Meet the Retailers Succeeding by Ignoring the Internet

Christopher Green is a neighbourhood man.

On a recent afternoon, Green sat outside Ven. Space, the menswear boutique in Carroll Gardens that he opened in 2024. He waved to his mother-in-law as she walked by, shouted compliments at a pedestrian wearing the store’s in-house label and welcomed a steady stream of repeat customers.

The store is intimate, and the racks are crowded with brands like Dries Van Noten, Auralee and The Row. The only way to actually see what is in stock — let alone buy anything — is to visit. Aside from an Instagram account, Ven. Space is about as off the grid as you can get in 2026. The store’s phone number is Green’s personal cell; its website is a simple list of the brands it carries.

Ven. Space’s approach — or lack thereof — to e-commerce is shared by a small but growing cohort of fashion retailers. It’s a direct reaction to the dominant mindset of the 2010s, when online-first retailers like Ssense, Farfetch and Net-a-Porter were booming, and the vast majority of brands at every price point invested heavily in developing their own e-commerce storefronts. However, the promise of access to a new, global customer base ran headlong into the grim reality of competing for sales online. Undifferentiated product assortments led to aggressive price competition, while the rising costs of customer acquisition and logistics gutted margins.

Pandemic-era predictions that e-commerce’s share of retail sales would inevitably keep rising haven’t aged well. The online share of US retail sales sat at 16.4 percent in late 2025, from 16.2 percent a year earlier, according to the US Census Bureau. A McKinsey survey published last year found more than half of consumers still prefer shopping in person to online, while another report noted 47 percent said patronising a locally owned business was a primary factor in purchasing decisions.

The handful of analogue holdouts — mostly luxury brands like Chanel, Goyard and Patek Philippe, as well as the off-price giant Burlington, which shut down its e-commerce site in 2020 — have started to look like they were onto something. They’re joined by a growing cohort of small retailers that are going all-in on brick and mortar. Offline-only stores include Outline in Brooklyn; Dot Reeder in Montclair, New Jersey and New York’s West Village; Les Étoffes in Montreal; Andreas Murkudis in Berlin; Modern Appealing Clothing (MAC) in San Francisco and Viola Lovely in Boston, Massachusetts.

These stores aim to provide unique experiences to shoppers who want their purchases to feel special. And while struggling department stores are unlikely to shut down their websites, there are lessons to be learned from their smaller offline rivals: namely that the strongest connections to customers are formed not by frictionless e-commerce or even low prices, but in person, with a focused product assortment, authentic customer service and an inviting retail environment.

“If a company is given a choice, I think the best customer is an in-store customer,” said Simeon Siegel, senior managing director at Guggenheim Securities.

The Financial Incentive to Skip E-Commerce

Before opening Ven. Space, Green witnessed the pitfalls of rapid digital expansion as merchandise manager for Need Supply and Totokaelo. Both stores began as local retailers and adopted e-commerce in the 2000s. They merged in 2018 as a retail group named NSTO but shuttered in 2020 after its attempt to scale left it vulnerable to the pandemic’s disruptions. But even before that, the retailers’ hurried growth had diluted what made the stores feel special to customers, said Green.

“You lose sight of what makes you good if you are constantly trying to get bigger rather than focusing on what makes you great,” said Green.

Need Supply’s fate illustrates a common problem retailers run into online: The only limit to how high sales can grow is how much they are willing to spend. Many costs associated with running a store tend to be fixed — rent and labour, mostly — whether a retailer sells 10 pairs of shoes or 100. Setting up an online storefront is cheap, but every incremental digital sale triggers new expenses, including packaging, delivery and returns.

Offline shop owners told The Business of Fashion they would prefer to allocate resources toward customer service.

“[Dot Reeder] has always been about personal expression and getting to know people,” said Laura Barker, owner of Dot Reeder. She said her staff are stylists and fashion professionals who offer a level of expertise that is unreplicable online.

By definition, expanding offline is a slower, more deliberate process. But for retail veterans like Green and Barker, the goal isn’t to be everywhere. It’s to be indispensable somewhere. The stores are purposefully located to serve their neighbours, offering relationships and clothing you won’t find anywhere else.

“​​People are always coming in saying, ‘Oh my God, I only ever saw this brand online. I’ve never seen this in person,’” said Barker.

Barker opened Dot Reeder in Montclair in 2007, and has built a loyal following in the wealthy New Jersey suburb. She’s going for a similarly targeted approach with her West Village location, which opened in 2023, adjusting her merchandise to suit a younger, Manhattan clientele. The expansion was a calculated bet that neighbourhood loyalty was more valuable than a larger, anonymous online audience.

Outline opened in 2022 and ran e-commerce from 2024 to 2025. Margaret Austin and Hannah Rieke shut down their online store to focus on the Brooklyn shop.

“[E-commerce] is inherently unsexy,” said Austin. “It’s uncreative.”

Intimacy Over Scale

Many of the stores that abstain from e-commerce aren’t looking for massive growth to begin with.

“My goal is to set up a true neighbourhood brick-and-mortar,” said Green. “If we tried to gain a wider customer base, I think we would fail.”

Green has minimal marketing expenses, the bulk of which goes toward free postcards and matchbooks offered in store. Instead, he relies on word of mouth and Instagram posts. He limits returns to store credit and size exchanges and doesn’t allow stylist loans, ensuring product remains available to sell rather than tied up in transit.

He declined to share financials, but said the business is far larger than he ever imagined it could be. Nearly 60 percent of his clientele are repeat shoppers, and customers spend an average of two hours in the store, he said.

Jake Woolf, a men’s style writer, said he’s made 10 separate purchases at Ven. Space in the past year. “I’d be scared to add it up,” he said, adding that the need to go to the store to see what’s new was part of the appeal.

“If you hang around the barbershop long enough, you’re going to get a haircut,” said Woolf.

Outline’s Austin and Rieke are taking a similarly offline approach to getting the word out. The pair sent their first seasonal print catalog last year. Rieke and Austin said they prefer the world-building and excitement that comes from showcasing products in engaging editorials. Their latest issue features actress Gaby Hoffmann in a series of high-production images with the tactile quality of a magazine.

Still, store owners told BoF that they aren’t afraid of growth as long as it’s on their own terms. Green said he’s considered e-commerce, especially for his in-house label, which he said could benefit from more exposure. But even if he eventually opens a digital window for specific products, he insists that the heart of his business can’t be digitised.

Ultimately, it comes down to the philosophy of shopping. For these storeowners, fashion isn’t meant for a screen; it’s supposed to be in the neighbourhood, down the street and off the grid. “Retail did not start online. True retail is an in-person interaction,” said Green. “This is real retail.”