Bluefly.com tests brick-and-mortar sales at holiday store

Bluefly.com, a retailer of designer fashion apparel and accessories at discount prices, is testing a brick-and-mortar strategy with a holiday store in New York. A three-day sample sale in September produced better than expected results, Bluefly says.

The holiday store, called the Outlet Store for Bluefly.com at 43 W. 24th Street, is slated to operate through Dec. 31. But if sales remain strong, Bluefly may consider building a store strategy on the success. “The holiday outlet store is the next stage in our effort to test a brick-and-mortar strategy to improve our recovery on items that are not appropriate for our web site,” said CEO Ken Seiff. “If this holiday test is successful, we intend to explore building on this idea next year.”

The store got off to a good start during the September test, Seiff said. “We were very pleased with that test, which exceeded our expectations,” he said. He noted that some items sold at the store at higher prices than similar items on the web site.

Bluefly sees the store concept as a way to merchandise products not ideally suited for online displays. “Some of our orders from vendors include items in such limited quantities that it is not economic for us to photograph and describe them for sale on our web site,” Seiff said.

In addition, about 10% of products that get returned to Bluefly cannot be returned to online inventory. Having a store provides Bluefly another opportunity to sell those items instead of writing them items off as a loss, Seiff said. “We realize that the most profitable retailers typically have the best final liquidation strategies,” he said.