Vancouver-based Duer is continuing its rapid North American expansion.
The company is known for selling comfortable chino pants that look nice enough to wear to the office and it this week opened its eighth location, in Edmonton.
A year and a half ago, the chain had five stores: in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Los Angeles and Denver. It was even a rare retailer to expand during the pandemic.
It then added stores in Mississauga and Ottawa.
CEO, co-founder and principal Gary Lenett told BIV in March 2023 that his aim was to have 10 stores open by the end of 2023 and 40 stores open around the world within five years.
He told BIV yesterday that the slowdown in his expansion plans stemmed from not being able to find ideal locations.
"We wait for the right lease," he said. "I don't want to sign bad leases. To me, there's just no reason for that. It's not like we took in private-equity money and we have to grow so fast or that we have to spend it or something."
Strong Duer retail locations, he said, are determined by whether:
- there are similar retailers nearby that draw on a similar customer demographic;
- the company's e-commerce sales show strong sales in an area; and
- the rent and lease terms make financial sense.
"We usually have five or six opportunities on the go all the time," Lenett said.
He mentioned that some other cities where he is scouting locations include Victoria, Halifax, Hamilton, Montreal, Portland and Seattle.
Lenett co-founded Pimlico Performance Apparel in 2013, when he had a fashion brand called Dish. Pimlico's holdings included a company known as Dish and Duer until around 2020, when Lenett separated the two brands and licensed Dish to a third party.
After founding Pimlico, it took Lenett about two years to develop Duer's fabrics, name and branding so he considers 2015 as Duer's founding date, he said.
International stores could still be on the radar.
"We would do that in partnership," Lenett said. "We did take on a new partner out of the U.K. who we are doing a joint venture with on the wholesale and the e-commerce side. If we found the right spaces, we would collectively build up stores in Europe."
Lenett said a rough estimate of his company's sales are about 45 per cent through wholesale channels, 45 per cent via e-commerce and 10 per cent from corporately owned stores.
Duer's wholesale customer list spans a wide range of retailers – everyone from Holt Renfrew to MEC, Sporting Life and Simons.
"There are about 1,000 other retailers we wholesale to worldwide," he said.
He has had the wholesale channel as a key part of the business from his early days.
