ThirdLove's Retail Expansion Aims to Give Customers Full (Market) Coverage

For many businesses, the pandemic was either a curse or a blessing. Some were stopped in their tracks in the middle of ambitious expansion plans, while others flourished in the ecommerce space the world came to rely on during months of sheltering at home. In the case of ThirdLove, both scenarios were true. At the start of 2020, the intimates brand had just announced plans to open a fleet of stores. It was also riding high off strong online sales growth and a successful pop-up shop in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. “It was going really well, and we actually had a lease in hand to extend through the rest of 2020. But as the pandemic started, it made the most sense to put our resources elsewhere,” ThirdLove co-founder and CEO Heidi Zak told Adweek. For Zak and her team, the setback turned into a setup for something even better. By the time ThirdLove began rolling out its first retail locations in Q1 of 2022, it had amassed invaluable learnings from its first foray into brick-and-mortar and pivoted its online business to focus on offerings such as loungewear, sleepwear, and wireless bras and bralettes as customers’ habits shifted—strengthening performance in the respective categories in the interim. “Earlier this year, wireless bras and bralettes were in 40% of orders,” said Zak, who noted more recently this number has gone down to less than 30% as preferences have shifted back to more structured bras. Keeping abreast of the business The decision to open ThirdLove's first stores in California—two in the Bay area and two in Los Angeles—made more sense for the San Francisco-based company, which found having a physical store across the country challenging. “We purposely opened our first four stores in California so we could spend more time in them, and react more quickly as each one opened,” Zak said. “Our pop-up store in SoHo was set up more like a guide shop with limited inventory for in-store purchases, and included fitting room technology/iPads for mimicking our digital experience.” As a result, she said the brand learned in-store customers want in-person interactions with stylists and “want to walk out of the store with a bag full of products.” Over the next couple of months, the company will open four more stores in Boston, Washington, D.C., Dallas and Scottsdale, Ariz., according to ThirdLove’s vp of strategy and operations, Veronique Powell. A Chicago shop and two additional locations are also in the works before the year’s end. Powell shared ThirdLove is looking to open between 12 and 16 locations in 2023, with plans for multiple shops in the New York market. “New York is absolutely on our radar,” Powell said. “And it’ll be a really important area for us to have a cluster of stores. [We want to] make sure we have a strong presence for shoppers wherever they’re shopping more locally. So, we’re looking at New York in a big way for the front half of 2023.” Zak and Powell are equally confident now is the perfect time to bring a brick-and-mortar experience to new and existing customers “given the opportunities that exist within the current real estate market,” Zak said. “Although many women are comfortable buying undergarments online, we know from research that some women prefer to have an in-store try-on experience.” In fact, research played a key role in determining the new store locations, design, merchandising and marketing strategies. ThirdLove identified areas such as Scottsdale and Phoenix, which Powell said have a high concentration of ecommerce customers. “Being a digital-first business, testing and learning [are] a strong part of our DNA,” she added. “It’s not typically something you do a lot of in brick-and-mortar because it’s such a slow-moving channel and things take a long time to come to life, but we’ve really prioritized how can we be fast and how can we be data-oriented with every decision that we’re making.” According to Powell, ThirdLove considers the stores to be another marketing channel as it seeks to increase its presence in the wake of Victoria’s Secret’s fall from grace in a market it once dominated. “We’re looking to the stores not just to drive our overall revenue, but also to raise our brand awareness,” she said. “We think about each store itself as being a billboard. And that really goes into where we’re selecting locations—making sure that they’re highly visible locations where our potential customers are already shopping.” As such, ThirdLove stores will bring to life campaigns that also run online, while experimenting with localized marketing efforts tailored to each location. In addition to digital marketing and direct mailers, the brand fostered local partnerships for in-store events such as Teacher Appreciation Week (where teachers in the area could come in to be fitted for and receive a free bra), and has placed ads in local newspapers, magazines and radio to raise awareness and drive traffic to stores. Sizing up the next decade of growth Zak—who co-founded ThirdLove in 2013—told Adweek in addition to the new store rollouts, the brand is also expanding its product assortment in the coming year as she considers what the next decade will look like. ThirdLove is also looking to expand its footprint in North America, having recently opened a warehouse in Canada, with stores soon to follow. “Our mission is to make bras and the shopping experience comfortable so that our customers can look and feel amazing,” she says. “We really look to our customers to assess what products they want to see from our company—and we have some exciting new launches on the horizon for 2023.” Lifting up others The woman-led and founded brand also recently announced it will open the next round of applications for its TL Effect program on Oct. 1. The program, first launched in 2020, helps female entrepreneurs of color build and scale their businesses. Previous grant recipients such as Kyütee Beauty founder Arah Sims received $20,000 to help support company growth through ThirdLove’s social and blog platforms, including a dedicated space for meetings, work and photoshoots in the company’s San Francisco headquarters and mentorship from ThirdLove's leadership on product development, production, supply chain, marketing, creative, brand and finance. Adidas Tweeted 25 Pairs of Bare Breasts to Launch a Campaign for Inclusive Sports Bras