Dive Brief:
- After raising $400 million in October, DTC activewear brand Vuori last week expanded its e-commerce presence to seven countries: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada.
- The brand will also sell through a variety of wholesale partners in those countries, Vuori said in a press release, including Selfridges, Barry’s Bootcamp and Bever, among others.
- This is Vuori’s first expansion outside of the U.S. and comes in addition to plans to open 100 U.S. stores over the next five years.
Dive Insight:
Vuori is expanding at a rapid pace after raking in hundreds of millions of dollars this past fall.
All seven of the countries Vuori is expanding into will have access to the brand’s entire men’s and women’s apparel collection through the company’s website. Vuori is also entering a few dozen stores through its wholesale partners in the U.K., Ireland and the Netherlands. Vuori’s men’s products will be offered at four Selfridge’s stores, and both men’s and women’s will be available at 20 Costwold Outdoor stores and 11 Barry’s Bootcamp locations. Two Brown Thomas stores in Ireland will offer Vuori items, as will 20 Bever stores in the Netherlands.
Vuori founder and CEO Joe Kudla attributes the brand’s success in the U.S. in part to an early start in the wholesale business. The activewear brand sells through Nordstrom and REI, among others, and Kudla told Retail Dive last fall that the partnerships “helped us with our working capital model.” He added that Vuori doesn’t want wholesale to be a majority of its business, but has been focused on “strategic” partnerships from the start.
It’s taking a similar approach to the international markets, though Vuori is already planning a stand-alone store of its own in the U.K. The company is expecting to open a Vuori-branded flagship store in London this year, per the release.
“2022 is going to be Vuori’s biggest year yet, and we look forward to sharing much more in the weeks and months ahead,” Kudla said in a statement on the expansion.
As it moves into new markets, Vuori is also opening a U.K. distribution hub and an innovation center in Taiwan. The company also said it is expanding its product offerings, continuing to invest in sustainability efforts and making “key investments in infrastructure and people.” Unlike many of its competitors in the DTC space, Vuori touts that it has been profitable since 2017.
DTC brands proliferate in the activewear space, including several that have gone public or been acquired recently, like Sweaty Betty, running brand On, Beyond Yoga and Allbirds.
