Rent the Runway borrows from Apple with a fashion rental flagship

Since 2013, Rent the Runway has pursued a careful, multi-faceted expansion from online-only into brick and mortar. Now the startup has taken a bigger physical step with a Fifth Avenue flagship that is being touted as a prototype of the startup’s new high-tech hybrid retail model. Rent the Runway’s flagship features professional stylists equipped with iPads who provide service akin to what the Genius Bar affords Apple customers, reported Fast Company. Management says it designed the store based on observations of customer data. The selling floor is laid out like a walk-in closet rather than a traditional retail store. To speed the shopper's trip, renters can use an app to make style requests and a dress drop-off chute. The store also leverages data from customers’ Rent the Runway website browsing habits to inform in-store assistants about customers’ tastes in apparel when they check in at an in-store digital kiosk, according to a CNBC report. The location is three times the size of any of the retailer’s existing stores, according to Fast Company. Rent the Runway’s physical stores (which will number seven by the end of the year) bring in an average 20 percent higher order value than the company’s website. Since learning this perhaps surprising statistic after rolling the dice on its first pop-up store three years ago, Rent the Runway has been experimenting with non-traditional physical concepts serving disparate markets. Earlier this year, the startup partnered with Neiman Marcus to open a store-within-a-store in the luxury retailer’s San Francisco location. It also opened a series of pop-ups in the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets. Other one-time online-only retailers have pursued similar digitally-driven strategies as Rent the Runway to bring brick-and-mortar concepts to life. In 2015, for instance, GameStop leveraged the data from its popular loyalty program to inform both the product selection and store placement of its newly launched brick-and-mortar ThinkGeek sub-brand concept. The strategy has been a success, with the company opening 25 more ThinkGeek locations in the U.S. and 25 more worldwide throughout 2016.

• Rent the Runway Mines User Data To Design Sleek New Flagship – Fast Company
• As online sales reach new highs, Rent the Runway goes Analog – CNBC
• Are Neiman Marcus and Rent the Runway meant for each other? – RetailWire
• Coming soon, a chain built by geeks for geeks – RetailWire
• Once e-tail only, ThinkGeek expands brick-and-mortar presence – RetailWire