THE STYLISH EYEWEAR PURVEYOR OPENS ITS FLAGSHIP STORE TODAY. COFOUNDERS NEIL BLUMENTHAL AND DAVID GILBOA SHOW US THE MAGIC BEHIND 121 GREENE.
Warby Parker stormed the retail glasses industry in 2010 with a novel way to sell its affordable, stylish specs: online. Hundreds of thousands of sold pairs later, the boutique glasses purveyor is today opening the doors to its brick-and-mortar flagship store, at 121 Greene Street in NYC's SoHo neighborhood.
The Warby Parker storefront at 121 Greene Street in New York City (Click Image To Enlarge)
Front door entrance to the new Warby Parker store on Greene Street in the SOHO district of New York City (Click Image To Enlarge)
Warby Parker rapidly built a thriving e-commerce business through an innovative model that eschewed costly expenses, such as brand licensing fees, and sold product directly to consumers, allowing the company to sell glasses for as low as $95 a pair.
Warby Parker cofounders Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa in the new Greene Street store (Click Image To Enlarge)
But cofounders David Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal tell Fast Company their brand has had a brick-and-mortar presence almost since its inception. Their first retail location? Blumenthal's apartment.
Blumenthal says.
"We literally would invite people to come to the apartment and we’d lay the glasses on the dining room table. We thought it was going to be this sub-optimal experience, and it ended up being something really special."
They eventually opened up a showroom in New York City and set up displays within several smaller boutique retailers across the country, including The Standard hotel chain's Los Angeles and Miami locations, where guests can visit Warby's kitschy, '60s-themed "Readery" kiosks.
What you see when you walk in. Hopefully you see it even clearer when exiting (Click Image To Enlarge)
Custom terrazzo flooring embedded with the Warby Parker logo. Partners & Spade dreamed up the store's design conceit (Click Image To Enlarge)
Books by 14 partner publishers in Warby Parker's lobby remind you just how bad you need to be at this place (Click Image To Enlarge)
But Blumenthal and Gilboa have sprinkled the flagship store with an extra dusting of retail magic, taking a few cues from their neighbor across Greene Street: the Apple Store.
Gilboa says.
"What I think Apple did tremendously well when they launched retail was not to focus on how to shove as many products into the footprint as possible. It was really focused around creating a magical experience. That's what we've tried to create here."
When you walk into 121 Greene, you'll find rolling library ladders, a photo booth, reading materials from Warby-approved independent presses, and mirrors upon mirrors, so you'll never have to travel far to peep a glance at your bespectacled self.
Literary themes abound: The look of the store is inspired by a library. Books on Warby Parker's shelves are color-coded--eggshell, kelly, cerulean, crimson, and aubergine. And the cofounders combined the name of two early Jack Kerouac characters, Zagg Parker and Warby Pepper, to name their company (Click Image To Enlarge)
Warby Parker eyewear is prominantly displayed on well-lit shelves for close inspection and test wearing by customers (Clik Image To Enlarge)
Blumenthal and Gilboa say the store is an early testament to where the retail industry is headed.
Gilboa says.
"The future of our business and all retail is going to have some online and some offline component. The world doesn’t have to be black and white."
The store's high ceiling has four rolling ladders attached to the walls. Here's the view from a top one of the ladders (Click Image To Enlarge)
Sunglasses and optical glasses--men's and women's--are mixed throughout the display around the store (Click Image To Enlarge)
The store sells books, too. Warby Parker teamed up with 14 publishers to display selected books from their catalogs on 14 different shelves. Shown here are Melville House Books (Click Image To Enlarge)
COMMENTARY: What was inevitable that Warby Parker would have to open retail stores. Eye vision examinations, filling eyewear prescriptions and fitting glasses requires a lot of personalized service. You cannot do this online. It's a real hassle for Warby Parker customers to have to go to an optometrist to have their eyes examined and obtain a prescription for their lenses, then have to provide this information to Warby Parker so that the lense prescription can be filled. A store provides a completely new customer retail experience that you cannot get from an online store, no matter how well designed your online store is.
Having a brick-and-mortar eyewear store fills another very useful purpose -- it provides an additional level of convenience for existing Warby Parker customers. Warby Parker probably sold a lot of eyewear to customers living in New York City, and having a local store to serve those customers, and future customers, will be very good for business.
The New York store will doubtless increase Warby Parker's operating expenses. Retail space is very expense in New York, and you have also have the added cost of store clerks and an on-premise optrometist.
Warby Parker's original strategy was to disrupt the present retail eyewear industry, but it now appears to have taken a 180 degree turn in that strategy. Only time will tell whether operating real stores will economicaly feasible without disrupting its original strategy.
Courtesy of an article dated April 14, 2013 appearing in Fast Company
I'm so happy that their business is going so well for them. One of my children has a pair of their glasses. I would shop with them as well but I need a special prescription that I get from my eye doctor in Edmonton.
Posted by: Jaredlikespineapple | 05/13/2013 at 07:27 PM