Ledbury pops up in Stony Point tomorrow

It’s the first of two pop-ups that will help the local company decide whether it’ll look good in a brick-and-mortar store.

August 29, 2013; 7:40 AM • by Nathan Cushing

Stony Point Fashion Park will get a lot more fashionable when Ledbury premieres its month-long pop-up on Friday.

“It’s a chance to kind of show Ledbury to people who might not be coming downtown or shopping online,” said founder and CEO Paul Trible about the Shockoe-based company that does 97% of its business online. “It’s a fun way to test how we operate.”

The company has taken part in several other pop-ups, most recently in the High Water Pop-Up Shop earlier this month. “They’ve been great,” Trible said about the pop-up format. The benefits are two-fold. “It’s a great way for us to deepen relationships with existing customers,” he said. “It’s also a great way to reach new people.”

Trible said that once customers touch and try-on Ledbury clothes and accessories, they’re more likely to buy– a tactile experience impossible in e-commerce.

But the 700-square-foot Stony Point pop-up serves an additional purpose. The company will pay close attention to its generated sales, as it will this winter when it expects to launch a pop-up in the D.C. area.¹ If business does well at both locations, Ledbury will heavily consider creating brick-and-mortar stores.

However, those potential stores won’t replace the online business that has made Ledbury thrive. “We think there’s plenty of growth to be had in e-commerce business,” Trible said. But for the company to increase its scale of growth, it’s likely that pop-ups and permanent locations will become a more sizable source of Ledbury revenue. “Our bet is all those things…all play a certain part,” Trible said. “There’s no kind of silver bullet.”

The Stony Point pop-up (located across from Anthropologie) is a hybrid of traditional retail and online buying. Customers can browse Ledbury’s dress shirts, socks, ties, blazers, and accessories² in person, but will receive all purchases made at the pop-up via mail.

The Ledbury pop-up at Stony Point runs until September 29th. Hours are 10:00 AM – 9:00 PM Monday – Saturday, and 12:00 – 6:00 PM on Sunday.