Online start-up retailer Casper, which sells mattresses, is launching a deliberate bricks and mortar retail strategy, starting with a pilot in New York, and plans to open 200 stores across the U.S.
With retail undergoing a dramatic transformation, company CEO Philip Krim told CNBC that the company will see how the New York store functions and apply what it learns.
“We are very much in learning mode, testing different formats and understanding what the right setup is for our customers,” he explained.
As former malls litter the commercial real estate landscape, looking like rotting dinosaurs, a new breed of retailers, like Casper, are actually opening stores. These include Warby Parker, Bonobos, and Untuckit.
And interestingly for corporate real estate executives to know, the article says that it’s still cheaper to acquire customers, on average, through stores rather than online.