Dive Brief:

• Indochino last week announced the opening of eight showrooms over the next four months, including in Denver and Bethesda, Maryland in May, Short Hills, New Jersey and Scottsdale, Arizona in June, and Columbus, Ohio and Newport Beach, California later this summer.

• The expansion is in addition to previously announced locations opening in Dallas and New York's Madison Ave in coming weeks, according to a press release emailed to Retail Dive.

• The openings will mean that the bespoke menswear company is growing its store network by almost a third, from 23 to 31 by the end of the summer. 

Dive Insight:

Canadian menswear company Indochino began in 2007 as a pure-play e-commerce retailer and has since opened physical showrooms. Lately it's on quite a tear. Each new market is among those with the company's strongest online customer bases, and chosen locations are close to young professional communities that include men aged 25-45, the company's core demographic.

The retailer brings ready-to-wear prices — suits start at $399 and shirts from $79 — to custom tailoring. Customers work with a personal stylist, who assists them in designing a suit or shirt, choosing from "millions" of possible combinations of fabrics and personalization options. Garments are made to a customer's precise measurements and shipped to him directly within three weeks, according to the company.

The e-commerce focus brought a level of efficiency and cost savings to the process, and the showrooms continue in that vein, according to Green. "Showrooms give customers access to a completely new way to shop whilst being highly efficient to operate," he said. "We pass these savings on to our customers in the form of great value, high quality clothing. It's a winning formula.”

Once pure-play e-commerce retailers like Indochino (along with Warby Parker, Untuckit, and mattress upstarts like Casper and Leesa) are opening more physical locations in order to take advantage of the high-touch selling opportunities inherent in having stores. That's in stark contrast to the "retail apocalypse" headlines of last year (and continuing this year despite healthy holiday retail sales), which were driven primarily by store closures. Major U.S. chains announced 6,955 store closures in 2017, according to a report from consulting firm FGRT emailed to Retail Dive earlier this year. Factoring in small and independent retailers, the total U.S. store number last year fell for the first time since 2009, according to the report, citing statistics from Euromonitor International.