RETAIL

LF to Close Physical Stores

Los Angeles–headquartered LF Stores announced that it will become a pure-play, digital-only retailer.

It will continue to run its digital retail channel, lfstores.com, but on Aug. 6 it was announced that it would shutter its fleet of 26 bricks-and-mortar stores. The physical stores are scheduled to be closed by the end of the Labor Day weekend, said Steven Katz, co-owner of LF Stores.

“Our customers have changed their shopping habits to a stronger preference for online buying and, therefore, influenced us to start our website last year,” Katz said in a statement. “Because of market conditions, it is no longer economically viable to continue to run a bricks-and-mortar business. This new direction allows us to tap into new opportunities through e-commerce and concentrate on what matters most to our consumer—innovative trends, the best variety and assortment, and our personalized styling experience.”

LF opened its first bricks-and-mortar store in 2004. It sold the LF brand’s casual contemporary clothes for women as well as some third-party lines. The company ran shops on exclusive California retail streets such as Robertson Boulevard and Larchmont Avenue in Los Angeles, as well as in Southern California locations Laguna Beach, Manhattan Beach and La Jolla. The retailer also ran locations on Fifth Avenue in New York City; the Hamptons beach community on Long Island, N.Y.; as well as in Greenwich, Conn.; and Newbury Street in Boston.

When LF launched its stores in 2004, the company’s president, Laurie Furst, hoped to create a point of difference with quick turnaround of inventory. “Fashion is constantly changing, and there’s a huge need for boutiques that sell fashions of the moment, not waiting until the end of the season to change fashions,” Furst told California Apparel News in 2004.