Duluth Trading Company opens first store in the East

Source: Milwaukee Business Journal, David Schuyler

With much fanfare, Duluth Trading Company opened its store in suburban Philadelphia Friday, marking the launch of a brick-and-mortar retail expansion across the East Coast.

And the Belleville-based apparel retailer did so with a flourish — with a lumberjack demonstration and a BBQ buffet. The new store, in King of Prussia, Pa., is also distinguished by the inclusion of a “tool museum” based on Pennsylvania carpentry shops, according to a public invitation to the store’s grand opening.

The Eastern U.S. is a key to the growth plans for the store network of Duluth Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: DLTH), a direct merchant and retailer of casual wear, workwear and accessories.

“The Eastern market represents one of the largest concentrations of Duluth brand fans and we selected King of Prussia to launch our eastward expansion of retail stores,” CEO Stephanie Pugliese said in a press release. “We are delighted that people visiting the major shopping destination of King of Prussia can now experience the full expression of our brand in this ‘store like no other’ new location.”

Pugliese told analysts during a September conference call that the company expects to open seven new stores during fiscal 2016, a year that began with plans to add as few as four stores to the direct and retail workwear merchant’s store network.

At the time, she announced the company had signed a lease for a second store on the East Coast, in Manassas, Va. Duluth expects to open seven to eight new stores in fiscal 2017.

Duluth Trading now has 13 stores, with the Manassas store and a store in Independence, Mo., opening this winter.