Dive Brief:
- Continuing its brick-and-mortar expansion, direct-to-consumer beauty brand Glossier opened its seventh storefront in Philadelphia on Oct. 27 and is opening its eighth store in Brooklyn, New York, on Saturday, according to an announcement emailed to Retail Dive.
- The Philadelphia store is in Rittenhouse Square and borrows its architectural aesthetic from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum. The Brooklyn store is designed to look like a corner shop and features signage that pays homage to the "classic purveyors around Brooklyn," the company said.
- According to the announcement, the brand also plans to open another store in New York, in SoHo, within the next six months.
Dive Insight:
After the COVID-19 pandemic upended retail, Glossier marked its return to physical stores last year. The brand opened its Seattle, Los Angeles and London locations that year and shared its plans to open more stores in 2022, including in New York. The DTC cosmetics brand closed its New York and Los Angeles stores during the coronavirus pandemic.
2022 proved to be an eventful year for the beauty company. In May, founder Emily Weiss exited as CEO, a role she had held since starting the company in 2014. She remained on the company's board as executive chair, and Kyle Leahy, then the chief commercial officer, became its CEO.
With a new leader at the helm, the company continued its physical and digital expansion. In July, the brand opened its fifth store, in Washington, D.C., and announced plans for stores in Atlanta, Philadelphia and New York. That same month, the brand signed a wholesale deal with Sephora to sell its products in stores, on the beauty retailer’s website and through its mobile app, but the company declined to say at that time whether it would sell via Sephora at Kohl’s shop-in-shops.
Amid the expansion, Glossier scaled back its workforce. First, in January the company laid off more than 80 employees as Weiss acknowledged the retailer had “made some mistakes” on its path to scale. Then in August, Leahy disclosed in a company letter that Glossier laid off about two dozen employees, a move it made in light of its pivot away from single-channel distribution.
