Exclusive: Sosandar on verge of making bricks and mortar retail debut
Online womenswear brand Sosandar is looking to make its bricks-and-mortar debut and has set out an initial target of 20 stand alone, physical stores, Completely Retail News has learned.
Speaking at last week’s Completely Retail Marketplace event, Mark Disney, executive director at CBRE, said that the brand had recognised physical retail as an effective means of customer acquisition.
Disney added that while it was unknown what the brand’s long-terms ambitions are, he said that it sits in a “mass-market positioning”.
Sosandar is “an example of somebody that has seen the value of leveraging an online brand”, said Disney.
“They could take a lot [of physical stores], but most retailers now tend to top out at 30-50 stores depending on the size of the business because they can fulfil so much online”, he added.
Sosandar was founded in 2016 by Ali Hall and Julie Lavington, co-founders and co-CEOs and has partnerships with Next, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, The Very Group, and JD Williams.
Earlier this year, it also reached an agreement to sell a curated collection of its products through Sainsbury’s supermarkets. The wholesale agreement initially saw the womenswear sold only through the supermarket’s website, with a number of selected stores selling the products in the latter parts of 2023.
In February, the brand beat its fundraising target of £4.5m after accumulating £5.4m from shareholders, as it looked to grow into an omni-channel retailer.