West Elm to build out Floyd shop-in-shops

Dive Brief:

Floyd, a Detroit-based direct-to-consumer furniture company, announced on Tuesday an expanded partnership with West Elm, according to information sent to Retail Dive.
Floyd's entire product assortment will be available on West Elm's website as well as shop-in-shop locations in Santa Monica, California; Austin, Texas; and the Chelsea neighborhood in New York.
Through prior partnerships, the Floyd Legs — the company's first product — and the Floyd Bed were available through West Elm in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

Dive Insight:

While this isn't Floyd's first foray into brick and mortar, the expanded partnership with West Elm gives customers greater in-person access to the furniture brand's product assortment.

The company already operated a showroom experience in Detroit, but New York is a popular spot for e-commerce brands eyeing brick and mortar. Commercial real estate firm JLL found over one-third (41.3%) of online retailers opened their first permanent locations in New York, with Los Angeles (12%) and San Francisco (12%) following behind.

Floyd, known for flat-packed furniture that ships directly to consumers, may be trying to disrupt the original home goods disruptor, Ikea, which in April opened its first U.S. urban planning studio on New York's Upper East Side. Burrow, another direct-to-consumer company that's perfected the art of flat packing furniture, also established a physical location in New York with a showroom, Burrow House.

The partnership with West Elm may be significant as well. The Williams-Sonoma brand has partnered with a number of startups in the past, including Rent the Runway for rental home goods offerings starting this summer, Leesa for its mattresses and even Floyd through its LOCAL program.

The direct-to-consumer brand is not the only startup that has opted to be housed within existing stores rather than opening their own stores right away — the Market @ Macy's and Neighborhood Goods follow a similar model. Opening shop-in-shops in already established West Elm locations gives Floyd the benefit of customer acquisition without the heavy rent obligations of opening a standalone store.