Kathy Kuo Home Opens First Retail Space In Southampton Village

Kathy Kuo Home, a fast growing online home decor store with over 100,000 products, is opening its first ever physical retail space in Southampton. While the official opening date, marked by a fun kickoff event, is set for Thursday, July 8, the store is currently open for customers to view and purchase a wide selection of home products.

The new brick and mortar shop will give customers the opportunity to visit the store to see products in person, experience the home-like atmosphere of the space, and reimagine what their home could look like in a new and creative way.

“The amazing thing is that most people who come into our store already know about us,” owner Kathy Kuo said. “They’re existing customers of ours, so it’s been remarkable to see how many people already know who we are, and they come in and they are so ecstatic to actually see a physical representation of our brand in real life.”

Ms. Kuo said that transitioning from an online retailer to a brick and mortar environment was a tough task, but one that has been tremendously rewarding considering the company has a large client base on Long Island.

“We’re a digital retailer, so we really understand how to sell online and how to capture the imagination of the online consumer,” she said. “Translating that into a retail environment was a really fun challenge because we had to think through how to distill our selection down to a small footprint, what products people could choose from, what products we love, and what products we think the community in the Hamptons is going to resonate with.”

Despite the transition, Ms. Kuo said the overall strategy and mission of the brand has remained the same — to inspire people to love where they live.

“It’s unfortunate that we take for granted the things that we sit on, the things that we surround ourselves with,” she said. “We don’t really understand the heritage, the manufacturing history, the deep amount of care that goes into every object. What we ultimately came away with was this base — inspiring you to love where you live. If we taught you something about the home or the product or the heritage or the manufacturing origins of any of our products, then we’ve succeeded.”

Ms. Kuo said that opening a retail store allows customers to fully experience the brand, understand the brand’s mission and envision what their own homes could look and feel like. The airy atmosphere of the new space, filled with natural materials and pastel blue and green color palettes, is important to Ms. Kuo, who wants customers to truly feel like they are in a home when they enter the store.

“Since we are a furniture and home decor retailer, we needed a space that really resembles a home, and Southampton was an obvious first choice for us,” Ms. Kuo said. “We wanted the village and home feel, so when this space came up, it really checked all the boxes. It was on the right block, in the right hamlet, and it had a classic home feel to it as a two-story building. We felt that it would really resonate with our interior design community, with our core customer base that loves home and decor, and it didn’t feel too retail-y. It felt more residential.”

Kathy Kuo enlisted the help of Melissa Gonzalex Chief Retail Strategist and CEO of The Lionesque Group, an MG2 company to help layer in the strategy for a full retail customer experience making the in-store shopping truly one-of-a-kind. Ms. Gonzalex and her team help bring Kathy Kuo's vision to life while she and her team focus on the aspects of her brand and business.

Ms. Kuo currently has over 13,000 interior designers that work with the brand, and the new retail store will have a full 30-person in-house interior design team. The store will also feature a designer resource center where interior designers can view and choose between a library of product swatches and samples.

“What we’re really looking to do is inspire you to want to live well,” she said. “Hopefully we can gain your trust in the store, we start a relationship, and then the rest of your journey with Kathy Kuo Home could be in store, or online.”