Coterie and Tecovas Bet on Physical Retail as a Growth Engine

Quick Facts

Tecovas has grown from a single Austin store in 2019 to 60 locations nationwide, with ongoing expansion into new markets.
Coterie says 12% of its DTC subscription customers first discovered the brand through a retail shelf.
Tecovas reported a 9.6% revenue lift in categories managed by AI-powered inventory tools during a Q3 2025 A/B test.

Two brands that built their businesses online are now finding that physical stores drive some of their most valuable customer relationships. At Retail Brew’s Clicks, Bricks, and Everything in Between event, executives from Tecovas and Coterie explained how brick-and-mortar has become central to their growth strategies, not secondary to them.

The conversation featured Kara Silver, VP of e-commerce at Tecovas, and Grace Weingard, president of Coterie. Though the brands sell different products, both have reached the same conclusion: stores convert browsers into loyal customers in ways that digital channels cannot replicate.

Tecovas: 60 Stores and Counting

Tecovas launched online in 2015 and opened its first store in Austin in 2019. Since then, the Western footwear and apparel brand has moved fast. It now operates 60 stores across the country, with its most recent opening in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The brand opened 11 stores in 2024 and committed to at least 12 more in 2025. New markets this year include Detroit, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and Sacramento, California. A second New York location in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood is also planned.

Tecovas’ SoHo flagship, its 50th location, set the tone for the brand’s retail ambitions. The 4,500-square-foot space occupies an 1892 cast-iron building and includes a bar partnership with cocktail bar Death and Co., complimentary boot shines, and customization services ranging from leather embossing to hat branding.

The brand calls its approach radically hospitable. Stores carry seating, complimentary beverages, and no pressure to buy quickly. Kim Heidt, Tecovas’ chief retail officer, put it plainly: ‘We like people to feel like they can come in and they can hang out.’

Data and AI Power Store Decisions

Tecovas uses years of marketing data to select store locations and measure their impact. Sam Fodrowski, VP of brand marketing, said the company can now trace what happens to sales in a given market after a new store opens.

The brand has also brought AI into store operations. Tecovas partnered with invent.ai to replace manual, spreadsheet-based inventory planning with an automated system. A Q3 2025 A/B test showed the AI-managed categories produced a 9.6% revenue lift and a 2% improvement in in-stock rates, while reducing overall inventory levels.

Tecovas also built an in-house AI tool called Lookout, which tracks local concerts and events to help store managers anticipate demand and staff accordingly. Previously, managers built those calendars by hand.

Wholesale Expansion Adds More Reach

Tecovas made its first move into wholesale in 2024, opening a 3,800-square-foot showroom at Dallas Market Center and launching a national retail partnership with Nordstrom. The Nordstrom partnership brought a curated selection of men’s and women’s footwear to select stores and Nordstrom.com.

The expansion adds distribution without pulling focus from the brand’s own store network, which remains the core of its physical retail strategy.

Coterie: Retail as a Subscription Funnel

Coterie launched in 2019 as a DTC subscription brand selling premium diapers. It held off on wholesale until 2022, when retailer interest picked up and the brand began selectively partnering with Whole Foods, Wegmans, and Erewhon, along with baby registry platforms.

The strategy has paid off in a specific way. CEO Jess Jacobs said that 12% of Coterie’s DTC subscription customers first tried the product on a retail shelf. ‘Retail for us has been a true marketing channel in discovery,’ Jacobs said. ‘That’s been a beautiful funnel for us and really successful.’

For Coterie, the store is not the destination. It is the starting point. A shopper who picks up a pack of diapers at Erewhon becomes a potential long-term subscriber on Coterie’s own platform. Physical retail reduces the cost of acquiring that customer without running a paid ad.

What This Means for DTC Operators

Both brands illustrate how DTC companies are rewriting the role of physical retail. Stores are no longer just revenue generators. For Tecovas, they anchor brand identity and feed customer data back into the business. For Coterie, they act as a low-cost acquisition channel for high-value subscribers.

The shift also carries a cost discipline message. Tecovas’ AI-driven inventory results show that scale does not have to mean inefficiency. As more DTC brands consider physical expansion, the question is not whether stores work. The question is how to build them so they pay for themselves.