, inspired by the free spirit of Amsterdam."
Since 2011, when private equity firm Sun Capital Partners acquired Scotch & Soda, the brand has expanded its freestanding store presence eight-fold from around 30 stores 11 years ago to more than 250 today, though wholesale still makes up a large chunk of its business, selling in more than 7,000 stores.
