DTC’s Daily Digest brings you the latest news on the world’s fastest growing direct-to-consumer brands. In today’s edition: Neighborhood Goods opens second store; Warby Parker eyeing new physical locations in 2020; and Airbnb invests in competitor Zeus. 

Neighborhood Goods opens second store

Neighborhood Goods is opening its second store, this time in New York City’s Chelsea Market neighbourhood. 

The first-of-its-kind retail concept will unveil a launch line-up of more than 40 brands, most of which have operated as DTC-first until now, bucking the trend of its nearby brick-and-mortar neighbours who have been plagued by declining sales or shuttering doors. Meeting customers’ needs to not only see and touch products in real life, but also to provide in-demand experiences and integrations where customers can connect and interact with their favourite online brands all in one physical location.

The ever-changing curation of brands concept has experienced success since its November 2018  inception in Plano, Texas. Since inception, Neighborhood Goods has received more than USD$27.5m in funding, helping to accelerate expansion plans and projecting to open several more stores in 2020 - including their next, slated to open doors in Austin in the earlier part of the year. 

Last month, DTC Daily spoke to the company’s co-founder & CEO, Matt Alexander, who told us that unlike traditional retail stores, Neighborhood Goods “provides analytics to our brands to give them a sense of traffic and behaviour within our store”. You can read the full piece here. 

Warby Parker eyeing new physical locations in 2020

Warby Parker is set to step up its physical-location game in 2020, with plans to open new stores in St. Louis and Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn store will be the third location in the borough for the eyeglasses purveyor, the first of which opened in 2016. There are seven additional locations in Manhattan.

The St. Louis location will be Warby Parker’s second in the city, a market it first entered two years ago. Across North America, the New York-based company has a little more than 100 stores. Warby Parker plans to add 35 additional stores in 2020, according to Forbes.

Warby Parker was established in 2010, as is one of the pioneers of the direct-to-consumer model. Since then others have tried to replicate the success they have had cutting out the middleman. Now, those that are trying to emulate Warby Parker’s business model also turn their sights to in-store retail. We spoke to retail space rental agency Appear Here in the DTC Podcast recently about this trend, and what DTCs hope to gain from opening physical stores. 

Airbnb invests in competitor Zeus

Ahead of their public debut in 2020, Airbnb has doled out some of its own cash in a close-to-focus investment: Zeus Living, a corporate housing upstart based in San Francisco.

Zeus Living raised a $55 million Series B, in a round chock full of investors including the aforementioned Airbnb, and Comcast. The startup offers over 2,000 fully furnished homes across a handful of cities for business people that need extended stays. It has raised $79.1 million in total venture capital to date, according to Crunchbase data.

Zeus poses as a competitor to one of Airbnb’s more recent offerings: Airbnb for Work. It makes sense that the travel behemoth is keeping its San Francisco competition close. Zeus’ CEO Kulveer Taggar explained in March that the company’s focus on traditional corporate housing was succeeding in the long term, while Airbnb was only zeroing in on short term.

“Airbnb isn’t well suited [for multi-month stays], ” Taggar told TechCrunch. “We’re about half the price of traditional corporate housing for a better product and a better experience.”

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