Dive Brief:

• The retail chain rue21 announced Friday that it has begun selling its products online via rue21.com, marking the companies entry into e-commerce.
• The company went private last month after a $1.1 billion sale to a private equity investor.
• CEO Bob Fisch called the move "key to building our brand for the future" in an announcement, though rue21 will have a lot of catching up to do with its clothing competitors who are already established online.

Dive Insight:

Online offerings may seem like an obvious choice for many clothing retailers today, but rue21 was one prominent example of a prominent industry holdout. If you're going to sell fashion to smartphone-toting teens, making products available to them on their devices seems like a no brainer. For the sake of the company's future, rue21's new owners will just have to hope they they aren't too late to the game.