Dive Brief:
- In search of offline growth, DTC fast-fashion athleisure brand Halara has opened its first brick-and-mortar pop-up shop on Broadway in the middle of New York City, according to details emailed to Retail Dive.
- Located at 470 Broadway in Manhattan, the 3,500-square-foot pop-up is the first in an expected series of test stores that the four-year-old brand is opening across the U.S. While cities have yet to be confirmed, the company said it was looking for locations in Texas, California, and Florida, as well as Europe, Japan and Korea.
- The New York store opened on Friday and will be in operation through Sunday, though Brand President Gabby Hirata said it could stay open a few additional days if customer demand is high enough. Store hours are from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Dive Insight:
Halara picked New York for its first pop-up location as it tests the waters of physical retail. The company plans to open permanent stores within the next three years, according to Hirata.
“We chose New York City because it is home to a significant portion of our customer base as well as our U.S. [headquarters],” Hirata said in an email. “It is an ideal starting point to gather community feedback before expanding our retail channel.”
Founded during the pandemic in 2020 by Microsoft veteran Joyce Zhang, Halara incorporates machine learning and consumer feedback into its design and production process. The company has so far grown through its social media and DTC channels, and customers who visit the pop-up can get special gifts for posting about the experience on social media.
In New York, the company is testing a weeklong pop-up, but that length could change with other stores.
“The optimal length of the pop-up duration is a key benchmark we want to experiment with,” Hirata said. “We have seen some successful case studies of the 7-day pop-up so for cities that have very expensive real estates, we want to be as cost-effective as possible because our operating principle as a player of efficiency is to pass all the values including savings to our customers.”
The brand launched its first brand campaign on TikTok in February called #ConfidentlyHalara. The month-long campaign brought in 103 user-generated content participants, “who shared personal narratives about learning to love their bodies as they are, detailing their journey from feeling insecure to being comfortable in their own skin,” said Hirata. The videos under the tag amassed a total of 200 posts and 13.58 million views and impressions, per the company.
Halara operates on a model that stresses newness and uses an algorithm to improve the efficiency of the Asian factories it manufactures in, which it says are home to some of the brand’s competitors as well.
“We release hundreds of new styles every week, but at the same time, we operate on a nearly zero inventory model by leveraging our machine learning capabilities,” said Hirata. “This means that shipping times can take up to 2 weeks, but we believe that the future of our planet is more important.”
The athleisure space has been a strong category for a number of established and startup brands. Just in the past couple of years, DTC activewear brands have come to prominence or been snapped up by bigger companies looking to diversify. And DTC brands including On, Hoka, Alo Yoga and Vuori are also building popularity with younger demographics, at the expense of larger players like Nike.
