Watch out, Lululemon: Another Vancouver-based apparel maker is making a play for US shoppers.
Aritzia, the everyday luxury womenswear retailer, has steadily gained ground and grown sales over the past several years with its assortment of stylish activewear and comfortable office wear.
The company said in July that it grew its retail footprint by 25% over the last year, including opening 13 stores and redesigning three existing ones. The expansion helped drive retail sales up 34% year over year last quarter.
“We’ve done a lot of work over the past 1 1/2 years, two years to refine our playbook and ensure that our inventory is productive and efficient. And I think we’re in a fantastic place right now, very well-positioned,” CEO Jennifer Wong said in an earnings call.
The results appear to be delivering on some ambitious goals Wong laid out last year as Aritzia’s US expansion was heating up.
Wong was not immediately available for an interview with Business Insider, but she detailed her strategy in several interviews with other outlets.
“We’re tackling all the major cities where we know our brand and product resonates with the customer,” she told Vogue Business last November. “The next step is to fill in the rest of the country.”
Founded in 1984 in Vancouver, Aritzia saw steady growth in Canada before entering the US in 2007. The company saw a bumper year in 2020, followed by some pandemic-era challenges, and has since tripled sales to more than CAD$2.7 billion last year.
Wong has been with the company since its early days, rising through the ranks to eventually take over the helm from founder Brian Hill in 2022. She soon doubled the rate of store openings, helping to extend the momentum of the return-to-office era.
“We experienced some explosive growth coming out of Covid,” she said. “There was pent-up demand and a whole new energy. That really accelerated our business in the US, and we became more well known than ever. We’ve been really riding that momentum since.”
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There are 68 locations in Canada and 63 in the US, and the company says it could see the US figure grow to more than 150 over the next few years, not to mention its growing e-commerce operation.
Four of those locations will open in the next few months in the Boston area, Miami, Salt Lake City, and Raleigh, North Carolina.
While Aritzia’s stores have drawn some derision on TikTok for their mirrorless (and sometimes crowded) dressing rooms, its high-touch “style advisor” sales approach harkens back to the kind of personalized shopping experience offered at luxury department stores like Bergdorf Goodman.
Of course, it’s the clothing that ultimately makes or breaks the sale for fashion brands, and Aritzia appears to be delivering good value for its customers.
In terms of style and substance, BI’s reviews team called Aritzia’s apparel “as timeless and elegant as it is trendy and modern” and said the quality is “undisputed.”
Price-wise, analysts at Jefferies looked at comparable products from nine peer retailers and found Aritzia to be a cut above the mid-tier but a step below the highest-priced brands. In other words, it is more expensive than Lululemon and J. Crew but less pricey than Anthropologie and Madewell. In addition, Aritiza’s prices are less frequently marked down than some competitors.
The Jefferies analysts suggested that the relative pricing and demand for Aritzia products give the company more room to grow in sales and profits, propelling its expansion.
From its merchandise to stores to tech, it appears Aritzia is getting a lot of retail fundamentals right — and reaping the rewards.
“It’s not any one of those things, but it’s all of these things that come together and how we’ve been able to execute well over the years on all of it,” Wong told the Business of Fashion in January. “When I say we want to be excellent at everything, that’s really what’s in our minds.”
