Lively is setting up shop in a permanent location, after a series of pop-ups in 2016.
On July 25, the body positive “leisurée” company expanded it’s off-line presence by opening the doors to its first physical store in SoHo.
Lively was founded “for women based on community,” according to founder and chief executive officer Michelle Cordeiro Grant, and launched online in April 2016 with bras and underwear.
According to a 2018 Women’s Wear Daily report, Grant and her team embarked on a pop-up series the same year of the launch. They used data collected from social media and surveys to determine the locations, Lively made two-week stops in SoHo, Dallas and Nashville. Grant found that the pop-ups translated to digital transactions. Lively’s online sales grew by 175 percent in the city of Dallas and 80 percent in the state of Texas following the Dallas leg.
“Some [events] are fitness activities, a hip-hop class, we have the launch of a book with a book reading, entrepreneurship panels, DIY calligraphy, watercolor, we have everything that our community has said they wanted to learn or do or partake in,” said Grant. “The average time spent in our store right now is 20 minutes to an hour, which is insane. A woman actually came and swung on our chairs and ate her lunch. We weren’t even open yet.”
According to a 2018 Women’s Wear Daily report, Grant plans on collecting data from the SoHo store to determine future retail locations and is already thinking of opening in Los Angeles and Dallas. She and her team are based in New York, which is why they decided on a SoHo shop for their brick-and-mortar debut.
“It’s important that we start to cover the ends of the country but then work our way in,” she said.
