Introducing Uppercase
We began by launching a retail store of our own in 2013 to sell what we loved, food. Back then, there was no easy way to open a brick and mortar store. The real estate landscape was complex and opening a store had high risks. Ever since, we have been on a mission to help brands grow their business through a real-world presence.
We started by democratizing access to retail space. We built a marketplace for short-term space and powered the launch of over 5,000 stores across North America since 2016. Our team met the entrepreneurs behind the brands - and we learned from them. While real estate is a must to launch a store, you need more than a great location to succeed.
It's easier than ever to launch an online business. Brands truly stand out once they grow from dot com to zip code. We're seeing this with Warby Parker, Casper, and Indochino who will open a combined 350 stores by the end of 2018. As online brands continue to grow, so does their customer acquisition cost. Our research shows that when brands reach $10MM sales it becomes more cost effective to acquire customers in a real-world store than through online channels. Increasingly, we see customers acquired in real life have a deeper brand affinity and higher lifetime value. However, launching retail is still risky and complex, and has so far meant sacrificing data when taking things offline.
Today, we are excited to introduce Uppercase - the modern retail solution helping brands launch stores from the ground up. We combine real estate and retail data to provide access to up-and-coming and sought after neighborhoods. We know where your next store should be, what times you should be open, and even how to create data-informed merchandising plans. Uppercase gives brands everything they need to succeed with retail. We are part of a modern growth strategy, providing tech-enabled flexible retail stores for brands to launch, measure, and grow their retail presence.
We have done this by building technology to manage the launch of a store, bringing together the best-in-class solutions a brand needs and assembling a team of local retail experts. Cities, neighborhoods, and properties are still at the core of our offering. Afterall, we believe real-world retail will continue to be about location, location, location. Uppercase gives brands access to more than a physical space through comprehensive solutions including; in-store data and analytics, point of sale, staffing, permits and insurance, production, and more.
Building a homepage is one thing, building a storefront is another. We are privileged to help brands to step into the real world and unlock a whole new kind of success.
Uppercase is in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver. We are just getting started.
I hope you will join us.