When you ask about a retail expansion strategy, you’ll find two distinct schools of thought. One camp sees moving into physical stores as the inevitable and necessary next step for growth. The other preaches patience, urging brands to perfect their DTC business before taking on the enormous challenge of brick-and-mortar.
Camp A: The Inevitable Omnichannel Expansion
This camp argues that to achieve true scale and become a household name, a brand must have a physical footprint. The core idea is that DTC has a ceiling. On the Up Arrow Podcast, three-time nine-figure founder Clayton Christopher makes the case that you eventually have to go where your customers are, and that includes physical retail shelves. Without it, you risk losing even your core DTC customers to competitors who have an omnichannel presence.
This view is about aggressively pursuing market share. Ariel Kaye, founder of Parachute, spoke on the Modern Retail Podcast about expanding to fill the “whitespace” left by the collapse of legacy retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond. It’s a strategy of seizing opportunity. We see this same confidence from Kids Foot Locker’s Jill Feldman, who is actively planning to expand the company’s store base, moving into community-centric locations instead of just traditional malls. For this camp, a physical store expansion is a sign of strength and a key driver of long-term, defensible growth.
Camp B: The Patient, DTC-First Foundation
This camp’s philosophy is best summarized by Weezie co-founder Lindsey Johnson, who said on the Modern Retail Podcast, “'An awesome product is table stakes.'" For them, physical retail is a future consideration, not an immediate priority. The focus is on building a resilient, beloved, and profitable DTC brand first. This means perfecting the product, the supply chain, and the online customer experience before adding the immense operational and financial complexity of opening stores.
This approach is fundamentally about risk management. On Shopify Masters, Amit Mahtani details the questions you must ask to assess financial and operational readiness for expansion. Are your finances in order? Can your team handle both online and offline channels? Camp B followers believe that rushing into retail is one of the biggest and most expensive mistakes an emerging brand can make. They prioritize building a strong brand foundation and a loyal community online, which then becomes the launchpad for any future moves, whether that's wholesale, pop-ups, or a permanent store.
My take is that you should start with the discipline of Camp B before you can earn the right to execute the strategy of Camp A. Building a brand with a cult following and rock-solid unit economics online is the absolute best preparation for a successful retail launch. Without that, you're just a product on a shelf, easily ignored. Rushing into a DTC to wholesale transition or signing a lease without that proven demand is a recipe for disaster. The goal is absolutely to build an omnichannel retail strategy, but the timing and sequence are critical.
So, what should you do? If you're a young brand, live and breathe Camp B. Obsess over your product and your online community. Get your operations and finances perfectly in order. Instead of a permanent store, use pop-ups or product sampling at events to test the waters and gather data, a point Clayton Christopher also made. If, however, you’re an established DTC player with a strong balance sheet and proven demand, it’s time to start layering in Camp A’s thinking. Begin with a strategic wholesale partnership or a single, well-placed store in a market where you already have high online sales. Let the data from your DTC success guide your first steps into the physical world.
